The ups and downs of living in a motorhome (part 4)

For the last few days, I have tried to highlight a few of the many upsides of living in a motorhome.

Today, I will chat a bit about a few downsides.

(1)  Access to consistent medical care:  This could be a real deal breaker for some.  If you suffer from a chronic illness that requires periodic monitoring, full timing might be a little intimidating.
One of the reasons Rob and I decided to take this adventure now was because we are both healthy and active.  We recognize that nothing is guaranteed so we decided to take advantage of our good health.  If we need to see a physician, we make it work.  Our insurance is accepted at most hospitals and clinics.

(2)  Access to medical care for pets traveling with you:  Little Annie Belle has Addison's disease.  This requires a shot once a month and medicine every morning.  I learned how to give the injection to save her the stress of a once a month vet visit.  Her daily medicine must be refilled so I just make sure I have her records.  When either of our girls gets ill, we just find a vet and take the records with us.  So far, it has worked well.

We are all well and happy.

(3)  Living in a small space:  This is not an issue for us.  We are certain we could be perfectly happy living in a tiny house.  A subset of the small space is very limited space for clothes and shoes.  Again, not an issue for us.  It was very liberating to go through my clothes and such and be very realistic about what I needed.  Rob is a guy and we know how some guys are.  Some can live with four pairs of underwear, two pairs of pants, three shirts and two pairs of shoes.

(4)  What to do with the motorhome in an emergency:  Rob and I agreed that it was absolutely essential that both of us know how to drive the motorhome with the car in tow.  If one of us had to fly somewhere then the other was left with the entire rig.  This need came to light last October.  Hurricane Matthew was barreling towards the east coast of Florida and we were in Iowa.  Rob's 95 year old dad lives in an assisted living facility and they were being evacuated.  Rob and I headed south and managed to get him on a 0600 flight out of Nashville, TN.  We got as close as we could to the airport and he then got a cab to the terminal. 

There I sat, in a Denny's parking lot at 0500.  I got the girls settled, and drove out of Nashville heading towards Alabama.  I will admit that I was so nervous that I was sick to my stomach.  It was dark and I was skirting through a fairly large city.  I knew I could handle the rig but doing it alone is a little intimidating.  All went well and I arrived in Alabama with zero issues.

So, learn about your rig and make sure both of you can handle it.  I have met many who do not adhere to this but that would not work for me.

(5) Seeing less of family and friends:  This might be another deal breaker for some.  We are a military family so we have lived with this for over 30 years.  We keep in contact with family and visit every now and then.  Most of our family thinks that what we are doing is awesome and they keep up via my blog.  Our adult children seem fine with it.  We talk and text regularly.  They both have lives of their own so we would not see much of them anyway.

So, life in a motorhome.  Is it for you?  I cannot really say.  It is not something to be done on impulse.  If you decided to have a go....enjoy.  It is beautiful out there.

I can almost always say that I have had:

OUR CURRENT LOCATION

Another great day in this thing we call life.