ER since 1999

[audreyh1]

I have been ER for about 6.5 years, and I just now find this forum?!?

Where have you people been? (Where have I been?)

Loving ER!!

Husband and I were able to discover a whole new passion together - wildlife photography - and in the past year we completely redesigned our lives around this hobby. We got rid of our house, bought a nice motorhome, and now travel the country exploring natural areas.

(Our home on wheels)

And no, we don't sell our pictures. We use professional camera gear, we shoot professional quality photographs, but we don't sell anything. Why? Well that would make it WORK.

We have been known to donate our photos for good causes.....

Audrey

 

[Sheryl]

Hi Audrey!

Welcome to the forum.   

Although I personally don't think I'll ever give up my home base, I've been very interested to read about the fulltime RV lifestyle - I hope you'll hang around here and share more about it with us.

 

[Jay_Gatsby]

Nice RV and Jeep. Personally, I'd prefer a Harley on a trailer, but that's just me.

 

[audreyh1]

Hey thanks for the welcome folks!!

Jay - nope, no Harley for us!! I'm very glad DH got motorcycle riding out of his system in his teenage years. But you can actually mount a Harley on a rack on the back of your motorhome AND pull a car too. We see it all the time...

Sheryl - well the fulltime RV lifestyle definitely involves some serious tradeoffs and it's not a good match for everyone. It certainly depends a great deal on the hobbies/activities you enjoy. There is nothing wrong with part time RVing either - although that's definitely a more expensive way to go since you have both house and RV expenses.

It never occurred to us to become fulltime RVers until we kept traveling more and more for our wildlife photography and nature exploring, and started seriously resenting having to return to a house. Finally, DUH!!, we figured out that we could travel all the time if we wanted to.

Now if we had owned a home we really loved in a location that we really loved: would we have sold the house? Not so sure about that.

Audrey

 

[Mountain_Mike]

Audrey,

Good for you guys....wow, I'm envious.

I'm curious....do you have a P.O. box somewhere, or do you have mail forwarded to a friend or family member? To get a drivers license in this state, they require a street address. How do you work with constraints like that?

Glad you found this place.

Regards,
Mike

 

[audreyh1]

We have family collect and forward our mail.  That's really nice.  We do use a PO Box for our mail, but the family have the keys. If they didn't do it, there are several companies that would provide the same service.

We use my mother-in-law's address as our street address.  That's totally legit.  Some people use a campground where they sometimes stay.  You can pick almost anything.

There are organizations like www.escapees.org which helps you set up a totally legit Texas street address. 

These kinds of issues are regularly discussed at the forums for www.escapees.org and www.trailerlife.com.

Audrey

 

[Howard]

audrey, not sure if you have travelled north of your Border, but Newfoundland is certainly worth a visit as is Vancouver Island.

Spectacular scenery, but in NFLD, it is the people, easily the warmest miost welcoming souls you will find anywhere.

Sydney Crosby of the Pittsburgh Penguins is from there, he is the Real Deal.

 

[audreyh1]

audrey, not sure if you have travelled north of your Border, but Newfoundland is certainly worth a visit as is Vancouver Island.

Absolutely plan to visit BOTH PLACES!  Been close to each and heard great things.

Another place we love north of the border is Manitoba.  We adored Riding Mountain NP and can't wait to return to it in our motorhome.  Churchill was great too - but we can't take our motorhome there   (no roads to it).

And then there's Alberta and those spectacular Canadian Rockies.  Gotta go there again too!!!

Audrey

 

[wstu32]

just an awsome story!

 

[free4now]

Wow that's exciting... I have interest in travelling the USA over an extended time and doing photography of old decaying structures and such. I'm especially interested in night photography along the lines of what you see on

www.lostamerica.com

and it's inspiring to hear of others living the dream. Do you have a website of your photos?

 

[audreyh1]

 Do you have a website of your photos?

Not yet. That's been a work in progress for quite a while now.......

We carry an archival quality photo inkjet printer with us and enjoy making prints of our best photographs. People get blown away when they see birds at 2x - 4x life size with all the incredible feather detail. And they are always shocked that an inkjet printer can do such fine printing.

Printing digital photos is a whole 'nother art form (or perhaps craft - because there is a lot of technical stuff involved in fine printing).

Thanks all for the kudos. Glad it's inspiring. We feel very lucky.

Audrey

 

[free4now]

Yep, I recently took a course in color correction and inkjet printing. Luckily these days you can get 90% of the way towards great prints by just buying a good printer and using the manufacturer recommended inks and papers. I'm very happy with my HP 8450.

I know that fancy RVs like yours often get broken into. Have you found a good way to secure your camera gear? I'm thinking about getting some kind of lock box for my car to store camera equipment in if I do another long trip.

 

[audreyh1]

I wasn't aware that fancy RVs like mine often get broken into? I guess the thefts I hear about occur when someone has their RV stored somewhere (as opposed to living in it all the time).

We have insurance on our camera gear. We tend to be more concerned about it being stolen from the car. Would your lock box be bolted down in your car?

Yep - the printer is key although color calibration is also critical. We have an Epson R800 which prints with archival inks. We'll be upgrading to a slightly large version soon (so we can do our 13 by 19 prints again).

Audrey

 

[TromboneAl]

I built a device that clamps over my trombone case, and had a hasp lock on it. I drilled a hole through the floor of the trunk (no, not through the gas tank), and put an eye bolt in there. That way I can lock the trombone in the car, and feel a lot better if I want to do other things before or after a gig.

I also built a secret compartment in my pickup. Nice to have.

 

[Nords]

I also built a secret compartment in my pickup.  Nice to have.

That must be a small trombone!