Inappropriate Toys
Hart Ranch is an upscale campground and the camping rigs reflect its status in the campground world. If you are wandering around in an old camping rig and wanted to stay here, you would be allowed in for three nights at $39.95 if you would sit through a sales talk about becoming a member. You can also stay here if you are a member of some of the courtesy discount membership clubs for RV’ers, such as Coast to Coast, or Resort Parks International which let you stay at affiliated membership CG’s for a reduced price, for a few days. These clubs require you to “buy in” to a membership park at $2,000 to $3,000, pay a fee of $150 and a yearly dues of $75 or so. This pretty well keeps the riff raff out. There are some elderly Airstreams and Avions and some other vintage trailers and motor homes including an old 1940’s Greyhound bus with pink trim, and the people who own them seem to be of an age to have bought them new, but there are few folks like me joyriding around in an old one.
A good number of the members are homeowners in the Rapid City area and store their trailers here in the large lot ( 600+ RVs !!). They can then call ahead to have their rigs moved to a site for them, so some don’t even own a tow vehicle. Since SD is one of the preferred states for full time RVers because of easy vehicle registration and no income tax, many of the license plates are SD, whether they have a home near by or not. If you are a member of this CG, you get to stay on a site for 21 days free, but then you have to move off for 9 days, either to the less glamorous sites in the “tenting” area and pay $16 a night, or go somewhere else. This forced mobility and the fact that you cannot get the same site over and over means there are no sheds, screen houses, fences, flamingos, mini gardens, or dead cars on the sites. Again this keeps the drifters and indigents out although I do miss the decorations of lights, cut out plywood animals and gnomes that local campers add to their summer campsites. There are outbreaks of wind`chimes, hanging ornaments made of sliced and everted soda bottles or multi colored PVC art, and some garden critters. We all have asphalt or concrete slabs to park our vehicles, picnic tables and lawn chairs on, but must keep the lawn areas clear for the horde of lawnmowers that are in constant action somewhere on the probably 30 acres of lawn.
The most expensive and biggest rigs are the motor homes, which look like buses decorated with swooshes and stripes, usually on a beige or dark background. They are tall, sometimes over 40’ long, imposing and can run as high as $1,200,000. They can have as many as 4 slide-outs which each give you another 36” of space unless it is the heavy kitchen stuff or a closet that slides out which is 18”. Inside they have marble counters, tiled baths, twinkle lights in the ceilings, king sized beds, Sub Zero fridges, washers and dryers, dish washers, leather couches, solid wood cabinetry and gas fireplaces. And wall to wall carpeting, with central vacuum cleaners. 42”Plasma TV including one outside in one of the basement bays so you can watch TV sitting around the campfire (which are not allowed here, too dry and also too messy). Many of these are custom built and look more like upscale whorehouses to me. So as to have something less cumbersome to get around in, most of them pull a “toad” a smaller vehicle, in a matching color if you are really doing it up.
Next down and we are bottom feeders in this class, are the fifth wheels. These can run you $100,000, but can be had for $50,00 and have many of the same things inside, but since the bedroom area is up over the bed of the pickup truck, you get a little more floor space. These can have as many as 5 slide outs and up to three axles. The roominess makes them a favorite of full timers, plus you get to use the truck to get around in. The trucks to pull the larger ones are huge diesel creatures made by Freightliner and Peterbuilt with mini-sleepers in them, a second row of seats, diamond plate storage compartments and sit way up in the air. $100,000 of trucker fantasy. Not my idea of what to take to Walmart. The fifth wheels tend to be white with swooshes or mountiany graphics and the big trucks are painted to match.
Fantasy in a big expensive package. The lure of the highway, freedom. Since we are no longer judged successful by our jobs and our houses, it appears to be necessary to have these monsters. Financially, their owners will take a bath, since the value of new RV’s tumbles dramatically as soon as you drive it a mile down the road, and there is no future for the manufacturers in making them last longer than the 5-10 years the over-the-hill gang has left. I hope that these folks have not sold everything they own to make this “investment”.
It is the age of the owners of these great beasts that is the scary part. A rig that would require a special license and training to drive if it were a commercial vehicle is being guided down the highway at 75 MPH by folks who have not been driving much more than a car for their whole lives, and whose eyesight and reactions are showing some deterioration, not to mention some stubbornness about their diminished driving skills. Many of the motor homes and fifth wheels are grossly over weight, which means they have a stopping distance akin to an ocean liner. They would never get through a truck weigh station. Imagine them on a construction area of an interstate where the concrete Jersey barriers have narrowed the lanes, or an older bridge with no extras on the side. As far as I know, purchasing one of these requires only that you have the bucks, and then you are free to go. I consider myself the bow wave of the Baby Boomers, and I have not yet actually reached the general retirement age, so there is an avalanche behind me. Plenty of people my age or even younger have taken early retirement and ventured out on the highways. Lest I be accused of ageism, there are many, many people younger than I whose driving skills are not up to being the captain of a huge RV. And then there’s road rage: 60,000 pounds of nearly unguided missile on the highway.
