My wife and I really enjoy spending time at different wineries around the country and tasting the wide variety of different kinds of wines made in Texas. Fredericksburg sure has their share and everywhere we visited, the owners were very happy to allow us a tasting of their fine wines. We had actually stumbled across Fredericksburg several years ago when we flew into San Antonio with another couple to spend a couple of weeks and we just sort of stopped by on a whim. Now if we are close to the area, we make a point to reserve a day to see what is new around the city that we did not know about before.

Each year that we return to the Texas Hill Country, we have to go back to Fredericksburg and the area hasn’t disappointed us yet, it just keeps getting better. One thing that is very striking around the city is the number of bed and breakfast houses in the downtown area. They seem to be everywhere! The same way with RV parks and campgrounds, there certainly is no shortage of places to park your RV around Fredericksburg.

Our main reason for this visit was a little event they hold several times a year called Trade Days. For my wife, the lure of a bargain is impossible to resist, so we found our way outside of the city toward an area that hosts the Trade Days event. When we arrived at the banner showing the entrance to Trade Days, I am guessing this at one time was a farm or ranching operation. The pasture has been turned into parking and many of the vendors who display their items for sale were setup in one of the 6 long barns on the property. I can not begin to describe the different types of items or the sheer number of vendors at this event, but we spent half a day wondering from booth to booth as my wife jumped around looking at everything like a kid in a candy store. Of course, many of these treasures must have needed a new home as they headed into the parking lot with us for the trip by to Ohio eventually. I am waiting for the day we have to try to pack the motorhome and head back north to see where she plans to stow all these items.

Heading back toward Fredericksburg with our new found items, we stopped by a place called Wildseed Farms to see what sort of items we further needed to add to our collection of odds and ends rattling around in the truck of our rental car. This place is huge and obviously a big attraction to the gardeners of the world. Flowers, pots, plants, planters of all types, seeds and much more. It was overwhelming to me, as my idea of gardening is to let my wife handle it. I don’t know a flower from a weed and when in Ohio, I have very strict boundaries as to where the lawn mower is permitted to be used.

Fredericksburg is home to the National Museum of the Pacific War which unfortunately we did not have time to visit as much as I would like to have, due to the day was ending and we wanted to return to Kerrville before dark. As I have mentioned before in other blogs about the Hill Country, the deer take over once darkness falls and they have little fear of walking out onto the highway at night. If you are in the central Texas area, be sure to stop at Fredericksburg, you won’t regret it.

The first term is a Trailer Park. To me, a trailer park is exactly what the name says. Most people who utilize a trailer park are people who live full-time in a mobile home that is in a semi-permanent condition and not designed to be moved with much frequency. A few trailer parks do allow overnight stays and have a few places reserved for such use, but these types of trailer parks are in the minority.

The second term is a Campground. In my opinion, a campground is a place that has limited amenities like water, sewer and electrical hookups, but is where you can stop temporarily and stay for a week or so, but not permanently. Some folks have allowed their campgrounds to be overrun with people staying for a month or several months and soon, the area is filled with semi-permanent campers and people who desire to stop by and stay for a short time are turned away due to space being unavailable.

The third term is RV Park. Again, to me the name says exactly what it is, a place to park your RV for a short period of time. Some RV Parks put a limit on the amount of time you can stay from a couple of weeks to several months, but in my point of view, a stay of 4 months is really pushing it. After all, isn’t the RV lifestyle about seeing the country? Too many people confuse the terms Trailer Park and RV Park to mean the same thing. In our travels, we will bypass RV Parks that have units with hay bales packed around the bottom of the unit or who have decks permanently built on the side of their rigs. If we do have to stay at places that allow this, we move on the next day. We don’t do this because we think we are better than anyone else, rather we are people oriented and in our experience we have found that parks who allow semi-permanent residents are not as friendly to travelers as parks that limit this. I don’t know if it is a territorial type of mentality or just a situation of a few bad apples spoiling the bunch, but we have experienced it enough times that we avoid these types of parks.

The fourth term is RV Resort. Personally, I have never stayed in an RV resort and while I understand many of them have every type of amenity and comfort you could possibly want, the price and the rules have always scared me away from setting up at one. I have looked at many websites for these resorts and while many of them offer stays bordering on permanent stays, some of the regulations are not something I care much for. Some have limits on the age of the people staying at the resort, others have an age limit on the unit you are staying in. I can understand the need for some of the rules, but personally I don’t care much for the information I have found about the resorts and prefer a bit more freedom than most resorts allow. In my mind, many of the RV resorts amount to a gated community with too many rules and regulations for my comfort level.

