
Advocates of motorhomes, Class A to Class C, also pop-up campers, fifth-wheel trailers, pull-behinds and pickup campers often refer to the RV "lifestyle," vaguely defined as life on the road in this modern age.
This week, with my two boys, I headed south, first, on I-35, before hooking a right on I-90 and booking it west through Jackson and Worthingto in Minnesota, then Sioux Falls, Mitchell and Rapid City, S.D., and into Wyoming, crossing circuitously through that state to, eventually, land in Jackson, Wyo.
My RV, such at is, is a pickup camper, vintage early 1990s, a Caribou, made once by Fleetwood, but no longer in production.
Outside and in, it's in pretty good shape, everything works. Or does now.
When I found it alongside a blacktop road in northwest Wisconsin some years back, I bought it after only brief consideration. They guy wanted $2,500 or so for it, a bargain, assuming it turned out to be as described, meaning needing little or no work.
That didn't prove to be quite accurate. The roof leaked — not an easy problem to solve in an RV, because many are made so cheaply. A leaky roof can quickly become squishy framework or plywood, and the whole thing can quite rapidly can dissolve into a pile of tin and rubble.
So, rather than just re-roof with a rubber roof, I tore the whole thing off, re-roofed with 3/4-inch marine grade plywood and covered that it with a solid piece of rolled aluminum.
This and a few other fixes, some cheaper than others, but none that broke the bank, put me on the road on multiple occasions over the past few years.