In the Beginning

Like for many of us, a camping vacation or weekend consisted of a van, pickup truck and camper shell, or even the family sedan with a load of coolers, sleeping bags, tents, and an assortment of camping equipment. For a lot of us, some of these camping trips could turn cold or rainy at times. Haven't we all, at one time or another, had to picked up and pack up a load of wet camping gear. After years of great and sometimes not so great camping trips, because of that occasional storm, we decided to get out the weather when it could turned bad, stay warm and dry, and try an RV.

On December 31, 1991, we bought a 1979 Beaver, Class C motor home. After our first couple of "runs" we were "hooked". Having all the conveniences of a motor home and to be able to enjoy the outdoors was the best of both worlds. Whether it was getting out of bad weather, a late night "nature call", or cooking and eating inside away from the wind or bugs, we were really enjoying our "new" motor home.

Our first big "run" was in March, 1992. We left San Jose, California on March 7 bound for San Jose, Baja Sur, Mexico. This turned out to be one of the best trip of our lives. 2400 miles down and back through the Baja is truly a great adventure. We also gained a lot of valuable experience. We really felt like veterans after only 4 months of Rving.

Over the next eight years we traveled over 50,000 miles in the Beaver. We traveled throughout the Western United States, staying in both private, State, and National parks. . We also dry camped a lot in the Southwest Deserts, as well as, the many motor racing facilities throughout the West. We are avid long time race fans, an an RV fit nicely into our passion for racing. We also joined several membership RV parks in order to give us the most range of choices for places to stay.

Lets go Full-Time

Over that eight year period with the Beaver, we would often return home from a trip and say to ourselves, "Boy, I sure wish we could have stayed out there and gone on to that next place that we wanted to see". Well, in January, 1999, we decided to go full-time. We sold the Beaver (actually traded it in, no one wanted a used-up 79 Class C) and bought a 1999 Alfa Gold 5-th wheel, along with a new 1999 Ford F-350 Pickup Truck. We both are computer related consultants and have our own company, BJ Consulting, Inc. Since we are not retired, and much of our work in home office related, working from our RVhas made this possible. Since January 1999 we have made one cross-country trip, seen many wonderful areas of our country, and are continuing to explore as many new places as we can.

Our Web Site

This web site is our attempt to share as much as we can about our life out here full-time on the road. The name alfazed stands for "A" (Greek for the letter "a" or "alpha" spelled alfa after our trailer) to "Z" ( chiefly British for letter "z" or "zed"and the nick name for our truck). Meet alfa and zed.

We feel that the more we can share with other experienced RV'ers or people that a new to Rving, the more we can all benefit along the way. So take a look at the site, enjoy it's content, and please feel free to e-mail alfazed with your comments.

Joseph "Joe" E. Laube
Barbara "Barb" J. Nolley