Ok here is the back story on this. Today was the day our house in town goes on the market. Bitter sweet yes, but it got me thinking about selling the lake house too and everything else we own, buying a motorhome and a car trailer, loading the Ol's ragtop and my bike on the trailer, loading the dogs up and hitting the road for a few years. My Ol has ben retired for over 10 years now and I semi retired [ 2 years ago when I went from roofing to bar work ]. Anyway , That thought has me wondering how that would work. How does a person keep a drivers license, car tags, insurance, etc, if they don't have a residence other than one with wheels?
In the end , if the OL says OK to the extended road trip, I probably wont actually sell the lake house so the question will be a non issue. But the idea has me thinking about the what ifs and how to.

You probably have to declare some place as a residence (a state at the least, if not an actual address. maybe a p.o. box?)

Anyway, I want to do this many years from now as well, but my OL isn't on-board at this time.

What do I do to convince her great it would be?

Mine don't even like the thought of leaving the kids and grand kids for any length of time. I tried telling her that if something came up we could always jump on the bike or in the ragtop or on a plane and be home in a day or less.
I did just mention it yesterday though , so the shock is still there for her.

Sometimes I think I could do that but then I get real. All that blacktop & concrete, all the freakin' traffic and people. *shudders* However, I could live in one of those tiny homes I've been seeing online but I've got to have trees & grass and nature.

Retirement sounds like heaven, FU. Some people can't handle it but I'm pretty sure I'm going to love it.

Just think, if I get to do this I will be able to actually have a drink with almost every one of the members of this board. That would be pretty cool in itself. Now why does that sound like a episode of National lampoons vacation? Shit, that would make me cousin Eddie.

(05-04-2016, 05:06 PM)F.U. Wrote: Ok here is the back story on this. Today was the day our house in town goes on the market. Bitter sweet yes, but it got me thinking about selling the lake house too and everything else we own, buying a motorhome and a car trailer, loading the Ol's ragtop and my bike on the trailer, loading the dogs up and hitting the road for a few years. My Ol has ben retired for over 10 years now and I semi retired [ 2 years ago when I went from roofing to bar work ]. Anyway , That thought has me wondering how that would work. How does a person keep a drivers license, car tags, insurance, etc, if they don't have a residence other than one with wheels?
In the end , if the OL says OK to the extended road trip, I probably wont actually sell the lake house so the question will be a non issue. But the idea has me thinking about the what ifs and how to.

That's my plan for retirement. Hit all the National parks along the way. Hell yes. That's living.

My Dad bought a huge camper that he went around the country with. This was about 7-8 yrs ago before he died but he was paying for gas moon money, the thing got 9 miles per gallon. He stopped in plenty of walmart parking lots because they let you do that and he stayed in Arizona for awhile with his old army buddies. He went to the grand canyon and all over the place. I got quite a few postcards over the years. as a truck driver he knew the roads well.
I'm not sure if I would like that though and it would take a ton of thinking and going on traveler sites to research it more. Even still I think it would be cool to do. we just sent him his mail from time to time whenever he stopped for a week or two in some places. I wish he had Skype at the time, that would have been pretty cool.

Yea MPG is a real issue for those tanks. That's why I was thinking of something like, Drive a few hundred miles and set up camp. Then break out the car and bike and travel from that base to see all the sights in a even larger area. Then after a few weeks at that spot do it again. The motor home would be more of a home base than used for traveling. That's where the 30+ mpg bike and car come into the picture. Either way , at this point I see it as a pipe dream since the OL still isn't onboard with the idea.

Just think long and hard before you buy one of those things. I had an RV and the damn thing was a pain in the ass. Campgrounds and storage with hook up can be expensive and dumping the toilet isn't a treat either, no matter how much of the expensive blue stuff and special toilet paper you buy it still gets clogged. When shit breaks it's hard and expensive to repair also and if left alone at a camp site for too long it can become a haven for rats. It wasn't my thing, I'd prefer to stay in a hotel while traveling. Other people love it though.

(05-04-2016, 07:15 PM)F.U. Wrote: Yea MPG is a real issue for those tanks. That's why I was thinking of something like, Drive a few hundred miles and set up camp. Then break out the car and bike and travel from that base to see all the sights in a even larger area. Then after a few weeks at that spot do it again. The motor home would be more of a home base than used for traveling. That's where the 30+ mpg bike and car come into the picture. Either way , at this point I see it as a pipe dream since the OL still isn't onboard with the idea.

Do you think you and Mr. Spy could find something else to call your wife other than OL? Yes, I am the gender/equality police........

No.

