If you are contemplating becoming an RVer, this might be the book for you. Author Jo Ann Bender thought it would be fun to buy a decades-old RV and go on the road for two months with her husband, Frederick (Bud) Budinger, whom she calls Skipper. So they found a 20-foot, 1973 Ford motorhome, updated the interior a bit, and set out from their home north of Spokane, Washington, for Texas, driving all the way to Del Rio and the Mexican border.
The motorhome cost $7,000, but they incurred $3,000 in repairs along the way. As Bender describes the trip, the motorhome exhibited one problem after another—backfires, popping sounds, dead batteries, the list goes on. And yet, as they limp from one repair shop to another, Bender manages to convey a sense of the freedom and joy of RVing.
They travel down the coast, swing east to be among the Snowbirds in Quartzsite, Arizona, and move on to Austin, Texas and south to the border before heading back home. With an eye for amusing detail, Bender shares discoveries she has made about RVing and at the end of the book, she responds to questions she imagines that readers would have about the trip and RVing in general.
In the end, the 2,000-mile trip is a dream fulfilled, and Bender makes it clear that she believes in pursuing dreams. As she writes, “Fifty to one hundred years after you die, all that will remain is your name and the dates of birth and death, so why not overcome your fears and follow your dreams? The ending won’t change unless you’re one of the very few who play a major role in history. You can have anything you want in life, but you can’t have everything. It all comes down to choices. Why not choose a Snowbird trip in an RV?”
Snowbirds is published in paperback by Downstream Publishing with a cover price of $12.99.
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