Mtn. View RV ParkBaker City, Oregon USA

“… forest fires are burning up the West, and I have often felt like I was in a bad L.A. smog,” writes RV Travel editor Chuck Woodbury in this weekend’s newsletter. “In the gorgeous campground at Craters of the Moon National Monument in southern Idaho, where I should have seen a million stars in the night sky, I saw one. The smoke was thick. My eyes hurt. That campground cost me $ 5 with my old person’s discount. It was a great deal except for the smoke.” Read more by clicking here.

Photo: Chuck Woodbury’s campsite at Craters of the Moon National Monument. (RVTravel.com)

RV Wheel Life

In the recent online edition of RV Travel’s free newsletter, editor Chuck Woodbury writes about his plans to visit the National Steinbeck Center in Salinas, Calif., to see John Steinbeck’s custom-built truck camper made famous in “Travels with Charley.”

Other authors have written about traveling in an RV with their pet companions, but Steinbeck certainly was, and remains, the most famous.

It was back in 1960, the same year John F. Kennedy crisscrossed America on his campaign trail, that Steinbeck, then 58 and ill, embarked on his own trans-continental 10,000-mile trek with his French poodle, Charley.

For three months Steinbeck weaved his way through this country in “Rocinante,” his three-quarter-ton pickup and camper, named after Don Quixote’s horse.

Published in mid-1961, “Travels with Charley: In Search of America” became one of the largest commercial successes of Steinbeck’s career and won him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962.

“Travels with Charley” is both a journal of personal discovery and commentary on America at the brink of Vietnam, the Beatles and mini skirts.

It has been argued that much of what Steinbeck wrote, the details about exactly where he was, when, and who he talked with, was fictionalized. It is also said that on more than half of his trip he did not travel alone with his dog, but was actually accompanied by his wife, Elaine. To read more on this, go to a New York Times article: “A Reality Check for Steinbeck and Charley.”

Still a good read, this travel memoir remains in print (paperback) for about $ 10. An audio version, narrated by ‘CSI New York’ actor Gary Sinise, runs about $ 20. Copies of both versions are available at many public libraries.

Photo source National Steinbeck Center

RV Wheel Life

Solo RVer Meg Brubacher began her RVing adventures about a year ago when she purchased her 2002 24-foot Four Winds Chateau Sport class C motor home.

“I wanted something roomy enough for us but not too big for me to handle as a single new RVer,” says Meg, who travels with three (Sister, LouLou and Annie — pictured above) of her four rescued dogs. “The old guy, Scout, who is 16, stays behind with my niece.”

Last year Meg’s ‘test ride’ covered more than 4,000 miles–from Ontario, Canada, to the Coastal Bend of Texas and onto New Orleans. After touring the South for three months, Meg pointed her RV home to Canada.

In November 2011, she returned to the warmer temperatures of the USA Sunbelt. On this circle trip, there will be stops in North Carolina, Florida and Arkansas.

“We’ve been busy and enjoying every minute,” writes Meg in a recent e-mail. “Annie and I do agility training and trials, which has been great.” (Dog agility is a dog sport in which a handler directs a dog through an obstacle course in a race for both time and accuracy.)

Meg now considers herself a fulltime RVer and advises other single women who might want to try RVing to “Just do it.”

“After some study on the subject,” she says, “buy a rig and get out there and experience the lifestyle. You learn as you go–about yourself, your rig, what works and what doesn’t.

“I believe a lot of people change their minds after their first rig and get something different that suits their needs better. You cannot know it all until you are actually doing it. Also the people one meets in the campgrounds and highways are some of the best, most fun-loving, helpful people you’ll ever meet.”

Read more of Julianne Crane’s writings on RVWheelLife.com.  

Photo: Fulltime RVer Meg Brubacher travels with three of her four pet companions: Sister, Annie and LouLou. (Julianne Crane)

Women RVers