Larry Statham, 1960
What was the impetus that started your RVing?
A little history will describe my yearning to travel. After WWII one of my dad’s first jobs was as a tire store manager in Perryton, TX, a small town in the northeast Texas panhandle. It was small and dusty, not too exciting, so my friend Ricky and I decided to leave it and our parents and families. We were running away to the big town of Amarillo, TX, down the road. We were only 5 years old then. We packed our cheese and crackers in a bandanna and walked out to the highway to hitchhike. The sheriff saw us and took us home again. The travel for adventure bug had bitten me at an early age.
Growing up I was a Cub Scout, Boy Scout, and outdoors-type fellow in my native Oklahoma. I could roam outdoors anywhere and everyone was kind and helpful to the local kids whether they were cutting across backyards or through their front yards with their dogs or on bicycles. There was always an adventure to look forward to over the weekend, usually with a friend(s) coming along. I went to scout camps and stayed in tents with campfires and hiked everywhere. Didn’t every guy?
In my teens my dad was promoted to manager of the store in Wichita. We moved there in January, 1955, and suddenly my life changed. No friends, the backyards were on busy streets where strangers lived, city streets with buses and new schools. It was a big adjustment but along the way I found new friends, the big city library, bus schedules and that my Oklahoma ‘twang wasn’t always the first topic of conversation.
But I missed my friends in Oklahoma. Passenger trains connected to a nearby town, Lawton, OK, so when summer vacation time began I took the train to visit a close friend whose parents met me at Lawton and we spent a great month catching up. That friend was only 14 years old but he was already driving an old pickup truck that his grandfather had given him. Together with his dog Smoky, Kirk and I explored the surrounding towns on rural roads in Tillman County daily except when he was on duty as a life guard at the Frederick municipal swimming pool. I had taken swimming lessons there when we moved there from Perryton, TX, in 1948. Our natural competitive natures were well established in sports during grade school and junior high so we had swimming races almost daily. That led to my interest in the Wichita Swim Club in Wichita, which I joined after 8th grade. I enjoyed the trips to swimming meets in other communities and states. New places and new faces became fun adventures.
When I was single young adult, I had been an assistant Scout Master, so after I married, my wife and I enjoyed tent camping in Nevada, California and Colorado. But then we encountered foraging Colorado bears, wild fires and particularly strong mountain winds. So, we took the first st
ep to RV travel and bought a 23 ft slide-in camper. The pickup I bought was specifically for carrying the camper – Diesel truck, 4- wheel drive, 4 doors, long (8 ft) bed. There are pluses and minuses for that type of RV. (I’ll discuss that in my other notes.) Nonetheless, it led us to take the next step after I retired. Next we bought a 32′ 5th wheel trailer with 3 slide-outs. This photo shows our 5th wheel set up for a summer stay with tires covered, “front room” storage area snapped on, gas BBQ attached outside fed from big propane tanks, Direct TV satellite with one touch sync to satellite. Electric awning for shad in the afternoon.
We enjoyed the RV trips and determined that we wanted to make it a full-time life style. The risks of being an absentee owner renting our home long-term was one we didn’t want to try so we sold our house in only 8 hours and hit the road, eventually making it an 11-year trip around North America.
What are the benefits of traveling this way?
Seeing places you thought were interesting when you looked out the window of your plane flying over the country. A movie or book that revealed a special attraction. Taking the back road to an out-of-the-way place instead of driving on the interstate all the way to a destination. Always coming back “home and sleeping in your bed” at the end of seeing a special destination. Meeting people, making new friends, always having an interesting conversation about travels to new locations. The call of the road is seeing what’s around the next curve or hill on the road.
Left, Larry and Sherry Statham celebrating Sherry’s birthday with sun, beaches, and seafood in San Diego.
Although it is not as inexpensive as some believe it to be, it is less expensive than hotels or planned tours. And always, you can choose to spend more time or less time as it suits you. You will still need an adequate income to travel with an RV. And it doesn’t get less expensive as the years pass. RV’s, parts and maintenance and always higher costs at RV parks or campgrounds every year are the norm.
What is your favorite part of RV life?
Every time you get on the road, there is a feeling of freedom, knowing you are on your way to a new adventure. The day is yours to spend as you please with no business agendas, meetings, phone conferences, annoying media calls, etc. Stop where you want to for lunch, admire or photograph beautiful scenery or stop at an antique store or any quaint attraction along the way. Other RV’rs are really helpful and friendly (maybe a few grouches) and will assist you whenever you need help. It’s a vacation day every day.
I loved to drive from the first time I got behind the wheel, even from an early age. I would drive day and night to get home, visit a relative, or go to a distant vacation site. That isn’t the best way to travel with an RV. First let’s say you are more than 60 years old so you simply don’t have the same energy and chances are that your night vision isn’t so great for 24 hours of driving. But my rule after doing RVing for a few years was to prepare to travel the night before and be ready to travel after eating breakfast. Travel until about 3 pm and plan to arrive not later than 3:30 pm so you have daylight, energy, time to check-in and set up your rig (allow at least 60-90 minutes for a 5th wheel). Then you have time to relax and eat dinner before going to bed. Summer’s longer hours of daylight makes that easier than shortened hours during winter months. (Photo above right, Bar Harbour, Maine, a last stop before heading south for the winter.)
Do you think that RV travelers tend to be in particular age groups or socio-economic groups?
In our 11 years on the road we met young families with grade school age kids doing home schooling while traveling full time; 80 year-old widows driving motor homes and “boon docking” (no electric, water or sewer hookup); Germans, Brits, French, Dutch visiting the USA; and of course lots of Canadian winter visitors. In general Canadians retire earlier than Americans and we met much younger retirees. Because of their 180 day limits out of their country, they tend to visit the USA during our winter, to escape their own long brutal winters.
(Left, Sherry and Larry celebrate their anniversary at the lovely, historic Brown Palace Hotel in Denver.)
If you choose full time RVing you may have found a favorite place to stay in the winter months, and return for a number of years. That means it’s like a reunion every winter with old friends. In the Yuma, AZ, area the folks who came annually were generally aged 55+ and without children.
Many of the RV resorts have permanent “park models” (34 ft + or – 5th wheel size without wheels) that they rent to visitors. Some RV’rs choose to stop traveling, buy a park model and put it in their favorite RV park and it becomes their home. They still pay annual rent and utilities.
An interesting thing we discovered about full time RV’rs is that they really don’t care about your socio-economic background, probably because you chose to leave it and are not that bank executive or business owner any longer. They seldom ask what you did before you retired unless you form a particularly close relationship with a couple or with a group. Then you will be more intimate and candid. Groups often tend to get together more frequently about 4:00 pm to socialize which usually means bring a folding chair, a snack to share, and your choice of beverage, then sit together and just talk and tell stories. It may last into the late evening but usually there is a 10 pm curfew in parks to keep the noise levels down.
Anyway, at those gatherings you may be asked to relate a story about your former life. In my case, as it usually is, no one really knows much about Air Traffic Control, so it’s interesting to hear what they think controllers do. One woman told my wife she thought I stood at the end of the runway with flags. Their stories were quite amusing, at least to me. They seldom understood the full extent of what the term “controlled airspace” entailed to the airplane pilot and all the responsibilities of the air traffic controller.
Editor’s Note: Part 2 of Larry’s RV Life on the Road will appear here later this week. These two parts are excerpts from a longer article where Larry has shared his expertise in technical and logistical aspects of RV selection, maintenance, and operations. Click on this link to read the full article: Larry Statham, Reflections on 11 years of RV Life on the Road
