Jeff Duntemann's ContraPositive Diary

Yes, Carol and I caught a Bigfoot a couple of weeks ago. Big, yes: 25 feet long, and just under 12 feet high. Feet, no: Our bigfoot has wheels. What we caught was a never-used 2006 Bigfoot Model 30MH24DB RV, and the capture was a bit of an accident. The local Bigfoot dealer here in Colorado Springs went bankrupt, and we heard that their inventory was being liquidated. So although it wasn't precisely what we were looking for, the price asked was so stunningly good that we decided to give it a shot.

Carol and I have rented RVs before, and I've described our adventures in this space. We haven't been able to travel as much as we would like, especially here in the West. Our experience staying in hotels in out-of-the-way locations has been very mixed (you can't always find a Hyatt when you want one) and this is one solution.

We bought it about a month ago, but that was serendipity, and we didn't have a chance to actually take it out on the road until this weekend, when we went out with our church's RV group. The destination was Mountaindale Campground, which is only 16 miles from our front door, south down Highway 115 toward Cañon City. We think traveling with more experienced RVers is a good idea until we get our RV chops, and that has worked out very well, especially considering that two of the people in our group are RV repair technicians, one of whom actually worked for some time at the Bigfoot dealership that went under.

The Bigfoot is a little taller than a lot of Class C RVs (Class Cs are the ones with van-ish cabs and a bulge over the cab) and what that buys is storage space. Beneath the floor are several compartments that can hold a lot of stuff, one of them big enough to lug a considerable telescope. Being from Canada, the unit is much more heavily insulated than RVs built here, not that I intend to do a lot of cold-weather camping. Insulation works both ways, and we have hopes that it will take less A/C to keep it cool in summer.

The weather for our first outing was stunningly good. Most of what I did was learn how to operate and maintain the unit, which has a manual so thin and poorly done that it may well be worse than blissful ignorance. (I had to slap myself to keep from outlining Bigfoot RVs for Beginners in my head as I was struggling to make sense of the electrical system.) Carol and I did take QBit and Aero for a hike up to the top of a nearby hill, but most of the time we spent taking it easy in the company of friends, and listening attentively to RV war stories. I may well write my own damned manual just to keep all the heuristics straight, and if it gets good enough to go up on Lulu, so much the better. In the meantime, we have a vehicle in which to see some of Colorado, and attend local dog shows where Carol will be showing Aero. (There is a lot of RV culture in the dog show world—and in fact at the recent Tarry All show north of Denver we ran into a couple who travel in a Bigfoot unit identical to ours while showing Gordon Setters.)

I'm not sure I could live in it for weeks and weeks, but it will get us around to the mountains I've never seen and don't want to miss in this life. As for computing in an RV, more on that as time allows. I learned a lot this weekend, and am learning even more reading the RV forums online. One addditional thing I learned is this: Don't use Vista. Really don't use Vista. Every time I have to rescue somebody from its clutches—as I did this weekend—I hate it more. Ubuntu 8.04 comes out in three days, and there's a partition waiting for it, on an SX270 machine that I may "build in" to the Bigfoot. Again, more on that has it happens.