#18 THE NEW NOMADS (part two) - 23 APRIL, 2024

 WHAZAMMO AND THE GILLIG #18  (Click the "MORE POSTS" link at the bottom to find Post #1) 

If you just got disgusted with yard, lawn, and house maintenance (time and expenses),  improving your property just to have your taxes go up, or putting up with a homeowners organization, heating/cooling electrical costs, city water-sewer charges, and $3,500.00 a month house payments, what is your alternative ?

For us it has always been a paid off 40 foot boat or bus (we are on #6) with everything included for far under a thousand dollars a month-total !  once there, it is hard to ever again stomach doing a $4,500 dollar a month "land home" (that you will never own).

The term "Recreational Vehicle" (RV) for me was always an elitist, city kid, white collar, poshy term that was insulting, out of touch, and Corporate-Dealer-Salesman lingo; the very mention of "recreation" was enough to turn me off.

Definitions of "recreation" vary, "to refresh by physical influence after exertion", "activity done for enjoyment when one is not working", any form of play, amusement, or relaxation used for this purpose, such as games, sports, or hobbies, Camping and outdoor activities (day camps, resident camps, float trips, etc.).

The term "Motor Home" is what it says, a "home", after the horse-drawn Gypsy Vardo, and covered wagons, there was the stationary "Rail car... today's "motor home" and "Tiny House" are the survivors of those full-time pre-1920 era lifestyles.   

If you want to confuse things, begin considering the "Mobile home", (also known as a house trailer, park home, trailer, or trailer home) a giant, barely movable (but mobile) structure that grew out of the rail car, semi-trailer, travel trailers (often called "house trailers" or "trailer coaches"),  originally tied to the department of transportation maximum length/width highway vehicle rules.

Most states had around a 100-foot maximum overall length 10-12, and eventually (after Interstate highways), 14-foot maximum width rule (with wide load signage), not to be confused with the 1976 and newer "Modular" homes.    

As you drill down through all of the cutesy names, and types, after you mix it all together, it is firstly needing to be "Street Legal", or "Permittable"  by law... in 2024, 45 foot X 8' 6" wide and 26,000 GCWR is pretty much the maximum you can drive without having a Commercial Drivers license (keep in mind, almost all 40-foot diesel pushers weigh 26,000-45,000 lbs), if you do the math, that's around 382 square feet of living space, the Oregon Small (tiny) Home Specialty Code (OSHSC) allows a maximum of 400 sq. ft. before you become a full-blown foundationed "house".  

The end result is, this blog site, and the pages inside are "for" that 400 square foot (and under) FULL-TIME "home", not... for the recreation-fun-weekender, part-timer rig.     Granted, using tilt outs, or having a high-floor bus chassis almost doubles your space, this blog has no interest in anything with a tilt-out.

Making the premier-top of the line (envy rig) a 45 foot high floor with full under cargo space the ultimate for building into a home at around 600 sq. ft. of expandable space to begin building with.

A standard American city parking space (on-street or parking lot) is 20 foot x 8 or 9 foot wide, so, if you are building something to be universally legal, you might seek a bumper-to-bumper length of under 22 foot and hope a lot.   Once past the 22-foot mark, you may as well go "big", yesterday a huge 240" bumper-to-bumper ( black 3500 RAM Promaster 4WD van, was in the space next to me as I parked, I got into lengthy conversation and tour... if you are into these small rigs (click here, and weep), at $175,000 it has it all.

Between the 20-footers,and the 35-40 foot Skoolie/Coach busses, is perhaps the majority vehicle size group, with many shuttle buses, older motor homes, shortie skoolies, and step/box vans, these easy-to-drive, good mpg, rigs are super affordable and plentiful, they can be snuck into a lot of places as "RV or campers" rather than as "bus or motor home".  Once into the 35-40 footers, that dog-nosed Skoolie stigma enters, fortunately, the bus industry has converted, and there are a lot of flat-nosed candidates (both gas-diesel, front-rear engined) out there to choose from nowadays, and most are high-floor!

When concentrating on building up a  35-40 foot bus, as a full-time "home" built (from scratch), you must begin to address parking as a very real issue, the public and police do not notice 22-foot step vans, or even a 22-foot high boy box truck ... but, pull a bus into their neighborhood, or take up two full parking spaces, and things change... as a result, the RV park, KOA, Thousand Trails, Good Sam, VFW lots see a great many of us (instead of the side streets) and they make a lot of money.   The current "bussing" of unwanted immigrants makes "every" bus an NGO people mover in the eyes of the public.

Unkempt, amateur looking, or shoddy motor homes of any type have taunted the angry residents, who have even set up call circles to make co-ordinated multiple police complaints with. The homeless crisis plays in, and the impound lots are overfull with broken-down motor homes and RVs of all types, 2023 and 2024 have simply broken the system of tolerance for wanderers, travelers, tourists, and anything other than a stick-built house.

All of this impacts "you" as a home-on-wheels person, and it greatly impacts what you build, and how it looks... and, where you park it (or are allowed to park it).  As the courts and governments create homeless rights, freebies, and support (financial and housing), and offer non-citizens SS numbers, drivers licenses, food stamps, free medical, transportation, housing, low-income loans and cash, they also prevent you from parking, or dwelling in a motor home...  so, you can be considered homeless, but yet not homeless both ! you can get help with your tent, but not your RV !   MAKES PERFECT SENSE. 

So we are looking at yet another change in our Nomadic motor home history, by the creating of the "Park model"... when we started on the GILLIG that was our reason to intentionally "not" include holding water, grey water, black water tankage or a generator, that would make us "boondocker" clients, we built the GILLIG as a Park Motor Coach, intended for shore service hookup (and living) "ONLY" (50 amp, water, sewer).    The 20 foot legal parking space built rig, and the 35-40 foot Park model motor home builds will survive this crisis... I believe the 21-34 foot rigs and dog-nosed "anythings" are all doomed, and our new landlords (RV parks, city ordinances, city residents and police ) simply are poisoned by this homeless/immigrant situation, and will never accept our being in their midsts again. 

We are the "new" nomads... going RV park to RV park, and state campground to state campground as "Park models", no more horses, but still a lot of shit...