Sometimes being isolated in backwoods Idaho leaves one kind of naive about what is going on in the rest of the US. Last night was a real eye-opener. As I mentioned in yesterday's post, we "camped" overnight in an RV park at the casino in Hinckley, MN. This morning we got up and wandered around the "camp". The highest site number we saw was over 600. There was an even larger site and then an overflow field, so the number of RV's that could park there was likely in the thousands.
As you can see, many of these units are HE-UUUGE, to quote one of our presidential candidates. Paul C and I had a long discussion about this on our ride today, trying to figure out the type of people that use these things. Our best guess was that the owners had sold their California beachfront homes for a million plus, plunked down a quarter of that on one of these motor homes, and then were using the remaining funds to buy fuel, pay insurance, rent campground space, and eat. At first our arrogant, righteous, moralistic brains were telling us that these things were hideously wasteful.
But if this mobile home really was a substitute for a fixed home, then maybe it wasn't so bad. Even this giant 35' long x 10' wide behemoth with garage and toy trailer is still smaller than 1000 square feet, vs some "starter castles" that exceed 8000 square feet. And even at 6mpg and $50 a night for a site with hookups, it probably costs less to keep one going than to own a giant home.
The other thing that seems amazing is how we see caravans of these units riding down the highways. It's almost as if they are a cult, moving from one event or a site to another, clinging to each other like Harley Davidson riders, or Oshkosh pilots. So, while it's tempting to make fun of them, we probably need to be careful what we say until we better understand the people who have these and what their motivation is.
Tomorrow I hope to be able to make a little fun of the names that some of the RV's have - that should be a safe topic!
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