Living in an RV when retired

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
Actually, I never cared about materisl things so zi dont care if anyone thinks RV life in sn old RV is trashy...lol.

I relish getting rid of much if my mostly second hand but nof needed things :)

I think my fur babies will lovevidits to forests.
 

GoingNorth

Crazy Cat Lady
I'm not very materialistic. The first really materialistic thing I've ever done was to buy nice furniture for my apartment.

I won't have cash to leave as an estate; just a decent car and nice furniture.

Other than that, A few years ago, as some may remember, I bought a pair of tiny diamond stud earrings for myself.

I got about six months out of them. Thomas nibbled one off my earlobe and swallowed it. I recovered the setting, but never found the tiny diamond.

The other one, which I wore in a second hole when wearing a set of earrings, disappeared when I was staying at my mother's and was never found.

At least I know the furniture won't disappear. I can't even budge the bedroom set.
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
Lil, we will travel, squat most of the time both winter and summer and use free csmpsites (boondocking) too. And we'll find the cheapest of campsites without amenities, like pools and hot tubs. And, trust me, we will pay cash, just like we do our cars.
We will find nice summer weather so we dont need too much air conditioning (many places by mountains are cool at night). We dont eat big meals..im close to a vegan. Hub is a light eater.

I have seen these videos. trust me, they are living a lot larger than we will. The community of people is important to us...the company. Plus there are cheaper ways to boondock.

In other words, we have seen this, but are also reading about living a frugal RV life.

I can't wait to sleep in the of quiet in Wyoming on the way or as a detour to where we will spend most of the winter.

Fortunately, me and my husband get along great so when we ARE alone it will be fun. I think we will buy an old class C RV and hub can take a year ir so fixing it up.

Thanks, Lil. This got me excitef. It is a way of living Ive always dreamed of. It is the equivalent of a beautiful mansion with a pool to us. But we, especially I, am very strange. aid also like cohousing...lol. Neither hub or I give a hoot about material luxuries snd we are minamilists and look forward to taking it further. Also we font need television to be happy.

Our American dream is different than THE American dream, a lot like many of our DCs.
 

Lil

Well-Known Member
I could do this too SWOT. Don't know about Jabber - but I've always fanaticized about running way and just drifting from place to place. :)
 

Jabberwockey

Well-Known Member
Havent seen the video you posted, not authorized at work, but as long as we had a home base to return to I'd be ok with it. Not sure for how long, but at least for a while. I('m big on routine and its hard to have a set routine with something like this, at least at first.
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
Lil, I also need a home base. Each summer we will go back to Wisconsin. We have oretty cool summers, all things considered, and we can RV in a park. No house or apartment necessary.

Although Im sure we'll find one fav camp for the winter and spend most of the time there, Im sure we will also take some road trips. I am looking forward to being a part of the same RV snowbirders over and over again. Roght now, early in the game, my reading and pricing has lead me to AZ, TX or NV so far. I want warm days, cool nights, and sunshine. Wiscinsin is not good for sunshine.

I suppose Missouri will be on our list of many road trips due to my grandson. I know its a lovely state.
 

Lil

Well-Known Member
I suppose Missouri will be on our list of many road trips due to my grandson. I know its a lovely state.

We think so.

I made the mistake of sending Jabber a link to RVTrader.com. Some of the smaller, Class B, RV's are dirt cheap. There's one there now that has less than 50,000 miles and they want under $3,000. Looks like new inside, but is a 1999.

I think I got him excited. :p
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
Oh, they are very cheap used:)

I hear that Branson is a good place to camp. It'ss not near St. Louis, but it could be a stop on the way. To me, a Missouri winter sounds like utopia, minus the ice storms that Bart hates so much. Bart says Grandson barely needs a winter hat. Unheard of in Wisconsin!
 

Lil

Well-Known Member
We do get ice from time to time. The Branson area is pretty, but very touristy. Pretty far from St. Louis. We're a pretty big state. @Jabberwockey may have a better idea of places to camp nearer to St. Louis.

I'd say we usually hover around freezing in winter. Not too terrible. Sometimes it'll be zero...but seldom below and we don't get a lot snow as a general rule.
 

RN0441

100% better than I was but not at 100% yet
Try a Chicago winter. Sometimes we have snow AND thunderstorms at the same time! Now that is downright scary.
 

GoingNorth

Crazy Cat Lady
Yes, and "thundersnow" is caused by potent thunderstorm cells that were it warmer, would be generating torrential downpours.

1" of rain can make up to 10" of snow. IOTW, you can get a heckuva lot of snow when it thundersnows. We used to get thundersnow occasionally in Rhinelander and on a couple of occasions got 3-4 feet of snow.

