The following excerpts are graciously contributed by the author:

The First Chapter:

Introduction:

My husband John and I bought our first RV in 1985, one year before our retirement from the Canadian military. I was nearing the completion of 26 years in the Air Force and John was ending 33 years in the Navy. In May, 1986, we sold our house and after placing some furniture and keepsakes in storage, we sold everything else. Three months later we said goodbye to our military life and jobs and hit the road on the way to our new life.

At that time I was 44 and John was 48. We were also newlyweds (four years) and thought the world was our oyster. Every place we explored was a new adventure and every person we met was a new friend. Our expectations were high and our experience was limited but, somehow, we managed to balance the two even though some of the lessons we learned were not only expensive but also extremely frustrating. Nevertheless, we were free to enjoy ourselves and follow our dreams and 11 years later our journey continues........

Over the years I have had many opportunities to share our experiences of the RV lifestyle (or as RVers say, the good life) by talking to others and conducting seminars at RV dealerships and rallies. The first draft of this book was written in those early days. It seemed that everyone we met was hungry for information. The seminars led to our participation as crew members and field reporters for the first 13 weeks of a Canadian RV television series, an experience that went beyond my wildest dreams. This opened the door to writing columns for several Canadian RV publications......

After we bought our first RV, we spent several months in a campground 20 minutes from work. Our neighbours, Jack and Eunice, were seasoned RVers who explained the ins-and-outs of the RV lifestyle. In my writing I try to be as helpful as these wonderful teaching neighbours.

Peggi's favorite chapter:

EXTENDING LIVING SPACE

You did it! You bought your new RV and visions of exciting adventures crowd your thoughts. Although your unit might be big enough for your plans, now that you've brought it home, it looks so small compared to your house that it's difficult to imagine how you'll ever find enough space for all your "must have" comforts.

Don't worry, there are endless ways to conveniently carry special extras in easily accessible places. This chapter explains how to pack plus travel tips, outdoor hints, cleaning ideas, towing and driving techniques and simple maintenance tips to make your travelling life fun and easy.

The first step to actually getting on the road to enjoy your new life is packing your RV. One cardinal rule for RVers is to never overload the unit. That, however, doesn't mean you can't make space for necessities and, keeping these three simple guidelines in mind will help you to adjust.

1. Make your RV a comfortable home so you won't miss your other home;
2. Utilize every nook and cranny that you can find to extend space;
3. Don't pack things so deep you must dig for them.

Seven pages of tips and hints follow.

"Peggi's fulltiming chapter"

Mail Bag ("We get asked this question so often")

Message forwarding and cell phones are great for keeping in touch with family and friends but another way is through the mail. Of course, mail is the route that companies use to send us bills. Thanks to the many mail forwarding services, RVers moving from place to place can routinely receive their mail without too much difficulty.

John and I can take advantage of our club's free mail forwarding service. A number of other clubs (including many manufacturer clubs) also offer mail forwarding as part of their benefit packages. Some charge a small fee while others charge your account for only the postage used to send the mail on to your destination. For a fee, Canada Post, as well as several businesses (see advertisements in American RV magazines and newspapers) on both sides of the border also forward mail at regular intervals.

The policies of the majority of these services are similar and as an example, I'll explain how our service works.

Whenever we move from one campground to another, we let our club's head office know the address of our new location to receive mail. Anyone who writes (or sends bills) to us must put our name and membership number on the envelope along with our club address. Because our name begins with the letter "M", our mail leaves the mail forwarding department every Thursday. We phone a 1-800 number before 5.00 p.m. Eastern Standard time every Wednesday to give them our location in the U.S. for the following Monday. (Note---when mail is sent to Canada we allow ten - fourteen days).

Redirection can be arranged for either a multiple or one-time mailing or we can request "until further notice". By using this service we know that our mail will reach us every week that we are on the road. If we modify our itinerary and don't connect with our package, it's automatically returned to sender after 15 days.......

To cover postage charges, you can forward a deposit or, do as we prefer, have the monthly postal fee charged to a credit card....

"Spirit of the Open Road" is no longer available ... see: RV Living in the 21st Century