What features help you keep RVing?
I'm hoping this will give others ideas that may enable them to continue to RV in spite of physical limitations.
My health problems include morbid obesity, history of 2 episodes of pulmonary emboli so I am on daily warfarin, and a left hip replacement. I sold my old Bounder years ago because I couldn't get up the stairs into it any more. Recently, I've been working out at the YMCA, and thought it would be worth seeing if I could find a MH that I could use.
The 4 problems I foresaw:
- Getting in and out. I needed steps that weren't unbearably steep and had a railing to help me pull myself up.
- A driver's seat that I could get into and out of without help. Initially, I was looking at both class Cs and class As, but I could never manage to get up from a class C seat, I always had to slide out the driver's door so I stopped looking at them. At least 75% of the motor homes I considered had such massive doghouses I could see there was no point in even making the effort to climb in. Many others I tried but couldn't manage.
- Enough room around the toilet that an overweight person could, ahem, make use of it. ;) (You know what I mean, you've seen the floor plans with the toilet tucked into such a narrow space I wonder how even a model-slim person would fit!)
- A bed that two older, overweight people could sleep in without anyone having to crawl around. When we were younger and less round, we did fine in the over-cab queen in a class C. That was a long time ago. lol This wasn't a major problem but it did rule out the floorplans with a double bed tucked into one side of the rear and the bathroom taking up the other side.
The class A I eventually bought met all the requirements except the steps, which were steeper than I would have liked and had no inside hand rail but were manageable with effort. I had to install electric steps (no way would either of us have put away manual steps and then jumped up into the MH) and I'm still working on getting the step positioned right. I'm thinking about adding a couple pieces of 2x4 on one side of each other 2 inside steps, to give me that couple of inches boost to the next step, but I haven't gotten around to it yet.
I hope others will share how they keep RVing!
My health problems include morbid obesity, history of 2 episodes of pulmonary emboli so I am on daily warfarin, and a left hip replacement. I sold my old Bounder years ago because I couldn't get up the stairs into it any more. Recently, I've been working out at the YMCA, and thought it would be worth seeing if I could find a MH that I could use.
The 4 problems I foresaw:
- Getting in and out. I needed steps that weren't unbearably steep and had a railing to help me pull myself up.
- A driver's seat that I could get into and out of without help. Initially, I was looking at both class Cs and class As, but I could never manage to get up from a class C seat, I always had to slide out the driver's door so I stopped looking at them. At least 75% of the motor homes I considered had such massive doghouses I could see there was no point in even making the effort to climb in. Many others I tried but couldn't manage.
- Enough room around the toilet that an overweight person could, ahem, make use of it. ;) (You know what I mean, you've seen the floor plans with the toilet tucked into such a narrow space I wonder how even a model-slim person would fit!)
- A bed that two older, overweight people could sleep in without anyone having to crawl around. When we were younger and less round, we did fine in the over-cab queen in a class C. That was a long time ago. lol This wasn't a major problem but it did rule out the floorplans with a double bed tucked into one side of the rear and the bathroom taking up the other side.
The class A I eventually bought met all the requirements except the steps, which were steeper than I would have liked and had no inside hand rail but were manageable with effort. I had to install electric steps (no way would either of us have put away manual steps and then jumped up into the MH) and I'm still working on getting the step positioned right. I'm thinking about adding a couple pieces of 2x4 on one side of each other 2 inside steps, to give me that couple of inches boost to the next step, but I haven't gotten around to it yet.
I hope others will share how they keep RVing!
