It's summer and that means it's RV season.
City considers the rolling homes-on-wheels to be iconic.
Perhaps, but getting stuck behind a RV in Yellowstone Park brings to mind other four-letter words besides "Icon."
Julia Rothman is the talented illustrator behind-the-scenes and she has some funky digital patterns for sale on her website. I don't have any creative thoughts on what to do with them, but the designs are damn cool nonetheless.
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Home with Unlimited Range: The definition of an RV is “a vehicle that combines transportation and temporary living quarters for travel, recreation and camping,” according to the Recreational Vehicle Industry Association (RVIA). Thus, the models range from small $5,000 folding pop-up trailers to $25,000 truck campers mounted on the back of pick-ups to the custom-made $400,000 luxury motorhomes clogging our nation’s campgrounds, national parks and Super Wal-Mart parking lots as we speak.
Stuck in Middle America With You: As someone who has driven on (name any) U.S. highway, freeway, parkway or driveway when it’s warm outside, let me tell you, traffic is a bitch. And let’s just say that RV’s aren’t helping the free-flow of the American automobile, and it ain’t getting any better. A 2005 University of Michigan study commissioned by RVIA found 8 million households own at least one RV, which is up 58% in the last 25 years and explains why RV was the most popular eBay search term in 2004. Moreover, the study projects another 500,000 RV-owning households by 2010, in no small part because it isn’t just your grandparents’ getting their motors running anymore. The most common ownership demographic is 35-54 and the fastest growing is the under-35 crowd. So either get busy building a hovercraft or join the RV nation, idling in traffic peacefully knowing you can write off the interest on the mortgage loan for your second home.
RV-evolution: RV’s in basic form came soon after Henry Ford’s Model T’s started rolling off the assembly lines. Makeshift structures, tents or mattresses Murphy-bed style were added to the chassis of cars and all kinds of Rube Goldberg vehicles were created, even a trailer fashioned out of a hollowed-out spruce log. In 1913, wooden “hard-sided travel trailers” were introduced, which led to innovations that reached a nadir in 1936 with the Airstream “Clipper,” a silver, monocoque, riveted, aluminum body that had electric lights, carried its own water, proffered dry-ice air conditioning and remains cool today.
Six Bits of tRiVia: (1) The 1952 Executive Flagship was 65 feet long, 16 feet wide, 13.5 feet tall, slept six, had two bathrooms, a 21” television, a wine cellar a portable pool and cost $75,000. (2) The “motor home” was first built by farmer/engineer Ray Frank in 1953. (3) In Travels With Charley, John Steinbeck told of his cross-country RV journey with his poodle in a camper truck he named Rocinante, after Don Quixote’s horse. (4) The warm and fuzzy term “recreational vehicle” didn’t exist until marketing folks cooked it up in 1966. (5) Elkhart, Indiana is the “RV Capital of the World” because so many manufacturers are based there. (6) Mae West owned a 1931 22-foot 6-cylinder "HouseCar" with a dining room, kitchen sink, bathroom and back porch. West’s “bungalow on wheels” slept four, which was good, but it also had room for her to be bad, which was better.
(City, summer 2006)
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