Text and photos by Bob Dawson
Who could've predicted it? Bailey, our 13-year-old daughter, who we'd feared might be getting a little "too cool" for camping, was sitting there, on the last day of our most-recent annual trip to the Sierra Nevada, begging to stay another day or two. It hadn't been a particularly spectacular vacation (in fact, it had its share of downs as well as ups). But at that moment, the weather was wonderful, the kids had been water-fighting in and around the stream, and all was very much about as good as it gets. Chalk up another victory for family RVing.
My wife, Seana, and I are both second-generation RVers; some of our fondest childhood memories are of family camping trips. It's something we've shared almost as long as we've been together, and we've been camping and RVing with our kids since Bailey was a baby. And even though RVing isn't our only family pastime, we're up to our eyeballs in soccer most weekends, it's turning out to be one of our kids' favorite things to do, just as it was ours.
Seana has her memories of cross-country trips in their family station wagon, pulling a tent trailer (when tent trailers really were really tent trailers). And I remember camping trips with my family that included several of my aunts, uncles and cousins. My folks, I recall, had a 16-foot Shasta trailer and several of my cousins' families had trailers, as well. Some of the old 8mm movies from our camping trips look like infomercials for the Good Sam Club, back when it had only a few hundred members. I recall hikes we took in which we younger cousins rode piggyback on the older boys. Then there was the vacation we took that my folks and I journaled in poetry:
"It was the 12th day of August, 1967. Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse when we left the house."
It wasn't very good poetry, by most standards. But it was probably better than the A-B-C game, and we didn't have mobile television sets or hand-held video games in those days.
"Then on to an overnight stay near a small bay, then on to Noyo Harbor and Fort Bragg, we went and there, two days we spent"
Poetry aside, I recall that old trailer facilitated catching my first-ever trout, courtesy of an older cousin, and I can remember a rubber boa, a rare snake even in those days, which we found on a trip to Shasta National Lake. I remember trips to Yosemite watching the bears fight over the campground trash and the firefalls; balls of fire pushed over the cliffs to create a pyrotechnic display for the enjoyment of park visitors. Of course, both of those scenes are from closed chapters in national-park history and can be viewed no more. But probably the best camping memories of all are of my Uncle Don's scary campfire stories. Though I can recall today only vague bits of those old tales, I do remember that my cousins and I would beg him to tell those stories, and I can still see his campfire-lit face leaning forward from the shadows.
"Do you follow me?" he would ask in utter seriousness. Now we often travel with another family, and my friend, Gary, and I tell spooky stories to our kids. Oh, they're pretty corny, all right (Uncle Don probably thought his stories were pretty silly, too) but the kids beg us, as we stoke up the campfire and finish off the s'mores, to tell those stories anyway.
"This time we landed at Terwer Valley by the Klamath River. There, also, we did shiver. We went 32 miles up the Klamath River on a jet-boat ride. There among some other sights, two nests of osprey we spied"
Over the years we've had the pleasure of traveling and camping in a variety of RVs, and some have been more fun than others, but all have been provision for fond memories. Seana and I began RVing together in rental pop-up trailers mainly because of cost and availability; however, pop-ups accommodate a terrific outdoors lifestyle, which we still enjoy. While pop-ups offer solid shelter from the storm, provide beds that you don't have to share with the creepy, crawly critters and even offer many of the luxuries found in pricier RVs, they're also open and airy and, with screen windows and soft walls, they provide a sense of living in the outdoors you just don't get in other RVs. Of course, that outdoors feeling can be a bit of a mixed blessing at times. Seana and the kids always get a little nervous when I talk about going into bear country with a pop-up. And I have to admit, the hardside RVs do offer more of a sense of security.
"Saturday morning we drove to Crescent City. The scenery was very pretty. We had lunch at Patrick's Creek. There were some frogs that Bobby did seek"
Certainly the widest variety of floorplans and styles can be found in the hardside trailers. From the smaller, lightweight "hybrids", to the mammoth fifth-wheel trailers aimed at those who travel full-time, there's a trailer outfitted for just about any lifestyle. One of our favorites was a 25-foot "toy box" we tested a couple of years ago. With their drop-down tailgates and cavernous interiors, the toy-box trailers are designed to allow you to take your stuff from all-terrain vehicles (ATVs) to kayaks with you. But even if you don't have boats or bikes, the toy-box trailers are great for families because they offer tons of space to spread out. We used the tailgate as a sun-porch during the days, and on more than one evening that trip, the Wilsons and the Dawsons (all eight of us) set up tables inside the trailer and had plenty of room as we enjoyed hot cocoa and games of Hearts.
The nice thing about many of the hardside trailers is they work nicely whether you're camping in the back country or using your RV as your hotel for a trip to Disneyland or SeaWorld. But since we had one of our cars outfitted to tow behind a motorhome (such a setup is referred to as "dinghy-towing"), we've been enjoying trips in the "motorized" genre of RVs. Our family is currently at odds as to which type, Class A or Class C, fits us best. Seana and I have enjoyed the Class C's, the ones with the driver and passenger doors, because they tend not to feel as bulky on the road, and because they fit more easily into some of the rustic campgrounds we enjoy visiting. And the kids, especially Collin and Logan, like the bed-over-the-cab area as a separate room-slash-fort. We took a midsize Class C to our favorite spot in the mountains last year and the five of us camped comfortably for more than a week. Collin will probably never forget the water snake he caught while on a hike to one of the area's many alpine lakes. And that was the time we watched a black bear forage along the shore of another lake while we floated silently in our kayaks, just a few yards away.
"We played rummy almost every night after dinner and Dad was practically always the winner"
Of course the royal carriage of the RVs, and the style to which our 13-year-old princess is rapidly becoming accustomed, by the way, is the Class A motorhome. These are the RVs that resemble tour buses and range in lengths from around 25 feet to more than 40 feet. Bailey likes the Class A's because they are typically appointed with all the conveniences of home, including microwave ovens for TV dinners, spacious freezers (there's nothing like ice cream by the campfire), and, most importantly, 115-volt AC power for her hair dryer and curling iron. One of the features I particularly enjoy about Class A motorhomes is that they're big enough to easily accommodate the five of us. While some may be a little large for a few of the campgrounds we like to visit, all are very much at home in the RV parks and resorts that many RVers frequent. We had a wonderful time in a 30-foot, Class A motorhome on a recent holiday-weekend trip to Pismo Beach, California. Highlights of that trip included shopping and canoeing on nearby Morro Bay. But, by far, the best time from that trip was riding quads on the sand dunes. The bumping and sliding up and down the hills of powder was a huge kick for me, as well as Collin, but Bailey was even wilder about the quads. "Pleeease can we keep them longer?" she pleaded.
"There a lovely time was had by all but we definitely could not stall so Thursday morning found us on our way home. No longer could we roam. The washing machine was still on the fritz when we returned and, boy, you can bet Mom was burned"
So, all that said, which RV should you buy? Well, we seem to like whichever style we were in most recently. That may be of little help, but the good news is, after assessing your own needs and lifestyle preferences, it may well be that there's no wrong answer. If you can afford all the bells and whistles, I say buy them. They certainly won't stand in the way of a good time. But if your budget is limited, I'll reiterate, there's a lot of fun to be had for relatively few dollars in the towable RVs. When the vacation's over, it won't be the conveniences and luxuries that will be remembered. It will be the sights, the places, and, most of all, the family adventure.