Jumping In With Both Feet

As I mentioned in our About Us page, we purchased our 1993 Winnebago Vectra after seeing it displayed at a RV show. We read up briefly on major RV manufacturers, gross vehicle weight ratings/capacity, price comparisons, etc. but since the Vectra was a new model we had only the company's spec sheets to go by. The salesman assured us we had plenty of carrying capacity and we loved the luxurious appearance of the interior so we bought the Vectra.

Having brought the Vectra home and parked it in the driveway to the rear of the house, the next step was to furnish the rig so it would be ready to go at a moment's notice. I decided that I was not going to lug clothes, pots and pans, linens and food back and forth between house and rig for any trips, so we purchased new kitchen ware including Corelle dishes (I wanted nice things that would be durable and lightweight), linens, stocked the pantry with canned goods and filled the closet and cupboards with a couple of weeks' worth of clothing. We were all set to make our first trip to Panama City Beach, taking along our then 15 year old son, Darby.

As we set off for Florida, we made a detour to stop at the gravel pit to have the Vectra weighed on their truck scale. We had a full tank of gas, a full fresh water tank, three adults and a week's worth of supplies and weighed out at 500 pounds in excess of our gross vehicle weight capacity. Shocked and angry we headed south.

We took two days to get to Panama City Beach and chose the Raccoon River Resort as our campground as it was one block from the beach. We provided entertainment for our neighbors by managing to get the awning hung up on a tree branch as we were pulling into our campsite, necessitating some back and forth maneuvering to break loose from the branch without causing any more damage than the initial first scrape. Fingers were pointed, voices were raised and Darby escaped by putting on earphones and cranking up his Walkman, but we were finally in our site. The neighbors provided advice on hooking up our utilities since we were obviously newbies and we were invited for "happy hour". While we passed on that first day's happy hour, we did join in the next day which is how we learned about the lifestyle they called “fulltiming”. The couple beside us and the one behind us turned out to be brothers and each couple had been on the road for several years. One couple had sold their home and had no desire to purchase another one, while the younger brother and his wife maintained an apartment but rarely used it. They were lively and entertaining and so eager to pass on information that we felt fortunate we had chosen this campground as we were learning just by listening to them.

"Hmm," we said, "fulltiming..."