One wonders if they are having any fun. In the park here we have golf(18 hole PGA), the pool, hot tubs, tennis and volleyball, miniature golf, video games a pool table. Craft and Fleamarket every Saturday. And of course Mt. Rushmore, Reptile Gardens, Flying T chuckwagon supper and cowboy entertainment, Bear Country, the usual assortment of caverns and water slides. Since it’s the Black Hills we also have gold mine tours and gold jewelry outlets. I see a lot of time spend polishing their rigs, shining the chrome, buffing the big pick up truck. I don’t envy them, I would be bored to tears without a job to do.
A good number of the members are homeowners in the Rapid City area and store their trailers here in the large lot ( 600+ RVs !!). They can then call ahead to have their rigs moved to a site for them, so some don’t even own a tow vehicle. Since SD is one of the preferred states for full time RVers because of easy vehicle registration and no income tax, many of the license plates are SD, whether they have a home near by or not. If you are a member of this CG, you get to stay on a site for 21 days free, but then you have to move off for 9 days, either to the less glamorous sites in the “tenting” area and pay $16 a night, or go somewhere else. This forced mobility and the fact that you cannot get the same site over and over means there are no sheds, screen houses, fences, flamingos, mini gardens, or dead cars on the sites. Again this keeps the drifters and indigents out although I do miss the decorations of lights, cut out plywood animals and gnomes that local campers add to their summer campsites. There are outbreaks of wind`chimes, hanging ornaments made of sliced and everted soda bottles or multi colored PVC art, and some garden critters. We all have asphalt or concrete slabs to park our vehicles, picnic tables and lawn chairs on, but must keep the lawn areas clear for the horde of lawnmowers that are in constant action somewhere on the probably 30 acres of lawn.
The most expensive and biggest rigs are the motor homes, which look like buses decorated with swooshes and stripes, usually on a beige or dark background. They are tall, sometimes over 40’ long, imposing and can run as high as $1,200,000. They can have as many as 4 slide-outs which each give you another 36” of space unless it is the heavy kitchen stuff or a closet that slides out which is 18”. Inside they have marble counters, tiled baths, twinkle lights in the ceilings, king sized beds, Sub Zero fridges, washers and dryers, dish washers, leather couches, solid wood cabinetry and gas fireplaces. And wall to wall carpeting, with central vacuum cleaners. 42”Plasma TV including one outside in one of the basement bays so you can watch TV sitting around the campfire (which are not allowed here, too dry and also too messy). Many of these are custom built and look more like upscale whorehouses to me. So as to have something less cumbersome to get around in, most of them pull a “toad” a smaller vehicle, in a matching color if you are really doing it up.
Next down and we are bottom feeders in this class, are the fifth wheels. These can run you $100,000, but can be had for $50,00 and have many of the same things inside, but since the bedroom area is up over the bed of the pickup truck, you get a little more floor space. These can have as many as 5 slide outs and up to three axles. The roominess makes them a favorite of full timers, plus you get to use the truck to get around in. The trucks to pull the larger ones are huge diesel creatures made by Freightliner and Peterbuilt with mini-sleepers in them, a second row of seats, diamond plate storage compartments and sit way up in the air. $100,000 of trucker fantasy. Not my idea of what to take to Walmart. The fifth wheels tend to be white with swooshes or mountiany graphics and the big trucks are painted to match.
Fantasy in a big expensive package. The lure of the highway, freedom. Since we are no longer judged successful by our jobs and our houses, it appears to be necessary to have these monsters. Financially, their owners will take a bath, since the value of new RV’s tumbles dramatically as soon as you drive it a mile down the road, and there is no future for the manufacturers in making them last longer than the 5-10 years the over-the-hill gang has left. I hope that these folks have not sold everything they own to make this “investment”.
It is the age of the owners of these great beasts that is the scary part. A rig that would require a special license and training to drive if it were a commercial vehicle is being guided down the highway at 75 MPH by folks who have not been driving much more than a car for their whole lives, and whose eyesight and reactions are showing some deterioration, not to mention some stubbornness about their diminished driving skills. Many of the motor homes and fifth wheels are grossly over weight, which means they have a stopping distance akin to an ocean liner. They would never get through a truck weigh station. Imagine them on a construction area of an interstate where the concrete Jersey barriers have narrowed the lanes, or an older bridge with no extras on the side. As far as I know, purchasing one of these requires only that you have the bucks, and then you are free to go. I consider myself the bow wave of the Baby Boomers, and I have not yet actually reached the general retirement age, so there is an avalanche behind me. Plenty of people my age or even younger have taken early retirement and ventured out on the highways. Lest I be accused of ageism, there are many, many people younger than I whose driving skills are not up to being the captain of a huge RV. And then there’s road rage: 60,000 pounds of nearly unguided missile on the highway.
One wonders if they are having any fun. In the park here we have golf(18 hole PGA), the pool, hot tubs, tennis and volleyball, miniature golf, video games a pool table. Craft and Fleamarket every Saturday. And of course Mt. Rushmore, Reptile Gardens, Flying T chuckwagon supper and cowboy entertainment, Bear Country, the usual assortment of caverns and water slides. Since it’s the Black Hills we also have gold mine tours and gold jewelry outlets. I see a lot of time spend polishing their rigs, shining the chrome, buffing the big pick up truck. I don’t envy them, I would be bored to tears without a job to do.
posted by Thistledown24 at 11:57 AM
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