I wrote this column for the Arizona Republic a few years back, but it still applies!

“The Snowbird Club”

By

Gerry Niskern

. Have you ever complained about or made fun of the hundreds of motorhomes that arrive in our valley each winter? Come on, I know some of you have.

Actually, those Snowbirds in their RVs are tougher than you think.  They deserve a lot of credit for surviving in their tiny little home for six months each year.

Last weekend on our anniversary we took our “new” previously owned motorhome on a shakedown cruise.  “Don’t worry” we told our kids, “Nothing to it”.

I was cautioned, “Don’t over load the storage space. We’ll eat out most of the time.  ”  So I took, four eggs, a half loaf of bread (no toaster) and 4 hot dogs .  I was receiving plenty of instructions from the guy who has taken the universal male oath to never follow instructions.

The first evening, we couldn’t drive to dinner because we were tethered. We had already plugged into the RV Park’s power source for water, electricity and sewer, put out our awning, and set up our outdoor chairs; hot dogs for our anniversary dinner.

We wondered why the overhead air conditioning wasn’t working when we tried to stay cool that first afternoon; the  next morning we realized we were plugged in, all right, but the park hookup breaker wasn’t on. . The refrigerator had been off on all night

I took my shower with explicit instructions of “how to shower in a motorhome on two gallons of water” Sounds easy till you try it; especially with someone yelling through the door, ‘Don’t use too much water!’ Instead of a two gallon, I’m guessing I had a two-pint shower.

The large coveys of Quail we had enjoyed watching all day suddenly disappeared about 5 o’clock. When we tried to sleep with the one lightweight blanket we had packed  we knew why the Quails hunkered down early. Nights in the Arizona desert are freezing.

In the morning the tub had three inches of grey water.  We tried a plunger and then searched for Drano.  Finally we read the instruction manual. Guess what? There is a control panel to check everything!  There are three water tanks in a motorhome. The clean water tank, the grey water from showers and sinks, and the black water tank (you don’t even want to know!)

The furnace went on unexpectedly the next evening. We worried it might be malfunctioning so we shut off the propane and flipped the circuit breakers inside. That worked. That is until the next morning we couldn’t get the coffeepot to brew, the micro to work and then we realized the frig had once again been off all night.

On the way home we agreed: Maybe we’re not tough enough to be Snowbirds.