Date: Thu, 23 May 2002 00:02:15 -0500
Reply-To: Stan Wilder <wilden1@JUNO.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Stan Wilder <wilden1@JUNO.COM>
Subject: Re: living in a westy or weekender for a few months while
travelling
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
This is my response to the person that made the original post.
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1973 I lived in a Cabana Motor home in Ft. Lauderdale Florida for three
months.
This was a 26 footer and not as close as a Westy since we had a mini
bathroom and more room.
There were two of living there and it was still tight.
The cooking odors got into everything, even the clothes stored in
drawers, closets.
We were pretty much limited to just the necessities and computers weren't
around then.
One dirty sock ruined the whole place, the AC picked up the odor and just
recirculated it forever.
There were times I was alone there for a week or so and it sure got
lonely and boring.
Most of the crowd at the park were older folks and left each day. I never
made friends with anyone so it was just as I said boring.
---------------------
This might be a little more interesting.
Two weeks in a Westy.
One of my favorite Lakes has parks that I can stay in all Summer or all
year for free. The only requirement is that you move from your spot once
every seven days to a new spot, this satisfies their one week rule.
Here is what I found out:
I needed to start the Westy twice a day and run it fifteen minutes to
keep the battery up.
I started out with a nice set of cookware and narrowed that down to three
items that I used to cook pretty much everything.
Living with six or seven gallons of cleaning water was a real test. I
washed most of my dished in the lake. I used the on board water to clean
myself up and make coffee and tea.
It is too expensive to cook with charcoal on the outside grills provided
by the parks. Often the charcoal costs more than the T bone.
You have to pretty much eat everything that you cook when you cook it,
the refrigerator will not hold much and leaving the site to buy Ice meant
knocking down the top and repacking.
I ate mostly spam, bacon, eggs, deli meat sandwiches, chili, ranch style
beans, pork and beans and other canned vegetables, I seldom cooked
anything that would require it sitting on the stove more than ten
minutes.
Bread seems to take on a life of its own, some loafs last one or two days
before they grow mold and go bad or just develop a sour taste.
The Game Wardens didn't like for people to bathe in the lake so I did
that after dark. There were bathrooms but no showers at this lake.
I reorganized the Westy about every two days trying to make more room for
necessities but never made much progress towards a better storage plan.
I had enough clean clothes when I arrived to carry me through two weeks
and hung the dirty laundry in a net type laundry bag outside so I didn't
have to smell it. There were laundry locally but again it required
knocking down and I just wasn't interested in doing laundry anyway.
I had a bicycle that I rode pretty often but wished I had a mini scooter
or 80cc motorcycle to make runs to the store.
I only went through one big thunderstorm but it was a good one, I was
locked inside for about twenty four hours and the Westy shrunk more every
hour I was in it. Good news, I didn't have any leaks. Bad news, anytime
you have heavy winds you should drop the Pop-Up to keep it from getting
damaged.
In my opinion the Westy is a good utility vehicle if you love camping or
may be on a three month road trip discovering America but I equate it to
living homeless after about a week.
Things could have been some better if I had been in a Pay-For-A-View comp
ground with hot showers. You still can't drink the water. I had TV on 12v
so the 120v wouldn't have helped.
The local Pay-For-A-View campgrounds are often as much as $20.00 per
night so I chose the free sites.
Living out of a Westy could be a great adventure and I don't discourage
it. All I've got to say is keep your options open by having some money to
check into a decent Motel at least once a week and get a good scalding
hot shower and watch some cable movies. Then decide if you're going to go
for another week in your Westy.
My two weeks was more of some kind of self punishment and resulted in
very little pleasure for me. Lets face it ............. fishing isn't
that much fun, cleaning up after cooking isn't much fun, riding a bicycle
isn't that much fun so it just turns out to be boaring.
There are a few other things that can improve your life.
Have plenty of clean sheets, its one of the few things that makes you
feel like you've got some luxury after a lake bath.
Consider your diet seriously, some fruits aren't fresh when you buy them
and they don't last that long at outside temperatures. The refrigerator
will keep most foods but it dumps all its cool every time you open the
door so don't expect your foods to keep like they do at home, the cold
recovery is very slow.
You may have to move your Westy several times a day to take advantage of
the current breeze.
Always shake out your blankets, bedding etc. It collects quite a bit of
dust and sometimes insects move in.
I tried to run a heavy nylon line between two trees to hang my bedding
out everyday but the Game Wardens made me take the lines off the trees.
So I just stacked it outside out of the way. The trick is to get as much
clear space in the Westy as you can by setting your cookware box, junk
boxes, trash bags etc outside in nice weather. It all has to come in if
you get rain so it really gets crowded.
I also set up a four man tent that gave me other sleeping options and
pretty much kept my Westy junk free.
I used the tent for a sleeping cot, store a giant Igloo cooler and just
generally put things away when I left on foot or on my bicycle to go
exploring or fishing.
Its important to keep every food item, ice chest out of direct sunlight.
I managed to get three days out of three bags of ice by keeping the Igloo
in the tent.
Temperatures were mostly at about 85 in the days and down to 65-72 at
night.
There is one more trick you can't skip.
You need two Coleman lanterns, the ones that will run on Coleman fuel or
standard gasoline, you need to set them out about forty feet from your
Westy to attract the insects and the insects that eat other bugs away
from you in the evening hours. The bugs will drive you nuts and drive you
inside if you don't do this.
Another thing, the tent was often cooler or had better breezes than the
Westy so I slept there about half the time.
Best of luck if you want to give it a try and don't be embarrassed if you
holler "calf rope" after a few days.
I have no problem with sleeping in a Westy for ten days when I make a
round trip to Florida from Dallas because I'm just sleeping in it and not
trying to have any kind of reasonable lifestyle. It saves me about
$100.00 a day and I like the sense of adventure even if its just in my
mind.
Take care Stan!
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