SCcamper
Junior Member
When we did our full time RV traveling, we were fully retired. We didn’t have an agenda other than wanting to travel America. I had spent 41 years working for the USN, 31 active service and 10 as a journeyman aircraft mechanic at the Naval Aviation Depot, Jacksonville, FL. Linda and I were married at ages 16 & 19. We are husband and wife and best friends. After our two boys got to school age Linda went to work, she worked for the Navy Exchange (NEX) for many years and was a buyer for them before she went into real estate where she excelled as a property manager.
Now, there are many descriptions for full time RVing. For us, it was something we did by constantly moving from place to place for nearly 5 years. We traveled in the north in the summers and in the south in the winters. Our longest stops were in the south each year. Next longest was visiting family. On the road we seldom stopped for more than 10 days. Our longtime friends from our Navy years started full timing a year before us. They kept sending us notes and pictures or their travels and we got hooked. We sold our home at Jacksonville, FL and nearly everything in it. We purchased a 38’ 5th wheel and a Dodge dually with the Cummins diesel, and the adventures began. We traveled with our friends about 60% of the time. Having families in different parts of the country was the primary reason for the other 40%.
This is going to be a random posting of places we traveled to and things we saw along the way. The first year was a big learning experience. We learned about trailer and tow vehicle weights and how to manage them. We found that the original tires were not for full timing and upgraded to some with more load capacity reserves. We learned there were parks with only gray water dumping and to carry a “blue boy”. We never boondocked or parked in someone’s parking lot. However, we did purchase a Honda 2000 generator for emergency use. Our normal traveling days were somewhere between 200 – 300 miles a travel day. We seldom made reservations unless it was over a holiday or just someplace, we wanted to stop for a week or so.
Our first trip north out of Jacksonville took us to a KOA CG at Wade, NC. My parents and brothers all lived in nearby Fayetteville. We stayed for a week. We had a large grassy site with a FHU and CATV. We got a lot of visitors when one of my brothers parked his little fishing truck under the hitch of our trailer.
In the beginning we stayed at a lot of KOAs. You just can’t compare any one of them with another in another location. They are independently managed with a similar CG and amenities.
I didn’t take lots of pictures until I got me a little Sony, point and shoot, with a variable lens up to 10X. This first picture is of our rig, road ready. The other is my brothers truck parked under the fivers hitch.
Now, there are many descriptions for full time RVing. For us, it was something we did by constantly moving from place to place for nearly 5 years. We traveled in the north in the summers and in the south in the winters. Our longest stops were in the south each year. Next longest was visiting family. On the road we seldom stopped for more than 10 days. Our longtime friends from our Navy years started full timing a year before us. They kept sending us notes and pictures or their travels and we got hooked. We sold our home at Jacksonville, FL and nearly everything in it. We purchased a 38’ 5th wheel and a Dodge dually with the Cummins diesel, and the adventures began. We traveled with our friends about 60% of the time. Having families in different parts of the country was the primary reason for the other 40%.
This is going to be a random posting of places we traveled to and things we saw along the way. The first year was a big learning experience. We learned about trailer and tow vehicle weights and how to manage them. We found that the original tires were not for full timing and upgraded to some with more load capacity reserves. We learned there were parks with only gray water dumping and to carry a “blue boy”. We never boondocked or parked in someone’s parking lot. However, we did purchase a Honda 2000 generator for emergency use. Our normal traveling days were somewhere between 200 – 300 miles a travel day. We seldom made reservations unless it was over a holiday or just someplace, we wanted to stop for a week or so.
Our first trip north out of Jacksonville took us to a KOA CG at Wade, NC. My parents and brothers all lived in nearby Fayetteville. We stayed for a week. We had a large grassy site with a FHU and CATV. We got a lot of visitors when one of my brothers parked his little fishing truck under the hitch of our trailer.
In the beginning we stayed at a lot of KOAs. You just can’t compare any one of them with another in another location. They are independently managed with a similar CG and amenities.
I didn’t take lots of pictures until I got me a little Sony, point and shoot, with a variable lens up to 10X. This first picture is of our rig, road ready. The other is my brothers truck parked under the fivers hitch.