It seems like a constant for most people to find themselves,
while driving Wyoming’s vast network of highways, being stuck behind some
lumbering motorhome. While you are cussing them out, keep in mind that it just
might be your old friend Bill making his way down the highway.
Some eleven
years ago, our daughter Shelli convinced Nancy and me to rent a CruiseAmerica
Class C motorhome for a week to join them at the Grand Canyon.
Despite all
kinds of stupid problems, we had a ball and were sold on the whole RV life.
Soon we bought our own 26-foot Class C motorhome. This is a model that looks
like a U-Haul truck with windows. We put 10,000 miles on it in two years. Then
we felt the need to upgrade. So we bought into the whole enchilada – buying a
full-sized Class A motorhome in December 2010.
We were the
proud new owners of a used 40-foot diesel pusher with faded paint and decals
that looks like an old Greyhound Bus. It was a 2005 Alfa Gold and we were
thrilled. We were also completely stumped about how all the systems worked.
To make it
more complicated, we bought it in Iowa where we were visiting relatives at
Christmas. It was minus 24 wind chill. We could not get propane to pump into
the coach to run the furnace. Cold? It
was beyond cold. It was like driving a freezer. Did I mention that the heater
in the cockpit was also on the fritz?
We put on all
the clothes we could and then fired up the beast. We headed out of there and
did not stop for the next 740 miles. We dashed down to Dallas to visit another
daughter’s home, where we thought we could thaw out, and find out just how this
new rig worked.
We aren’t the
only Wyomingites with motorhome adventures. Tom and Rita Lubnau of Gillette
relate the following:
“We have a motorhome and a 1993 Chevy Van, Rita calls Van
Helen. Rita and I, and our two dogs, just returned from a long
weekend in Las Cruces, NM, in Van Helen.
“In October, Rita and our dog
Callie, went on a 5000-mile adventure to the East Coast. While we
love the motorhome, the simplicity of living in the old van is attractive,
although it does look comical parked between the million-dollar Class A
motorhomes in the campground. Rita’s caption on that photo would be,
‘Which one of these is paid for?’”
Over the
years, we Sniffins have spent some glorious times in our motorhome. We fondly
call it Follow My Nose. The coach works
well as a camper but is at its best as a winter home somewhere.
One fun
camping trip included meeting our daughter Shelli, her husband Jerry, and their
three boys in Goblin State Park in Utah.
A huge rainstorm came up and they abandoned their tent and joined us. We
all enjoyed warmth and comfort inside our big coach while other families were
scrambling around in the wind and rain trying to keep their tents from flying
away. That was one of our finest
moments!
As a winter
home, it has been wonderful. We started spending a month or so in the winter
north of Dallas but discovered that the Polar Express reaches all the way to
Texas. We froze up two years in a row in eight degrees one time and eighteen
degrees another time. So, we up and headed to Las Vegas.
Las Vegas is
not as warm as Arizona, I have been told, but we love that it is just a one-day
drive back to Lander. We tow a car behind the motorhome so we can come and go
and leave the rig at a very nice park in Sin City.
This spring we
saw our first snowstorm in Vegas. It was their first snow in 10 years. Still
warmer than Wyoming, fortunately.
Over the past
10 years, we have put 45,000 miles on our two motorhomes and have been all over
the country from Texas to California to Washington and Wisconsin.
We also have
been all over Wyoming from Devils Tower to Cheyenne to Evanston and
Jackson. Also everywhere in-between,
including Wheatland, Buffalo, Worland, Greybull, Lovell, Newcastle, Laramie,
Kemmerer, and Powell.
It has been a
blast. So I apologize to those folks who
happen to get behind us on a two-lane road somewhere in Wyoming. It is just the
Sniffins headed off on another adventure.
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