The February blizzard that paralyzed Chicago a few years back was due to thundersnow.
 

Lil

Well-Known Member
Oh we've had thundersnow. I've always thought is was soooo cool. But probably because it's unusual. lol

A BIG snow in mid-Missouri is 8 to 12 inches. We got 2 feet overnight one time several years ago, a true blizzard with the winds and everything, it was nifty...if you didn't need to get out. Jabber went to work with a cot, blanket and food and stayed a couple nights if I recall correctly. But really, in the last 25 years, I remember more than 2 feet maybe 3 times.
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
ive tried Chicago...lol. Lived there the first 40 years of my life. I will pass on more Chicagi winters!!

Well, heck, I didnt think it got so cold in Missouri, Lil. I guess maybe its good to stop on our way back rather than down.
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
I'll be home in cool Wisconsin (or a stopover in Chicago) in the summer. We can plan a MO trip maybe before it gets that hot. I have been there in the summer and I'm not a fan. its a beautiful state though.
 

donna723

Well-Known Member
I don't know about the rest of Missouri but I grew up in St. Louis and it's officially the hottest place on the face of the earth! I still remember those pre-air conditioning days when I was a kid! A few years ago some of my cousins and I went to a night baseball game downtown. They have a thing on the scoreboard that shows the on-field temperature. When we were leaving at 10:30 pm, it said 104 degrees!
 

Lil

Well-Known Member
Everyone is right. If you don't like the weather in Missouri just wait a bit and it'll change. I swear it can be cold, then hot, then raining, then snowing, then sunny all in the same week. A 20 degree difference in 24 hours is not unusual.

We're not really southern. Winter's average temps run in the high 20's. Some winters are mild. Some winters we have lots of snow.

We're not really northern either. Wikipedia says temps average in the 70's, but I don't think so. My guess would be 80's or low 90's. I think it used to be cooler. The last several summers we've had way too many 100's.

And it's HUMID. But you know, not as humid as the deep south. When I went to New Orleans in September one year I swear, leaving the hotel I was just immediately WET. But this summer has been about that bad. I've seen heat indexes of 115 this summer. Walk outside and my glasses steam over.

Basically, we're just too far from any oceans or real mountains and so we get all the possible weather conditions. lol
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
im convinced the best time to visit beautiful Missouri, and it is beautiful, is fall or spring. Although I will never get used to high 90s and humidity combined, summer in Missouri was not the hottest place I've ever been. That would be Miami in the summer. I not only could not enjoy the tropical sun and fire like heat, I got sun poisining and itched like every part of my upper body had a chicken pock, until we left. This was my first honeymoon, perhaps a foreshadowing of my not very good first marriage.

Did I say I hate enormous bugs and fear alligators and sharks?

Since hub is anti California for reasons I don't quite understand and thinks Texas is boring, I suspect we will be snowbirding in AZ or NV as our base. Nice, sunny (important) summer days, mountains, critters, other sniwbirds whom Im sure make the natives cringe and cool nights with no need to hook up air conditioning (expensive) work for me. I really do feel for the natives. Such an influx of northern gray hair from more rushed cultures...never fun.

The only downside for the snowbird however is rattlesnakes, but I guess I can learn to identify and avoid them (shudder).
 
Last edited:

GoingNorth

Crazy Cat Lady
Actually, the reason rattlesnakes have rattles is to warn you away so they don't have to bite you!

Venom takes time to produce, and a snake who bites you and envenomates you has just set itself up to not be able to hunt or defend itself for several days.

In general, rattlesnakes will only bite if startled or abused. If they know you are coming and have an escape route, they'll leave rather than confront you.

When I lived in TN, our place backed on 40K acres of unimproved woodlands belonging to the Fed as part of Ft. Campbell.

There were firebreaks, dirt roads, cut through the woods at intervals, wide enough to be used by armored vehicles. One of those firebreaks was right behind our place and husband and I used to walk it for a ways before turning into the woods. This was a daily ritual when he wasn't deployed or in the field.

There was an approx 5 ft long timber rattler who liked to sun itself on a large, flat rock in the middle of that firebreak.

He'd see us, pick up his head and stare at us, and give a half-hearted rattle. We'd stand very still and wait, well out of strike range.

After expressing his displeasure, the snake would head off into the woods. He never really threatened us and we never really felt frightened of "him"

We even walked around him in the woods once when he was digesting what we assumed was a good sized rabbit based on the size of the bulge in his middle. He was so stuffed and lethargic that he didn't even rattle or pick up his head. husband even poked him with his hiking staff and got a muffled hiss and nothing else.

He was also one of the most beautiful snakes I've ever seen. Beautiful color and markings, and when the autumn leaves fell, he could quit moving and disappear.
 
Top