Inspiration on I-5

The homestretch of our trip home was 200-mile stretch of Interstate 5.

We made a couple of stops along the way and exchanged pleasantries with fellow RV enthusiasts on both ends of the RV lifestyle spectrum.

At a gas stop, a young 30-something couple at the next pump was filling up enroute to their home in San Diego.

"What kind of gas mileage do you get in that thing?" the young man asked.

We responded, "about 10 miles to the gallon."

"I have to say that it one really cool RV," he went on. "And, I'm not really an RV person."

"Us either," we said. "This was our maiden voyage. We rented this and decided to try it out."

"You rented that?" He asked. We said yes. He asked how much and where we'd been, then shouted: "Honey, they rented this for $120 a day plus mileage and took it to the Grand Canyon and Zion!!!!"

As he washed the splattered bugs off his windshield, he said "We're doin' that!" and left with a brand new vacation dream.

A hundred miles or so down the road we pulled into a rest area for lunch and parked next to a 42-foot top-of-the-line Class A dieselpusher and a toad. (a diesel motorhome with a car towed behind.) As we stepped out to stretch, the captain of the land yacht greeted us with a friendly hello.

We asked each other where we were going, where we had been and where we called home.

"This is our home," he said. "We've been 'fulltimers' for 14 years."

We explained that we were on our maiden voyage. He seemed quite excited about our rookie story and asked an all-important question.

"Well, how'd you like it?"

We said we loved it and his eyes lit up. He happily answered our every question and gave us encouraging advice for a future in RVing. After a few minutes his wife popped out of the coach and announced lunch was ready (for them, not us). We exchanged pleasantries with her and marveled at their story. She too offered an encouraging word.

With that, we said our goodbyes, went back to our respective rigs, had lunch and hit the road again.

As we pulled out of the rest area, we looked at each other and said in unison, "We're doin' that!"