I always planned to have a stable, permanent home, probably in the Midwestern area of my birth. Instead, my life has turned out somewhat like that of young people in our current economy—I have shuttled around the country as my work and personal life have dictated. From various parts of the Chicago area to New York (and quickly back again), on to the San Francisco Bay area, and now to the Sierra foothills. My husband and I did have a comfortable old home in Alameda, where we lived happily for nearly 20 years, but after his death staying there was too expensive for me. When I met my companion a few years later and moved to the foothills, it was time to downsize considerably. I did so with a vengeance, using some of the profits from the house sale to buy a motor home.
I had no experience with RVs, but fortunately my companion knew a great deal about them. For about six months he took me to motor home salesrooms and expositions, teaching me far more than I wanted to know on the subject. We looked at everything from the smallest teardrop campers to ridiculously huge and expensive Class A motor homes. Soon it became clear that the ideal RV for me would be a Winnebago View, model H. The View is a 24’ Class C, large enough inside for all the essentials I wanted, but small enough to drive nearly everywhere. Its width—about a foot narrower than most motor homes—especially appealed to me. On a narrow road, that could make the difference between disaster and success.
To be sure that the View was the right choice, we rented a similar rig for a week end trip to a state park. Having an errand to run at Stanford, I drove through the campus streets before setting off for the campground. That seemed like a good enough test, as I didn’t run into anything. Driving to the state park along narrow winding roads proved to be more difficult, and I knocked off a rearview mirror on a tree branch that jumped out at me. In spite of that, I knew it was time to buy an RV.
We went to La Mesa RV in Davis, which we had visited many times. The salesmen had probably grown tired of us, but were happy to sell us a new View with just the right options—a simple brown and beige color scheme, an absence of leatherette, and washed maple cabinets. (For some reason, in recent years most RVs have had cabinets in dark colors. Though these look fine in a brightly lighted RV lot, the interiors must be really depressing and coffin-like when the rig is in a rainy forest!) The View model H had a cab-over bed, which is reached via a ladder; we would have preferred a walk-around bed like that in larger rigs, but space prevented it. (A second model had a bed in the rear that was cut off at one corner, and a very small bathroom; the third available model had single bunk beds. Neither of these was right for our needs. The recent Model M has a couch that unfolds into a real, inflatable bed and has other improvements.)
By the time the rig was delivered, it was November—too late for a long summer vacation, but we would take some short trips anyway. We drove my small car to La Mesa, inspected and paid for the View, and drove off in it happily. A few miles down the road, we realized the car was back at La Mesa.
The first outing, in January, was a quick trip to Yosemite National Park. Only a few campground sites were open, and they were snowy, but the lack of people competing for space in what is a much-too-busy park in the summer made it a wonderful experience. We drove to the foot of Yosemite Falls one morning, had brunch at our dinette table as we gazed at the falling water, listened to ice breaking up at the top of the falls, and hiked a short way along the ice-filled Merced River. We saw only one other couple there.
Since then we have traveled across the country and up into Canada. (For some details of our longest adventure, you can purchase our CD, A Hundred and One Nights in a Cab-Over Bed, for $15. Simply write to us at StoneCottage2@Juno.com.) The View has been like a second home—one with a new scene outside the windows every day or two. One caveat: I would not be able to travel in it alone, as many women do, because unscrewing the valves to dump the black water and gray water tanks takes more hand strength than I have. Otherwise, I find it easy to drive and care for. It's a wonderful life!
