This is the 2nd post of a 5-part series on RV Snowbirding. If you missed other posts on “RV snowbirds wheeling south” Click here.
Snowbird RVers and authors Jo Ann Bender and her husband, Frederick “Skipper” Budinger, traveled in a vintage 1973 Ford Scout motorhome from their home in the Eastern Washington mountains to the south Texas plains. That two-month journey resulted in her 2014 memoir Snowbirds.
“You might say that we become explorers when snowbirding,” said Bender. “To snowbird is to become free as a bird, winging your way across the beauty of places you would never see any other way. Each day brings an aliveness to life.”
This winter Bender and her husband will be wintering in southern California and Arizona’s Valley of the Sun before heading to Florida in February.
The RVing authors are off on a book tour beginning in December. “It’s not for one of my books this time,” said Bender, “but my husband, Bud’s historical fiction, Courage Beyond Expectations. In his case, most of our appointments will be with Indian tribal members, as well as, folks at national parks and museums.”
According to Bender, her blog, Lebensborn Novel may be a running log of highlights of their snowbird trip from Washington State through Oregon, California and Arizona.
In Part 3, we’ll learn more about solo RVer Catherine Woods of Asheville, N.C., who took off on a grand adventure to the southwest last winter.
Photo: Pleasure Way Van owners Jo Ann Bender and Frederick “Skipper” Budinger of Colville, Wash., head to the Sunbelt to escape cold weather near the Canadian border. (Photo courtesy of Jo Ann Bender)
