aztec7fan Report post Posted May 21, 2009 Hello everyone. My name is Chris Guenther and I've been in motorhoming for about 40 of my 44 years. We started out in a converted city bus in 1968 we called "Brunhilda" because it was so underpowered, it had a hard time getting out of it's way. A couple of years later, we upgraded to a 34' 1957 Fitzjohn and our adventures began. We took an 8-month trip throughout the US, and then when we settled down, we 3 months each summer to continue to explore the country since my parents were teachers and we had the time off. Our F-number was F3508 and we had many wonderful experiances at rallies and National Conventions. My favoirite memories were the local rallies where near dinnertime, someome would set up a large camp fire, someone else would bring a guitar and my mom would either bring her german flute or her autoharp to harmonize and everyone would join in singing folk songs and other familier tunes. Us kids would roast marshmellows and throw sticks in the fire and at some point we'd end up in bed and the parents would come back to the fire to tell stories about their recent trips. We met some great people as well. I remember the Hideras (sp?) who had a small 24' coach but had two Great Danes, which was interesting to us since we had the large coach and had two Minature Pinchures. There was the "Chrome Dome" who had completely chromed out his engine and coach. Some guys decided to play a trick on him and poured oil under the engine. When they told him about the oil spill, he crawled under the coach and touched/sniffed the oil, crawled back out and said, "this isn't mine, it's too dirty". When I grew up and had a family of my own, I knew I had to get a motorhome as well. When we could afford it we purchased a 1991 Allegro Bay and had some great trips in that coach in the 1990's. We had to get rid of that when the telecom industry fell apart around 2002 and I lost my job, but now our family is back with a late-model Southwind. I hope to see you soon. Chris G (F 3508-S). Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
tbutler Report post Posted May 24, 2009 Hello Chris, Welcome back to motorhoming! Compared to you, we are newbies! Sounds like you have lots of good stories. Perhaps you could share a series of them in a BLOG! It would be fun for us newbies to hear stories from ye olde dayz! I came to motor homes after a lifetime of tent camping. My parents took us camping starting in about 1959. We always enjoyed the adventure. There are many fond memories and many things we still joke about. It is from those experiences I drew my love for travel and adventure. For years I camped with my family, taking vacations all over the country. I still carry a tent with us and on occasion will strike out for an adventure in the tent! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
aztec7fan Report post Posted May 28, 2009 Thanks for the reply. Yes, I thought of creating a webpage of FMCA and motorhoming memories. If I doo, I'll post a link here. I don't think I could convince my wife to ever camp in a tent again ever since we struck our tent in a rain storm and woke up the next moring with a "moat" around the air mattress. When the weather's nice, they are appealing though, since you are much closer to nature. Another quick story: We pulled into a FMCA rally late one day, and all the good spots were taken. A couple of campers decided to pull a joke on my dad and told him there was one more spot with hookups at the end of the row (neglecting to tell him that they knew none of the utilities were hooked up on the pole!). he pulled in and somehow quickly assesed that the pole was dead, but he spent several munutes hooking up wires and hoses and within a few minutes he had somehow wired it with a touble light so it looked like the powere WAS working and set up a hose with running water so the pluming looked like it WAS running as well. He had the last laugh. --Chris G. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
TDKeenan10 Report post Posted May 28, 2009 Hi everyone. Diane and I are going to become fulltimers soon. Years ago, we had a Holiday Rambler Imperial 35 that we lived in full time, but we were working at the time, so we used the mobile home park for our address and residence. Now we are buying a Monaco Signature and are planning to be on the go all the time. We would appreciate any advice you can give us, especially advice on residency, voting, Fed and state taxes, etc. We have family scattered throughout the US that would act as a mail drop for us. If we pick one, does that tie us to that State? Are we better off getting a PO Box in Montana? Thanks for any help you can give us. See you on the road. Tom and Diane Keenan Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