(05-04-2016, 09:32 PM)F.U. Wrote: No.

Is that your final answer?

Can I call a friend? I would like to call my OL.

(05-04-2016, 08:34 PM)blueberryhill Wrote: Do you think you and Mr. Spy could find something else to call your wife other than OL? Yes, I am the gender/equality police........

I could be wrong, but I think Spy called his wife OL just to humor FU. I don't think he normally refers to his wife as the OL.

My mother did this with the stepfather for about 12 straight years starting in the early 80's and I did the same for a lesser period from 88 to 93. Admittedly we were living much more hand to mouth, and considerably more on the outlaw/sketchy side of things, so some of the things you ask about are a bit...hazy in my memory. But:

1. Re: licensing and registration etc. Some states are much more lenient than others regarding proof of address and car licensing requirements, at least at the time. Nevada was very easy to register a vehicle with just a lot space as a proof of address, because it is such a transient state and there are hundreds of RV lots there. I remember Oregon being pretty easy and I'd suspect Florida would have similar ease of registration. Do a little online research for different state requirements. Hell, I left Vegas in a truck I didn't want to register there because it was too pricey (car reg is where they make their revenue instead of property taxes) so I collected trip permits all the way across country lol.

2. The big problem living in an RV is space. You must strip away damn near everything but the essentials, because in a trailer it ain't just room, it's weight. If you aren't extremely efficient and very organized, long term RV life will wear on you. Not to mention, you better REALLY love looking at the OL. Because you will be right on top of one another 24-7. No joke. Your living room is your bedroom is your kitchen and she's always fucking THERE. That can get very tiresome even in the strongest couples.

3. You will murder your love of camping. I'm not kidding, I used to love going camping, but there is a huge difference between packing up some goods and hitting the trail for a week or a month, and getting up to prepare a campsite every damn day for two or three straight years. People don't realize just how much work goes into RV life setting up and breaking down your site every time you move. Electric or generator, gas, water, shit lines both full and empty. There is no worse job than hitting the dump station. Water tanks empty too fast, shitters fill up too fast, food runs out, every single day in the same site quickly distills into a very basic routine that just never ends. I was a year on a beautiful Oregon wild river, then two years in a lot in Vegas. I sold my truck and trailer rig when I left Vegas, and aside from one or two isolated incidents for other people's joy I haven't been camping in twenty years. It just lost all its joy for me.

3. You will have problems you never dreamed of. I have broken down at rush hour on a windy canyon road with full rig and caused a massive traffic jam; I have knocked my sewage pipe loose while driving, didn't know it and rained liquid shit on a few hundred miles of Nevada highway including every car behind me. I have gotten lost on a logging road that got progressively smaller until I was forced to back blindly down a half mile of mountain trail literally on the side of a cliff because there was no turn off and we met a logging truck coming the other way. I got chased by a blizzard all the way through southern Oregon, sneaking onto roads the troopers were closing because we didn't dare turn the engine off or it would die in the middle of nowhere and we couldn't get the goddamn thing to shift into second gear anyway. This is the life of a RVer.

Don't get me wrong, it was a hell of a good time and the adventures we had were worth it. But if you set out on the road have an endgame in mind for when you get sick of it. Because you will.

Final bit of advice: State and national parks often have much better deals for RV lodging, and better facilities, than joints like KOA. Some even have joint pricing, where you buy a traveler's ticket for multiple parks. Do research. And for god sake bring your toolkit hahaha.

Thanks for that Donovan. There is a lot of info in that post and a lot of it I did not think of. Most of my 25 year roofing career I spent out of town, but that was different because it was hotels and motels, plus I returned home almost every week. I guess that time is what I was comparing Rv life to.

Not trying to talk you out of it, but it might be wise to keep a home base to come back to. Gear up, take your road trips, have the best fun you ever had...but have a place to come back to roost.

(05-04-2016, 10:05 PM)sally Wrote: [quote='blueberryhill' pid='428486' dateline='1462408440']
Do you think you and Mr. Spy could find something else to call your wife other than OL? Yes, I am the gender/equality police........

I could be wrong, but I think Spy called his wife OL just to humor FU. I don't think he normally refers to his wife as the OL.
[/quote

I am just trying to start a riot....the stress has caught up to me and I am officially ready for the nuthouse.......

(05-04-2016, 08:34 PM)blueberryhill Wrote: Do you think you and Mr. Spy could find something else to call your wife other than OL?

I'm under the impression there is a group of women out there who like being called that. I don't know what the attraction is but that's irrelevant, they like it.

Words are a tough lot every year words mean different things depending on what is "in" at the time. I could think of worse words than old lady.