Fulltimers are conservatives and I'm not talking about politics. We sure are not liberals in our RVs. Yes, I drive our 38 foot motorhome down the road and get 8.5 miles per gallon, but we are moving everything we own including our Honda CR-V that is hitched to the rear. But we don't drive the motorhome very many miles every month. I know several people living in houses that drive long distances to work in a SUV getting about twice the miles per gallon of our motorhome. When we get to our destination we drive the Honda and average 26 mpg. We only have one car compared to two or more for most of those living in a house with a foundation.

Living in a motorhome we are aware of every gallon of water we use and our 105 gallon fresh water tank has lasted as long as thirteen days. Our black tank (45 gallons) holds toilet water and our gray tank (65 gallons) holds water from the sinks and shower. We can also go thirteen days before needing to dump those tanks. With four storage batteries for the house part (the engine has two separate batteries) and an inverter we can run most everything from the batteries and recharge them with solar panels. With the solar panels we can crank up our satellite dish and watch television in the middle of the desert without using any fossil fuels. If we need to run our air conditioners we can fire up our 7.5 kilowatt generator which sips about 3/4 gallon of diesel fuel per hour. Our catalytic heater is 99% efficient and it keeps our motorhome toasty warm down to the freezing level outside.

The last three months we have been in one campground with full hookups (electric, water, sewer) which has been nice. I estimate we use about 30-40 gallons of water a day including our clothes washer and very little electricity. Our motorhome has 50-amp service, but our campsite has 30- amps and that is all we need to run anything in the motorhome. Often when we leave the campground I turn off the electric at the outside post so the motorhome used no electric except solar power.

Our motorhome is about 14% the size of the house we owned before going fulltime. Plus the house had a heated basement storage area and a two car garage. In the house we had 200-amp service and used thousands of gallons of water monthly. Looking back at the house I realize we heated and air conditioned rooms we seldom used, then we poured water on the grass to make it grow and fired up a gas guzzling lawn mower and weed trimmer to cut it. I don't think we ever turned the main circuit breaker off to the house so it received no power like we do in the motorhome.

So when we lived in a house we were liberals and now we are conservatives. Next time you see a large motorhome driving down the highway, remember, you are looking at conservatives.