When I was a kid, backpacking was "real" camping and I turned my nose up
at RVs and the campgrounds they camped in. Now that I are older, I
greatly enjoy our little Westy, which someone recently called a "tree
house on wheels," and someone else dubbed a modern covered wagon. I see
myself creeping closer to being exactly that at which I sneered. I
cringe -- cringe! -- at the idea that I, too, might find myself sitting
on a 200 square foot piece of Astroturf beneath a 20' Fiamma attached to
a 40-foot Hoover dam of an RV. Add a generator, a yappy dog, and an
invisible woman* and you might as well shoot me. But 20 years from
now...who knows?

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* "Invisible women," is the title of an article I've not yet written
about the older guys I've met at campgrounds who claim to be there with
wives who are never seen. These women apparently live entirely in the
RVs, never setting foot outside.
--
Mike "Rocket J Squirrel" Elliott
71 Type 2: the Wonderbus
84 Westfalia: Mellow Yellow ("The Electrical Banana")
74 Utility Trailer. Ladybug Trailer, Inc., San Juan Capistrano
KG6RCR

Dennis Haynes typed:
> My 2nd battery was installed so I could run the stereo and lights without
> worry of running down the main battery. Low cost and it has been
> effective. I see the Westy as a multipurpose vehicle with a tent
> attachment on top. Tent camping without the need to carry a separate one.
> For many years I made fun of many RVers including my parents. After
> getting my first one back in '97, I realized that the Westy has its limits
> and you can get just plain silly trying to make it something it isn't.
> Unfortunately I got the RV bug bad and upgraded twice to the monster I
> have now. Super silly in the other extreme. But in many ways it does not
> replace the Westy so the Westy stays in the family for those times I don't
> need the size or the toys and want to just get some solitude camping.
>
> Dennis
>