These are strictly my opinions and I’m sure many folks have a viewpoint different than mine, so share your experiences and let me know what works the best for you.

It happened to me recently due to the current state of the economy, but fortunately we did have a plan in place just in the event that we had to get back to Ohio in a hurry.

One of my clients called and needed me to return to Ohio to take care of some problems within the advertising department of his company. Since we handle the Internet design and marketing for this company, I had no choice but to return as quickly as possible. This left me with a couple of options, load up the motorhome and start back to Ohio or fly back myself, leaving my wife in Texas and returning back to Texas when the job was finished.

My wife and I discussed our plans on how to handle this emergency that would suit both of us as she has fell in love with the Kerrville Texas area and has no desire to leave the area earlier than we had planned to. This left me to fly back to Ohio and then fly back to Texas when possible. I realize that people do this sort of thing all the time, but for our situation, this choice does come with some issues of it’s own.

Our only means of transportation other than the motorhome is our Harley Davidson, which my wife can not operate alone. We have tried to teach her how and many women do ride motorcycles on their own, but she is not confident enough in her own abilities to ride one herself. So, we had to look at other means. This left renting a car so my wife would have transportation in Texas and would give her the means to drop me off at the airport and pick me up when I can return.

The other issue is to put it bluntly, I HATE TO FLY! One of the reasons we bought our motorhome is so we would never have to fly again. So much for that theory, but we also did not know that the bottom would fall out of the economy so quickly, so we have to do what we must to keep going.

We prepared for my departure by going through a checklist of things she would need to be able to do in my absence. Things that I normally take care of would now be her responsibility. We went through many different how to do this scenarios like putting up and taking down the main awning, dumping tanks, resets on power and the like. The main thing was how to get the rig out of the campground in case of an emergency.

The campground we are currently staying at does have a history of flooding, so knowing how to get the rig out of the area if needed was a necessity. We have several friends at this campground who said that they would be willing to help her in case this happened, but I would think these folks who have volunteered to help would be busy trying to get their own units out of harms way in case of an emergency.

We have stowed away all non-essential items and fastened down anything possible that she will not be using and should be able to be ready to move out within 20 minutes. I hope this scenario does not occur, but experience has shown me that it pays to be prepared.

However, there are times when things go wrong and you have to wonder if it is really worth the effort.

My wife and I have been very fortunate in our adventures with very few issues, even considering the fact that we do have an older coach. We seem to be on the side of luck with this and I hope to stay that way.

Unfortunately, our friends Larry and Cathy can’t say the same even through they purchased a brand new coach last summer and it seems that they have had nothing put problems with it.

Larry and I met this winter at a campground in Kerrville Texas. Both of us were from Ohio, so that helps break the ice in getting a conversation going. Since we were only a few lots away from each other, we got to visiting back and forth quite often.

Larry is one of those kinds of folks who is instantly likeable, but has no luck when it comes to anything of a mechanical nature.

The first problem he encountered was the roof began leaking directly over the passenger seat when he washed his rig after arriving at the campground. The water ran down the inside wall and bowed the paneling on the inside of the area. He seemed to take this in stride and borrowed a telescoping ladder from me to apply some silicone sealant to the seam and stop the leak. He then called back to inform the dealership where he bought the coach from that it would be coming back for warranty work in the summer.

Second problem occurred a week later when his hot water tank decided to stop working. Turned out the printed circuit board went bad and he had to call a local RV repair shop to come and replace the part. Another call to the dealership concerning this warranty issue.

The weather can be very finicky down here in Texas, which produced a third problem 2 weeks later. The temperature dropped to sub-freezing and his water line froze, breaking a line inside of his coach! Water running out everywhere from the bottom of the coach. Another call to the RV repair shop and more money, so the problem was fixed.

3 weeks passed without further incident and we hoped his string of bad luck had come to and end, but this was not to be.

Larry forgot one of the cardinal rules in the hill country area of Texas. That rule is to get off the road before dark! The deer own this area once darkness falls and they simply do not move off of the roads. Sure enough, while returning from a trip to Ingram Texas, Larry hit a deer and did over $2000.00 worth of damage to the front of his toad! At this point, I believe he was really ready to call it quits and head back to Ohio and sell his coach at the first chance he had.

After a week of dealing with insurance companies and bills for repairs, I hope this dark cloud of doom has finally moved on. People who live in a RV fulltime or part-time must be aware that things are not always going to be a bed of roses and to be prepared when things go wrong. It will happen eventually as these coaches and trailers are not designed for extremely long use and things do wear out eventually, so be prepared. I think Larry just had an extreme case of bad luck and hope he sticks with it, but time will tell.