Date: Tue, 25 Dec 2007 12:56:28 -0800
Reply-To: "dhanson@gorge.net" <dhanson@GORGE.NET>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: "dhanson@gorge.net" <dhanson@GORGE.NET>
Subject: How much is enough? (Vanagon's about right for me)
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Hey all, Merry Xmas from the sunny desert.
We've been here about a month now and I am still amazed at the "stuff" people seem to need to
travel with. Many many of the 'outfits' I've seen are pretty 'conspicious consumption', in my
humble opinion, which of course, doesn't count with the RV set. I am just about as noticable as a
microbe in my little Vanagon amongst the behemoths I've been surrounded by..
I saw, this morning, a typical scene, oft-repeated since I've been here..
A large Diesel pusher motorhome (about 50-60'long) with a 20' box trailer behind comes whooshing
along the paved road, looking for a place to "camp". He sees some others (RVs) scattered around the
desert and pulls off on a 'road' nearby and starts looking for his "spot"...But of course, he finds
some soft sand and gets the rig stuck. Out of the box trailer comes the new Jeep...He lashes that
to the behemoth Mo-Ho and winches that out of the sand, then takes the Jeep on a "re-con" to see how
to get out and maybe find a place he can get to with the huge Mo-Ho...Finds something (I think, I
left before he'd finished) so he takes the MoHo out and parks on the pavement, then hooks up the
Jeep to the trailer and tow that over to the MoHo..Jockeys the box trailer around in a spot, then
backs the MoHo back up to the trailer and begans to re-attach the trailer to the MoHo...Presumably
he got the Jeep re-inserted into the box trailer and dragged the whole mess off somewhere else...I
will see when I return to my 'campsite' in my plebian Volkswagen Vanagon... I got bored watching him
wrestle with his 'stuff'. The first few, I went over to help out, but now my Good Samariton quotent
has been long exceeded...I could spend every day helping these big rigs get unstuck and pointing
them to the nearest paved RV park..Oh well..
At least this guy (and his wife) didn't have to call the tow truck, like most of the stuck MoHos
end up doing...
The Vanagon's been super. We've done more side-trips this winter, taking advantage of having good
mileage and a relativly light and small camper rather than our normal pickup and large campers..
Don Hanson
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