Debriefing part deux

There was never a better time to click the pics.

A raggedy old truck, and the Lance, safely back in Denver.

The most important question I've been getting asked since returning to Denver is, "How was it living in the confined space of the Lance truck camper?" Of course, the simplest answer is; "it's different." And like everything else in this world,  it's a trade-off.

Experienced RVers are well aware of the "trade-offs" that one has to deal with to be an RVer. And the main trade-off boils down to whether the RV is spacious enough to be comfortable to live in. Or is it small enough to be easy to travel in? Of course, these questions are easier to answer if you only live in it for a weekend or a two-week vacation. But the answer becomes a lot more difficult if you're a full-timer living in it all year, through the heat and the cold, through good times and bad.

I've been fortunate enough in my life to have owned and used RVs as small as a van, and a pop-up truck camper, to a 36-foot triple slide KZ fifth wheel, so I have a pretty good idea what it's like to spend extended stays in various sizes of RVs, but there's nothing like living full-time in an RV that will let you know what's important and what's not. And you'll only understand how you actually want to live in an RV full-time once you've done it for a couple of years.

When I started full-timing, living space was the most important thing to me, and ease of travel was secondary. But a couple of years of full-timing showed me that I enjoyed going places more than staying in one spot for months. And even though my 30-foot Arctic Fox was great for staying someplace for an extended period, traveling in it was more of a chore than a joy. Of course, it didn't start that way, but after a year or so, it became apparent that I liked going places, but due to the substantial weight and girth of the Arctic Fox.... I didn't like having to get there.

The apartment-like spaciousness of the Arctic Fox, which was great to live in, made traveling a stressful, slow, and limiting process, and my growing love of long-term boondocking was making the portly Arctic Fox more of a hindrance than a help.

On a highway somewhere in southern Arizona, as the miles slowly crawled by, which is what miles do when you're pulling a trailer, it finally hit me that pulling 13,000 pounds down the road with a three-quarter-ton truck may not have been the best idea I ever came up with. And instead, I needed an RV more suitable for boondocking in out-of-the-way places than staying for weeks in crowded campgrounds. And having an RV that was a joy to drive and park was going to fit my lifestyle better than an apartment on wheels.

And thus began the story of why I decided to live in a truck camper instead of the Arctic Fox, and tomorrow if you're very unlucky, you may have to listen to me pontificate about how my decision to move into a teeny tiny home full-time is working out for me

Theboondork

What passes for the family dog. He's either getting ready to attack, or he just woke up and he's yawning.

These Columbine's are weird. They don't face the sun, they're all facing the ground, your looking at the back of the flowers.

Iris. There one of the very few things blooming around here.