Less is more

The thing to do, if you're feeling blue, is click the pics, it's good for you.

More rain clouds from the other day.

Diving a little deeper into why I'm leaning towards a slide-in truck camper for downsizing my full-timing life, and bearing in mind that not only have I not decided what kind of camper I would get, I haven't even fully decided that I want to downsize.

 Keeping that in mind. I've been thinking about what causes me the most worry and concern in my full-timing life. Is it my safety? Disillusionment with the lifestyle? The cost? No, it's not any of those things the thing I worry about the most, what little worrying I do, is towing the Arctic Fox around, and all the things that can go wrong.

Now, this isn't the fault of the Arctic Fox, in fact as trailers go, I don't regret choosing my Arctic Fox for one second. I don't think, for the price, there's a better, tougher, stronger fifth wheel on the market. So it's not the Arctic Fox, it's towing a trailer in general.

Towing a trailer, no matter what the size adds extra complexity to any traveling that you do. It's a great big, heavy, fast-moving object behind your truck that can be cruising along so peacefully you forget it's there, and a split second later a bearing can seize up, or a tire blowout spoiling your whole day or worse. Which is why a smaller, lighter trailer is not in the running for downsizing my life because no matter how small it is, it still has all the things that causes trailers to fail.

A particular problem that pretty much only applies to me is my lack of backing abilities. I've done it, I still do it, but backing the trailer into where it's supposed to end up has more to do with luck than with any skill on my part. It sure would take a load off of my mind to know that I could go anywhere, camp anywhere, and back up anywhere without a trailer hanging on the back of my truck. That alone would remove a substantial amount of stress from my boondocking life.

The trailer inherently has things that can go wrong while you're driving down the road. Axles can bend or break, especially if you're a boondocker that is frequently on dirt roads or rocky fields. Bearings can seize up destroying the spindles and requiring a new axle. Breaks wear out, and is just another mechanical thing that can fall apart going down the highway... And then there's the tires. I could write an entire blog post on trailer tires, but let's just say in some cases they appear to be built to violently fail at the worst possible time.

So not only am I interested in downsizing in general, I'm particularly interested in getting away from towing a trailer. I'm pretty sure as I get older towing the trailer will get more difficult, not easier... Life seems to work that way no matter what you're doing.

So it would appear that the smart thing for me to do would be to find an RV that mechanically has fewer things that can go wrong. Every RV no matter how big or small has basically the same systems inside, fridge, furnace, stove, etc., etc. so that's going to remain a constant when it comes to things that can go wrong in an RV. But I do have a choice in how many systems an RV has that allows it to roll down the road.

Motorhomes, class "Cs," vans, slide-in truck campers, all have fewer "going down the road systems"  than any trailer does and to me right now less seems like more when it comes to enjoying my full–timing life. So how does one choose between all the different RVs that aren't trailers? Well you start by scratching off the list  things you absolutely don't want. Maybe I'll talk about that tomorrow.

                                       theboondork

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