Traveling in a House on Wheels

The road trip is a deeply ingrained part of American culture. Cruising the highways and taking in the natural wonders of the country creates experiences of a lifetime. See everything in style from the comfort of your own wheels—and make friends along the way—in a recreational vehicle.

“ Even before we had the motor home, we traveled a lot and enjoyed it,” says Doug Sparr, a retiree from the City of Wooster who now works part-time at Eastwood furniture in Kidron. The Sparrs celebrated their 20th wedding anniversary in September and have no children, lending them a lot of flexibility on the weekends.

“ [My wife] didn’t want to camp anywhere other than the Holiday Inn when we were first married,” Sparr says. He convinced her to try it, but they had to be watchful of Ohio’s mercurial weather. “It’s not fun camping in the real hot weather or rain.”

Making the leap to a motor home six years ago had its challenges, “The first night wasn’t fun at all,” Sparr says. “I couldn’t figure out how to turn on the water heater. I had the manual out, sitting in the dark and thinking: what have we got ourselves into! I woke up the next morning and found a switch on the wall that said water heater.”

He laughs about it now, but that lesson informs the advice Sparr has for those considering entering the RV lifestyle. “If you’re buying something used, take somebody knowledgeable.” Even with new vehicles, Sparr says mechanical issues can come up, and there’s always something to fix or alter—much like a house.

Sparr’s wife, Laurie, who works as an executive assistant with OEConnection in Richfield, advises that RVing can get expensive quickly if you’re not careful. “We thought we’d go to a pop-up trailer,” she says of their initial upgrade. “Somehow [we] ended up going from a tent to a 37-foot motor home, [but] we had our budget and didn’t go overboard.”

Now the couple is in a 40-foot motor home they take out just about every weekend between April and October. “It’s basically a house on wheels,” she says. “The best part about going from a tent camper to a motor home was always having my own bathroom and shower, not having to use the campground’s.”

Other amenities Sparr loves are her convection oven, washer/dryer combo, and four TVs. “I have a bigger closet than I do in my house,” she adds. “That’s why we call it ‘glamping.’ It’s not camping so much.”

The Sparrs generally stay within two or four hours of their Wooster “brick-and-stick” home, favoring the state parks.

“We go to the ones in Amish country quite a lot because we love to go down there and shop,” she says, “which is actually kind of funny, to be glamping in a big motor home in Amish country with the horse and buggies.”

However much the couple loves RVing, they have no plans to sell their home and go on the road full-time. “That’s a big move,” Sparr says, though she knows people who have rented their homes for a year to give that lifestyle a tryout. “I’d like to go for six or eight weeks and have something to go back to,” she says

“ The plan is when we both retire to travel the country, see the US and Canada,” Doug Sparr says. Though not yet fully retired themselves, the couple currently enjoys the variety of ages they encounter at campgrounds. RVing is considered a sport for older people, and the Sparrs—in their mid-fifties—are often among the youngest at rallies. But they also see younger families with kids, other Boomers, and an older demographic at RV sites. “There are people our age or older who take their parents with them.”

In that older demographic of RV enthusiasts are the Mayhews, who are both 86 years old and retired—Milt from Goodyear’s aviation product division where he was in sales, Lou Anna from teaching elementary school for 31 years. They have three grown children and five grandchildren, and they’ve been married for what Lou Anna describes as 64 “delightful, easy, happy years.” The couple has been RVing for 24 years, in which time they’ve visited Missouri, Texas, Washington D.C., New York, New Hampshire, Kentucky, Indiana and over 35 Ohio state parks. “We love the state parks in Ohio,” says Milt Mayhew. “They are some of the best in the country.”

When Milt retired a couple of years before his wife, he said to himself, “I’d like to do something different. I stayed in hotels and motels so much, I said what about getting a camping trailer? Lou Anna had never camped; I did as a kid.”

The Mayhews haul their 21-foot camper with their Suburban, making theirs one of the smaller units at most campgrounds. But that doesn’t mean it lacks amenities, something very important to Mrs. Mayhew.

“ I love it; it’s well laid-out,” she says. “I’ve never camped in my life and I wasn’t interested. I found I was losing the battle, so we chose one. [Now] I just love the trailer.”

With its double bed, full bathroom, air conditioning and full kitchen, the trailer is now considered the Mayhews’ home away from home. But more than its amenities, the experience of RV travel has been fulfilling in ways Lou Anna hadn’t expected.

“ I’ve turned completely around because we’ve met so many wonderful friendly people,” she says. “When you stay at a hotel, you don’t see anyone or talk to anyone. When you camp, everyone is so friendly. We’ve made friends from all walks of life.”

By taking their folding bikes along to ride around the campgrounds, the couple keeps active, something they want to do as long as they can. “I don’t know how much longer we’re going to be doing this because we’re going to be 87 [this year],” she says.

Milt Mayhew advises anyone interesting in RVing to begin by consulting experts at an RV show. “If you’re not sure what you want to do, start out small,” he says. “You can always go bigger. We have stayed small all these years because we enjoy what we have.” And that’s been good enough, even for non-camper Lou Anna, for as Mayhew says, “She’s a happy camper now.”