We caught sight of a nice-looking fifth wheel in an empty parking lot, seemingly discarded by its owner. But as we watched, a maroon dually truck pulled up. Two people got out and went into the rig. They removed boxes, suitcases, an office chair, and other things from the coach and put them in the truck. Then they drove away.
Those two people were us. Here’s what happened with our abandoned RV.
After leaving the Phoenix area in May 2020 as full-time RVers, we knew we’d never have to spend another summer in the region’s oppressive heat. Then our youngest daughter, Becky, and her husband, Nathan, had our grandson in June 2026. That necessitated a trip out West to meet the little guy.
While in town for that visit (we flew and left our rig in Michigan), we bought a mobile home in the mobile home/RV park where we spend our winters. We didn’t buy the place to live in but to rent out and/or flip. We learned that our best chance at getting six-month renters for the winter season would require us to have the place repaired, furnished, and ready by Sept. 1. As a result, we packed up our rig at the end of July and headed from Indiana to Arizona.
In just a couple of weeks, we went from Midwest farmlands to rolling hills to plains to prairies to deserts to plateaus to mountain views.
Overnight stops
As full-time RVers for six years, we’ve grown to love boondocking — living off the grid. Our fifth wheel is equipped with solar panels, a 75-gallon freshwater tank, a 50-gallon black water tank, and two gray water tanks totaling 85 gallons of capacity.
The western part of the United States offers myriad boondocking opportunities. And making a long trek in just a few days, we’d normally stay overnight at a rest area, Bass Pro, or Walmart with no hookups. Knowing we were up against 100-degree temperatures meant we couldn’t do that if we wanted decent sleep. We had to find options with electricity to power our air conditioners.
Our go-to in this situation is Boondockers Welcome. Many hosts offer electric hookups for a small fee, much less than a campground charges. We didn’t find many of these available on our planned route for the time of our travel that could handle our size rig.
Our next option is Love’s RV Hookups. We stayed at a really nice one near Amarillo, Texas. They’re a bit pricey, but so are many campgrounds.
Our third choice is campgrounds. They’re sometimes cheaper than Love’s RV Hookups, but not always. And they tend to be farther away from the highway.
Evicted by heat
Oftentimes for overnight stops, we keep the truck connected to the trailer so we don’t have to reconnect it in the morning for another day of travel. From Missouri to Arizona, that wasn’t an option in August. When we opened the RV door to go inside, the digital thermostat greeted us with a reading of 98. Ugh!
We had to plug in, turn on both air conditioners, disconnect the truck, and head into town for dinner to give our home time to cool off.
When we had returned to Arizona in mid-September 2024 for the birth of our granddaughter, we quickly learned that the two air conditioners in our fifth wheel weren’t designed to compete with 100-plus-degree temperatures. Generally speaking, the indoor temperature is 10 degrees cooler than the outdoor one. (That’s largely because our air conditioners are ducted. Ductless would blow cool air directly into the rig rather than distributing it through the already-hot ceiling.)
Knowing this and returning in August, we decided we’d put our rig in storage and stay with Bob’s mom while we fixed up the rental.
Vacancy preparation
We had put our rig in storage before but only for a week or two at a time. Preparing to leave our home for up to three months — one to two months to fix up the rental and one month on a cruise vacation to Alaska and Japan — required a lot of logistics. We had to find a place that could house our rig, determine what needed to be removed from the coach and what could stay, pack for our cruise, and identify a staging area for us to move things out of the RV.
After driving about eight hours from Amarillo to Snowflake, Arizona, we pulled into an RV park, disconnected the truck, set up the rig — including opening all four slides, something we hadn’t done on previous overnight stops — turned on the air conditioners, and went into town for a meal. The rig cooled off, and we had a restful night.
The next morning, I got up early and started packing. I removed all food from the pantry and cabinets, grabbed summer clothes for our time in Arizona, went through all the bathroom cabinets and took essentials we might need in the next three months, pulled items from under the bed and my office, and basically checked the rig from front to back. Bob helped too.
I moved some things outside, as the clutter quickly overwhelmed me, even bringing me to a breaking point. Maybe there should be shirts that say, “I’m sorry for what I said while packing the RV.”
Despite my meltdown, I kept working. I also cleaned the entire rig as I didn’t want to put it into storage dirty and risk gaining stowaway rodents.
Moving out of the RV
Five hours later, we were ready to close the coach and make the 3.5-hour trek down to the Phoenix area, affectionately (or maybe not so affectionately) known as the Valley of the Sun. We descended the mountains, watching the truck’s display of the outdoor temperature climb.
It showed 111 degrees as we pulled into an empty parking lot, our staging area. We disconnected the truck and loaded it with our belongings to make the first of three trips to Bob’s mom’s house.
After we finished that, we prepared the inside of the RV for up to three months in storage, reconnected the truck to the trailer, and drove to the storage lot, grateful we had paid for covered parking. Bob carefully backed into our spot. We disconnected the truck, leveled the rig, opened the empty fridge and freezer to prevent humidity and mold from growing inside, and said goodbye to our home, essentially abandoning it.
We’ve made a few trips back already to collect items we didn’t originally take but have needed. We look forward to when we can return to living in our rig. But for now, we’re thankful we have a roof over our heads, a bed to sleep in, food to eat, and family to spend time with. God is good.
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