Full Timer

I took a big step in my life that my wife and I have been dreaming about for a long time, as of May 1^st, 2012 we are what is commonly known as Full Timers. The dream started about 5 years ago, when we bought our first motor home. Before that we had done a lot of camping but never really considered it that we would go as far with it as we have. A Full Timer is someone who lives in their camper year around. The last 4 or 5 years we have more or less been spending about 100 nights a year in our camper, but always dreamed about what it would be like to call it home. A couple more terms that I think you might want to know before I go on…

A Worker Camper (workamper) is someone who works at the place they are staying in exchange for lot rent and such; normally we see something along the lines of 20 hours a week for the lot rent and utilities. My wife is a Work Camper but does additional hours. During the summers in Colorado I am also a Work Camper on the weekends, because I like to work with the animals and doing the social aspect of the job.

A Snowbird is someone who more or less runs from the snow. In our case, this year we are spending the winter in the desert in Southern California. During the summers we have to go back to our home just south of Colorado Springs, Co.

So you might ask why I tell you all of this… Well I have noticed over the last few conference events that I have done that many people have questions about this lifestyle. Now granted there isn’t a lot of cross over between a DBA and a Work Camper. However, there are some discussion points when it comes to how I am able to work with this lifestyle, and the challenges I face. So, I have decided to start a new category on my blog that talks about this topic. I hope you enjoy reading it, and if you are here for the technical stuff, don’t worry I will keep posting those as well. If you are reading this via SQL Server Pedia please note that this will be my last post to that syndication about this topic. Those posts will remain technical only.

Where to start

With this being a new subject that I may post about I am not too sure where to start. So I figure I will start with why… Why do I choose to live in a camper? Well life is very simple this way; I guess I got tired of being tied down to the house, having to worry about stuff that just doesn’t matter like how good the yard looks. I found out a number of years ago that I have arthritis and if I were to live at a lower elevation that I would feel better. As we talked about how to do this and what is important to us, we were able to start removing requirements for our living situation off our list. For example, I don’t have to have a yard, to me it is nothing but work. I don’t need a lot of space, because it just stores more junk for me to spend money on and then keep around until it breaks. The more we thought about when we as a family are happiest and most comfortable it kept coming back to when we are camping, or when we are on vacation. Living in our camper full time is just like being on a permanent vacation. Some people really look at us like we are a bit odd, and well that is ok. We are happy with our dream and living in a house is just not a requirement.

Where are we now?

Right now I am at the kitchen table, no different than you sitting in a home office. We are currently calling the Riviera RV Resort our home, but by May we will be back in Colorado. We are staying on the Colorado River outside of a small town called Blythe in California. We are located about 3.5 hours outside of L.A. and about 2 hours outside of Phoenix right on the boarder of Arizona and California. We have great cell service, so I am not so we have no need for a land line here. The local cable company was able to run a cable modem right to our hooks ups, where I plugged in my Wi-Fi router. So from our rig we have everything we need for us to work. I do have an air card for internet connection as a backup. I travel about once a month back to Denver.

So our rig is a 40 Foot Alpine 3555 RL. It weighs about 13,000 pounds before we put in the washer dryer combo. Here is a video of the exact model we have, including the colors. Check out the video, I think it helps explain a lot. I had to trade in my Ford because it was just outside of the tow capacity, but got a Dodge Ram in the exact same color my charger use to be.

Well that is about all I can think of posting about it now. If you have any questions please by all means let me know, and I hope to post more about our challenges with this lifestyle soon.