theboondork's RV blog

An ordinary day doing ordinary things

5/27/2022

Clicking the pics might make this poor dog suffer a little less.

The poor family dog that was left in my charge barely made it through the night. Clinging to a tattered sweater that held the last remaining scent of the family that he loved. Shaking from cold and loneliness, with no one to comfort him he waited through the night clinging to the hope that his family would one day return, and he would again experience the love and laughter of the family that meant everything to him.... And so he waited, and waited.

I did some laundry this morning since I'm the only one at the house except the dog. It sure is great using my daughter's washing machine, the thing is huge, and it doesn't even have an agitator in the middle of the machine, just a giant stainless steel bowl where you put all your dirty clothes. When I'm paying to wash clothes at a laundromat, my laundry bag will fill up at least three machines. But my laundry bag full of dirty clothes disappears into the bulbous silver belly of this washing machine like a villain in an adventure movie falling into a volcano.

I'm not sure how the whole system works without an agitator to beat on the clothes like women have done for a thousand years anytime they were near a rocky river, but it works, and my clothes come out clean enough for me.... But I'm not all that picky.

I've taken a few more things out of the bronco, but I don't really have a place to put all the stuff, so I'm just piling up things in the Arctic Fox. I can see logistics will be a real problem in schlepping all my stuff from one RV to another with no place for any of it to stay permanently... as yet.

After the holidays, I might head over to the Salida area and visit a large RV dealer there that specializes in truck campers, both new and used. In a way, I don't want to buy a truck camper from a dealer because you know you're going to be hosed at the get-go, but I'm not seeing anything I can use from a private sale; there is just not a lot of choices out there.

A year or so ago when people were buying up every RV in sight they apparently also bought up every truck camper in sight leaving slim pickens for someone like me. I'm quite sure in a couple of years a lot of those first time RVers are going to be selling some of those RVs they never really wanted in the first place, and that will be a great time to pick up a bargain. But I have fallen head over heels in love with the highly mobile lifestyle a truck camper offers and I'm in no mood to wait.

Theboondork

A Rose

A Rosebud.

This is a very rare Peruvian flowering chlamydia. Normally they only grow in Peruvia but this one seed, probably attached itself to the sandal of a Peruvian illegal alien, made it across the border and into Colorado,

10 Comments

Larry Worsham

5/29/2022 05:48:37 am

It's not Wyoming...but this is the closest I've seen.....

https://www.rvtrader.com/listing/2018-Lance-825-5021778177

Tom

5/29/2022 08:08:46 am

Actually Larry that is a pretty good deal for one that new. But that one is nicer than what I need. I'm hoping to get something for less than $20,000. I've seen some pretty nice ones for that amount but so far they've been gone by the time I call.

And speaking of gone quickly; I'm not sure how to handle a deal when I've got a long drive to get there. It doesn't seem fair that I ask them not to sell it till I show up, after all a local might buy it as soon as I hang up, and how can I promise to buy it if I haven't checked it out in person?

Back when I was buying property in different states this wasn't a big deal because it could take months to sell a piece of property, but now days a good deal on an RV might be gone in a few days, so asking somebody to hold a deal until I show up doesn't sound fair to the seller, and I can't commit to buying something till I've kicked the tires a few times.

So this has been a problem since I started looking for another camper, there's just not many of what I'm looking for around, which makes it far less likely there will be something that will work for me close by. And did you notice that listing has been up for one day? My experience has been good deals don't stay up for much longer than that.

But thank you anyway Larry, I sure appreciate it. Any help I can get increases my chances of finding something, I keep looking at the Arctic Fox thinking, "I sure don't want to drag that thing around all winter after experiencing the mobility of a truck camper."

Tom

OFM

5/29/2022 01:49:09 pm

May an interim idea would be to enlarge the cloverleaf area a bit to give you a temporary larger range between AF moves. And I repeat "an interim idea". I have done a lot of cloverleaf size changes in my rving time and it is definitely a temporary solution for my world. Having the right size truck camper is better in my opinion.

5/29/2022 02:18:49 pm

Your right....with the rarity of those campers it will require the right place at the right time. With a sale a few hours away I guess the only way is too tell them your circumstances and see if they will accommodate. If I were selling I would take a list of prospectives in order and establish a reasonable time for the buyer to check it out. But I'm pretty easy going.

I'm always researching something....so I will keep my eyes open.

GOOD LUCK!

5/29/2022 02:43:35 pm

Yeah Barney, a cloverleaf is pretty much what I used to do in the Arctic Fox, Park the Fox in a central location, then use the truck to visit areas around that location. And that works out okay, and I will probably continue doing that in a lot of cases.

I guess the best way to describe what I did last winter in the bronco is I would use the cloverleaf from a centralized boondocking location, but if I happened to be in one of the leaves and it was interesting, since I had my house on my back that leaf could become my new central location if I wanted it to.

It just felt like I had a little bit more freedom to decide when and where I wanted to be someplace. Which became more important to me than having a large space to live in. And as usual it seems to come down to the old RV trope that "you can have an RV that's fun to live in, or easy to travel in, but you can't have both." And it looks like I just chose the easy to travel in route.

Tom

5/29/2022 03:25:48 pm

Thank you Larry I appreciate that. I'm pretty easy going myself and don't want to inconvenience others if I don't absolutely have to. Maybe later in the summer if I haven't found something that works, I'll be a little more likely to drive out of state to find what I need. But I'm hoping I can find something locally, but I think RV shopping in late Spring is bad timing on my part since everybody's thinking about camping and RVs at the moment.

I'm trying not to be too picky, but with my limited carrying capacity in my truck, a truck camper really needs to be less than 2000 pounds. And other than that I'm pretty flexible. If it needs repairs, I can repair it, if the air conditioner doesn't work, great, I get might get rid of the AC anyway, that's just more room for solar panels as far as I'm concerned. Refrigerator doesn't work? Okay, I'm thinking of getting a DC refrigerator anyhow. Is it old and won't last very long??? That makes two of us.

So its not going to take much to make me happy, but I will feel a lot better when I've got something I want to travel in again.

Tom

Linda

5/29/2022 01:56:00 pm

Wow! I'd be on that one fast! Of course, South Dakota is not so far from Minnesota; my maps says just under 9 hours driving time. But since it is in SW SD my map says not quite 5.5 hours for you. I have the urge to say I'd pay the extra $5k but I think my Dave would object to that. :)

5/29/2022 03:01:34 pm

One of my problems with buying a really nice truck camper is... Money. Unlike most folks, I don't have any Social Security, that's right, zero, nada, zilch, even though I worked my whole life, I just wasn't working the right way to pay into the system. I don't have any retirement, or at the moment, any rents coming in. All I have is cash on hand, and a few pieces of property that I can sell, if and when the time is right.

So I have to guess at how much money I can spend on a camper, knowing that everything I spend is less money I will have for the future, and my future is based on the question how long will I live?

Not knowing how long I will live, or more important to me, how long I will be able to travel like I'm doing now, is one of very few concerns I have in this world. So I have to live somewhat frugally because I don't know how much its going to cost me to live out the rest of my life.

If I outlive my money I will have to trade the wonderful life I'm living now and start living like a homeless bum... Fortunately I have the looks and the demeanor to effortlessly slide into that new lifestyle.

Tom

5/30/2022 12:41:49 pm

I understand. We do have social security but everything else has to come from cash on hand. Which is why I don't think Dave will let me give you $5k. :)

5/30/2022 12:50:18 pm

Dave is a wise man, listen to him.

Tom

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