Motorhome 101

                        One more day here in the East before we will be winging our way back to Texas. Winging, of course, is a matter of perspective as Miss Biggie is far from being svelte and therefore aerodynamic…… but “Shhh…” don’t tell her that…. she’s quite proud of the way she looks!      

Especially after her recent bath and polish.

            I’ll get into all of that and more in this Intro to Motorhomes 101 post designed primarily for the spate of newer Post Followers that we have accumulated along the way. For all of you folks that have the “Original Milage” under your belts, you may be excused but don’t be surprised if there’s a “Pop Quiz” somewhere along the way and then you’ll wish that you had taken this refresher course!

                                    Let’s start at the beginning and I’ll refer to the question that most people ask or start with and that has to do with fuel and/or milage.

                                                No.

It’s not good….. but…. we don’t drive 24/7 or anything close to that. Most of our time is spent just like you guys…. at “home”. Our advantage is that “home” is wherever we are!

                                                Yes.

About 90 gallons….. but…. we fill up around once a day and there are no hotel bills to account for (unless we are staying at a RV campground or resort, which comes from a different side of our accounting brains because that’s when we’re on vacation, not just everyday living.) And where this process takes place can definitely have a bearing on that “accounting” process because of the sheer volume of the purchase. Brand, proximity to the highway, and even the State are all factors that our Navigator/ Head Bean Counter, Miss Paula, considers when trying to find a convenient place to re-fuel. Convenient is key here as we are towing our Lifeboat (Honda CRV) and if you thought navigating a 40’ bus was challenging, go ahead and add another 20’ or so and throw in the extra disadvantage of it being impossible to put it into reverse when we are hooked up to the Honda, and you will now know how critical it is for us to be absolutely sure that when we pull into a filling station that we will be able to maneuver around all of the pumps and other vehicles without having to do any jockeying around!

We (Paula) use a special app called “Gas Buddy” that has most of the prices for fuel at service stations along the way. From there we take a look at where it is located on our GPS, and if we need further scrutiny, we look at the “Satellite” view of the map and see if there is enough room at the pumps for all of the maneuvering that we need.

                                    This is our least favorite time of the day.

                                    But it is usually only once a day as we rarely drive more in one day than our 90 gallons times an average of 9 mpg can get us.

                                    “Nine Miles per gallon! Is that all you get???”

                                    Yes, Mr. Aerodynamic Engineer, we are driving a big clunky shoebox, not an almost invisible-to-friction Lamborghini!

                                    And the faster we go, the poorer we become and it’s not because of the motor going too fast (she hums along at 2000 rpm nicely at about 70 MPH) it’s because of that friction.

Let’s play that kids game of hands out the window cruising down our local side street at 35 mph…. arms and hands stay outstretched without too much effort, which requires strength to overcome the force of the air on us. That Strength is our “motor” or effort needed to counter the aforementioned. Now let’s slip out of the local streets and hit the Parkway on the way to the shore…. Same hand/arm game at 65 (hah!) mph has that kid’s arm being pinned to the trunk and it takes every effort not to be pulled from the vehicle!

                                    This illustrates how air moves around slower moving objects and gets out of the way without too much effort (which uses fuel). Now, let’s up the MPH and see how that air does not move nicely out of the way, instead it gathers up in front of us making us use a lot more effort (fuel) to push through this bunched up air. Unless of course we are that Lamborghini who slips through the air before that air even knows that it’s there!

                                    And we are that proverbial “shoebox” of non-aerodynamicalness (spell-check definitely does not like that word!) that resists any form of forward movement which is an issue because that’s how we travel. Hence the balancing of time needed to get from A to B, then needed speed, and finally, the cost of a gallon of fuel.

Notice I said Fuel.

It’s not gas, we don’t gas up.

                                                It’s fuel, as in Diesel.

                                                We need to be cognizant of this as we’d be laughed out of the truck stops and made to give back our giant western belt buckles if we walked in and announced we’re here to get “gas”.

                        The other factor in mileage comes from Mother Nature herself and the “winds” that she throws at us. The windier it is, the more effort is needed to keep us traveling straight and true. All important variables. It seems that we never get a tailwind which would help us along. Nooo… it’s always a headwind or lateral winds that we encounter. And traveling out West where the horizon is visible millions of miles away which gives Mr. Wind a really goodly amount time to get barreling along…. Interstate 10 in western Texas has lateral winds that can clock in at 40mph! That is when we wish that the motorhome was equipped like an airplane with two sets of steering apparatus available!

                                                That about sums up the Fuel Economy portion of this lesson. Let’s move on to some more rewarding albeit more tiring aspects of this venture… washing and waxing this behemoth.

                                    First, I need to express some exasperation that I’m sure is more imagined than real and that is the apparent condition of every other Motorhome on the highway. To me, they all look like they just rolled off the showroom floor, all clean, chrome dazzling in the sunlight, nor a speck of road dust to be found….

                                    Then there’s us.

                                    Sometimes I feel like the Beverly Hillbillies rattling down the road in an old clunker. I try to rationalize our apparent state of being saying to myself (and anyone else that will listen)…..

“Hey! We do this full-time! We don’t have a garage to keep it in, we drive all the time, not just for a long weekend or weeks’ vacation and then have our “guy” come over and spiff it all up again!”

                                    I’m that guy.

                                    And this thing is big!

                                    And it’s mostly black which means that if I try and wash it in the sun…. well, that’s just a recipe for disaster. So, I try and wash one side in the morning (Western side) and the other (Eastern) in the afternoon. Cloudy (non-rainy) days are my best friends as I can wash at any time! And yes, I’ve even stood out there in the rain because the rinse is “Rainwater Soft” and does not give me as many “spots” when dry as the hose does. And there’s nothing worse than having waters pots on an otherwise clean surface!

                                    But I get them all the time.

                                    Do you know how to get rid of them?

                                    By hand.

                                    Spray detailer in one hand, microfiber cloth in the other. There’s approximately 1000 square feet of exterior that needs to be gone over by hand. And half of it needs to be done on a ladder.

                                                But…. when it’s done there’s nothing better than cruising down the Interstate in a gleaming torpedo of a vehicle!

                                                But…. the slightest little, 10 second, drizzle will make that effort all for naught.

                                                That is why since Miss Biggie is now all spiffed up ready for her trip back to Texas, we will be taking the northern route via Canada to get back home because there’s some rain forecasted for Alabama and we ain’t gonna go through that!

                                                That’s enough for now….

                                         Next lesson will be about living in this thing!

Thanks for reading  😊