How nimble is a 35' Class A motorhome?

RedJeep wrote:

FormerBoater wrote:
5 years, not FT..no toad...Enterprise when a car is needed.

Have not encountered a single grocery store that we could not park and go in and get what we needed.

Move from CG and return? Cable, power, water hose and sewer and off you go..easy peazy IMHO.

My wife and I just drove 14 hours today from NC to Fl and we had a game where we counted towing vs. not....Daytona 500 traffic was heavily northbound aborting the race due to weather and it was about 60% with toads.

Now, I do not know if the race distorted the mix, but that is what we saw so lots of the non-FT crowd do not feel compelled to tow.

FormerBoater (Dave), You have a 40' DP and "Have not encountered a single grocery store that we could not park and go in." This is very encouraging. It sounds like a 40' motorhome is a lot more nimble than a 40' fifth wheel. On Friday I bent my side ladder (hooked a little tree) in a grocery store parking lot. I had to use blocks of wood to make a ramp to run over an aisle curb in the parking lot. I had paid attention to the curb but not the little tree next to us. So, my question is; are you really able to drive a 40' DP through most grocery store parking lots?

Thanks,
---Robert (redjeep)

Robert,

As you can see many will disagree, but all grocery stores have room for the semi's to bring inventory to the loading docks at the rear of the store. Most of the semi's have to enter from public roadways, go into the public lot to get to the loading docks in the rear.

The bottom line is there is plenty of room to enter and exit the public lots.

We always scope out the lot and do a drive-by before entering. We know what section of the lot we are heading to before we enter.

In the spirit of full disclosure, we live and travel mostly in Florida. Most Florida grocery stores are in strip malls with lot's of vacant storefronts, hence the abundance of empty parking spaces. Americans want to park as close to the grocery store as possible, therefore plenty of spaces on the outer portions of the lots.

Here at home, I always drive the coach to the nearest Publix in Deerfield Beach and load the food and beverage after leaving the storage facility.

Local Fire Dept. does the same thing....they drive their much longer truck and get their groceries (and it does not bend in the middle either LOL). There are enough empty places to park that the firemen and I can load up at the same time.

Good luck with your decision.

Dave