David Morris and his wife Ann retired from their respective jobs in the Alleghany Highlands, purchased a motorhome, a 40’ 2002 Monaco Dynasty, and joined the ranks of Full-Time RVers.
David, who was born in Lexington, Va. and grew up in Buena Vista, retired in Nov. of 2015 after completing 30 years at WestRock that was named Westvaco when he first landed a job there as an instrumentation mechanic in 1985.
He recalled, “I had been working for BE&K Construction located in Birmingham, Alabama when Westvaco began building their No. 1 paper machine.”
He continued, “I was working in Mobile, Alabama when I got a call from my sister who told me our dad had cancer.”
After requesting a transfer to work for BE&K, Inc. at Westvaco, David was granted one, and he and Ann moved from Mobile to the Alleghany Highlands where he could be closer to his father who lived in Buena Vista.
“While we were building No. 1, three people at Westvaco retired, and I was fortunate enough to be hired to replace one of them,” David remembered.
Ann, who was born in Houston, Texas in 1956 two years after David was born in the Stonewall Jackson Hospital in Lexington, began substituting as a school bus driver.
She said, “I started substituting as a school bus driver for the Alleghany Highlands Public Schools when Sam Cook was in charge.”
She reminisced, “I was going to school at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas, when David and I first met.”
David was working in nearby Lufkin, Texas, and he happened to be a renter in the same apartment complex in Nacogdoches. The couple met in March of 1976 and were married that summer in July.
After being employed for three years as a substitute school bus driver, Ann was hired to drive on a fulltime basis, and she retired after completing 25 years in that capacity.
They have three sons. The eldest is Charles who was born on Flag Day, June 14, 1982. He lives in Rockport, Texas, about 20 miles north of Corpus Christi.
Justin is their middle son, and he was born on March 2, 1984. He lives in Alleghany County and is employed by Williams Fabrication, formerly Jenfab.
Adam, the youngest, was born on July 21, 1985, and he is employed by CSX as an engineer.
The couple’s first two sons were born in Selma, Alabama, and Adam was born in Montgomery, Alabama.
Ann noted, “All three of our children attended Sharon Elementary School, but they attended and graduated from James River High School.”
Because Ann’s family lived in Texas, she and David did a lot of traveling to Texas and back during the years they spent working in the Alleghany Highlands.
Ann revealed, “Because his family is from Virginia and my family is from Texas, we traveled back and forth for years.”
Both said that they had discussed becoming Full-Time RVers for a long time, and their home on wheels is a “back pusher,” a motorhome with the diesel engine in the rear. Their motorhome has a living room, a kitchen, a bedroom and a bathroom. It pulls a 20’ enclosed trailer that houses the couple’s 2017 Lincoln MXC along with chairs, tables and camping equipment.
As for their travels during the past five and a half years and for the many trips they made with their boys before they retired, the couple has visited all 50 states.
On one of the motorhome’s slide-outs, they have posted a map of the U.S. that reveals the states they have traveled in and camped for at least three days.
Ann remarked, “We have a criteria to meet before we post a sticker for a state.”
Their three requirements are that they must stay in a state a minimum of three days, eat at a local or Mom & Pop establishment while there and eat local cuisine.
David remarked, “We try to do an activity that is unique to the area, and yesterday, we floated down the Cowpasture River, and you can’t find clean rivers everywhere like the Cowpasture.”
He and Ann noted that the Cowpasture River is one of the cleanest rivers in America.
They have joined the Escapees RV Club based in Livingston, Texas, and campgrounds across America that belong to the Escapees RV Club offer discounts to RV campers who are club members.
While David’s family remained in Virginia without moving westward, Ann’s family’s roots reveal that the Hudson family were Irish who moved from Connecticut to Hudson, Ohio, then to LaGrange, Indiana and on to Texas.
She and David shared a story about attending a three-hour parade in Savanah, Georgia on St. Patrick’s Day where they learned that Savanah has the highest Irish population in the nation other than Chicago and Boston.
Ann has conducted geological research during their travels, discovering much about her Hudson family’s tree that she did not know prior to her travels as a Full-Time RVer.
“The reason we continue doing this traveling is that when it gets cold, we can leave and go south, and when it gets hot, we can leave and go north,” Ann observed.
The couple’s three favorite places they have visited outside the Alleghany Highlands are Shipshewana, Ind., where they visited the third largest Amish settlement in America, Rib Lake, Wisconsin, where they spent time in the woods at a Christian camp and Elk River, Idaho, that has a population of 125 but many attractions to visit such as the world’s largest cedar tree and Dworshak Resevoir’s dam that is only six feet lower than the Hoover Dam.
Concerning the reason she wants to continue her life as a Full-Time RVer, Ann concluded, “It’s the freedom of being able to do what you want when you want.”
David agreed with her conclusion, “What amazes me is how many highly educated and successful people are enjoying this lifestyle.”
According to the Recreational Vehicle Industry Association, the RV industry has grown more than 150 percent since 1992, increasing from $4 billion to $11 billion annually as an industry.
With gasoline and diesel fuel prices spiking, Full-Time RVers often choose to stay for longer periods of time in one place to cut fuel costs.
The couple’s motorhome gets six miles per gallon, and with diesel fuel currently at more than $5 per gallon in most places, their upcoming trek to Alaska in May will be an expensive journey.