Bismarck Tribune

By VIRGINIABy VIRGINIAGRANTIER

He was a big man in a small home. An unusual sight.

And he liked it that way.

Outside of his relatively tiny motorhome abode, there were motorhomes the size and swell of adult sperm whales, while he sat in a camper that looked more like whale bait.

Walter Fischer, 82, of Champaign, Ill., was attending the Family Motor Coach Association's international convention in Minot on Tuesday in his motorhome that's all of 19 feet in length, compared to his neighbors' 40-and-more-footers. But he didn't care.

"We have everything they do except it's all pushed together,"he said.

Fischer pointed out the television, the microwave, two-burner stove, pantry, clothes closet and so on. And it was so easy to point out.

From his co-pilot seat in front, he could have touched probably most of them with a modest stretch.

His Leisure Travel motorhome has a tight-squeeze, excuse-me-excuse-me aisle, and there's a doorway tall enough for those who duck.

But the man has no RV envy. The bigger motor coaches of rock-star homes' proportions don't matter to him or Ruth Moak, 79, his co-traveler.

"I could buy one if I wanted to," Moak said.

But a big one isn't wanted.

Moak said they don't spend that much time in the motorhome, anyway.

Moak, a retired elementary school teacher, usually is inside reading while Fischer's often outside doing various things. And since Fischer has vision problems, Moak has to drive and she has no desire to drive something bigger.

Their home seemed to be the tiniest around in this rally of more than 3,000 motorhomes. But it did seem that the small ones, birds of a feather, did seem to park together. On their parking row at the state fairgrounds, there were a couple more motorhomes in a cluster - in the 20-some-foot range - that were noticeably smaller than their looming neighbors in the next row.

Those that loomed, though, were likeable.

Bob Whitaker, 72, of Mission, Texas, who owns a roughly 40-footer that shadowed Fischer's 19-footer, had kind words to say about his tiny neighbors.

He commented that there is indeed a difference in class. But not in a bad sense of the word.

Whitaker possesses a Class A motorhome, while the tiny neighbors' is classified as Class C.

But none of that matters.

"Class A, Class C, we're all family here," he said and chuckled.

And he recalls when he himself had had a 22-footer. He and his wife, two Samoyd dogs and two cats lived comfortably. And he thinks he could do it again, if need be. But there's no need.

One of those owners of a "lower class" motorhome, A.J. Mickler, of Florida, said that his 29-footer can get into places the big boys can only dream of: Places such as Denny's Restaurants and other restaurants' parking lots.

And he can easily get into other parking lots. Often, the big coaches have to unhook the car they're towing before they can park in places, he said.

Mickler is selling his relatively small home, though. He bought it to make the trip to Alaska. Back at their Florida home base, where they own 10,000 acres of farmland, is their Bluebird, a 43-foot motorhome.

Mickler's wife, Carole Ann Mickler, 63, said she was willing to travel smaller for a while.

"As long he didn't get rid of my Bluebird," she said.

She said her Bluebird has, among other things, a washer and dryer, and televisions front and back.

No small thing.