Hi, Bill and Debbie back from our latest adventure. Some of you readers (= friends 🙂 have asked about camping sites and places to park an RV, so we thought we should try to tell you what we know…so far.

Parking lots in supermarkets, schools, churches, etc. don’t really make good choices to park rv. While it’s true that some churches give written permission so if the police or anyone bothers you, you can whip out your permit.

But remember, you’re out alone in an empty parking lot and therefore vulnerable to any passing bad guys.

Most cities, even larger ones, have small (usually older) mobile home parks that rent out open spots to overnighters.

Prices can vary but usually, we’ve found they aren’t too bad. You have the advantage of being near convenience stores, cafés and the ubiquitous Walgreen’s Drug Store.

Plus you can empty your tanks. (Just don’t do as I did first time out and drive off without disconnecting the tanks, etc.)

More about safe places where you can camp or park your rv for free:

https://axleaddict.com/rvs/Safe-Places-Where-You-Can-Camp-Temporarily-for-Free

I’d like to break this off for a minute to answer the friends who wondered how the home sale worked and all that stuff.

Well, we had three yard sales and probably could have got more money. But when it comes to money, Debbie is easy and always takes the first price someone offers. Okay, I’m nearly as bad, so I can’t say too much.

My son, Davy, came over and helped us get the house ready. Most of it was reasonably easy, but he had to paint the living room and the kitchen. The kitchen was especially bad because even the neatest housewives eventually accumulate grease all over the place. You don’t even see it until you try to paint!

We found a real estate agent we liked and she did a really great job I thought. Got us nearly our asking price from a couple of elderly people who were selling their big old house and retiring in our neighborhood to be near their children. Overall, the entire transaction went well. I think we’re all happy with the way things turned out.

As soon as the house sale closed, we hopped into our Winnebago Adventurer and headed out.

We’d never been to Las Vegas. It turned out one of the biggest casinos had a huge RV parking lot at reasonable prices. We got lazy and spent a week there.

We’re not much in the way of gambling. Luckily there’s a lot of other things to see and do in that little city that never sleeps.

My best advice to anyone preparing for a trip in an RV would be to go online and do some research. Wherever you go, north or south, east or west, you’ll find all sorts of likely places.

There are large campgrounds like KOA and small one-of-a-kind places. Many are located alongside rivers or lakes and that can be fun.

You can often rent boats to get out on the water or just sit around and enjoy the scenery.

Even at campground sites, you can find party poopers.

At one park in Boulder, Colorado we parked near a small lake or pond. Of course, the spaces were close together as in most places. Since even our thirty-five foot Winnebago doesn’t have a commercial-size kitchen, we decided to cook outside on the convenient outdoor grill provided.

At a nearby supermarket, we picked up a slab of corned beef, cabbage, onions and carrots and celery. Debbie could whip up one of her famous corned beef and cabbage dinners. I bought charcoal and wood in the camp store and got everything going.

Next to our RV, another camper arrived and set up his RV. Shortly he came over to complain our fire was smoking up his RV.

In the first place, my thinking was that when you go camping, you expect outdoor cooking with smoke and whatever comes with it.

Besides, what could I do about that save pour water on the fire and go hungry?

Well, I promised to do what I could and tried to fan the smoke away. While he was at the camp store we managed to get finished and put the fire out. The corned beef turned out a bit tough from not cooking long enough, but hey! that’s all a part of camp living.

I’d like to wind this up by suggesting again that before going on any adventurous trips, it’s a good idea to look up some good campsites and find out their prices.

It’s probably not necessary to make reservations all the time because that tends to make your schedule a bit rigid:

• What if you see a sidelight you just don’t want to miss?
• What if you should get (God forbid!) a flat tire that takes all afternoon to replace?

Well, at least that’s the way Debbie and I see it.

We like to be as flexible as we can.

Besides we’ve already spent too many years following tight schedules. Get to work on time, get a job finished by a certain time, eat lunch at a fixed time and so on.

My idea of retirement has always been to get away from all those schedules and just play it by ear.

Good luck to you and your RV adventures!
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