Escapees March-April 2023

If you thought fi tting everything into your new rolling home was a challenge, just wait till you get out on the road!

room-and-board for ants that I picked up in Florida last winter! My attempts to get them with bug spray have been more life threat ening for me than for them, and they sneer at ant baits and poisons. They are those little “sweet-eating” ants, and ohh, there’s one of ‘em right now... AAAHHAAA! (squish) GOTCHA, you little #@%&%$!. I can’t seem to beat them, and the war has occupied a lot of my “quality time.” Probably the only way to win this war is to detonate a small nuclear explosive device inside the RV and then buy a new RV.

Presented here in a humorous way are some of the little known “bene fi ts” that are included as part of the full-time lifestyle. I’m sure that some of you fellow trav elers will relate to some of these. For you wanna-be full-timers, don’t let these scare you o ff ! Bugs Let me tell you…You are going to discover insects in a totally new and personal way! I have seen bugs that not even the most adventuresome bug-ologist has ever attempted to identify. And they’re not just on the windshield! You fi nd them in the most amazing places…in pockets of your clothing (surprise!!), swimming in your drink (doing the backstroke, usually) and in every conceivable nook and cranny in your RV. There are bugs out there that can shrink themselves down small enough to pass through any screening you can devise and best to just ignore them as much as possible and try to breathe through your nose a lot, while also ignoring the fact that your scram bled eggs are “crunchy.” (ICK!) Ants I can hear you all saying that ants should have been covered under “bugs” but you’re wrong! Ants are way too smart to be considered mere bugs. Try to deal with them as insects and they’ll walk all over you! Ants are busy organizing a raiding party minutes after you back into your campsite, and I am convinced that they can simply jump onto your rig directly from the ground. Or maybe they can levitate—I’m not sure. I am still providing free transportation and then return to their normal size once they’re inside. Most of these bugs consider insect repellants to be a big joke! I can hear them all laughing every time I get out my can of “Off.” I have found that, when in heavily insect-populated areas, it’s

“I found that while several gallons of deep woods OFF was e ff ective, a bottle of Jim Beam and a baseball bat was more satisfying.”

Mosquitos I know, more bugs. Maybe I have a bug fi xation, but when I started full-time RVing, I came from a state where the bugs are thoroughly domesticated: California. Not only were their few bugs domesticated, they were all protected as endangered species. Imagine my horror, if you will, when I found myself in the wilderness known as “the rest of the country!” I quickly learned some hard lessons about man-eating insects. I learned that if mosquitoes fi nd you tasty, and I’m apparently classi fi ed as mosquito “candy,” they may become your number one form of entertainment in the evening. I found that while several gallons of deep woods OFF was effective, a bottle of Jim Beam and a baseball bat was more satisfying. That’s the one where you drink the bottle of Jim Beam. Then when the mosquitos draining your blood get drunk enough, they’ll crash land on the fl oor, and you can smack ‘em with the bat. I’ve been in parts of the country where it’s best to bring along a good sturdy chain to anchor yourself to your rig. That way it’ll take at least four of them to carry

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March/April 2023 ESCAPEES Magazine