Lazy Daze Owners' Group

In the end it's not just about the motorhome, or whatever other product is at the center. It's about the cult around it, the presence of which to me is essential, a sign that the product in question is capable of inspiring passion, and thus worth getting involved with. Thank you all so much. Owning a LD and belonging to this community have been among the best experiences of my life. I'm extremely grateful to those who have kept this site going all these years, and especially those of you who took it from Yahoo! to this current platform and keep it going. You're all the best.

Thanks for this post, and, yes, congrats to Charles and Donna.

This brings back some good memories. My wife and I had made plans to retire in fall 2004 and knew we wanted RVing to be a large part of our retired life. So we went to the big annual Pleasanton, CA RV show in January 2001. I think we walked through almost every one of the hundreds of RVs there that we might remotely be able to afford, and many we couldn't.

After a long day (or maybe two) we went out to our VW Vanagon Westphalia camper, sat down and looked at each other. We'd come to the same conclusion. There was virtually nothing in that show that we could see ourselves living in for the extended trips we hoped to take. Some were just too much, others too little. Many were tastelessly gussied up, I guess to appeal on the showroom floor. Others were obviously poorly made. Virtually none had the humble but efficient and effective design and style we'd come to appreciate in our "Westies."

We headed for home, depressed. One thing we had decided was that we liked the Class C style of motorhome best of what we'd seen. So I went to the computer and searched for "Best Class C motorhome." And up popped Lazy Daze's humble but informative Web site and other references to Lazy Daze as the best of the Class C's. Among the hits was the Yahoo! version of this nascent Web site. I'd found my RVing home.

Shortly thereafter we made a long weekend journey to Montclair. In those days the LD showroom floor was filled with virtually every model they made. I'll never forget walking out there with no salesman in tow and into my first Lazy Daze and immediately realizing that there was an RV for us after all. The rest, as they say, is history. We took delivery of our 2003 Rear Bath in July of that year and retired a little over a year later. And I'm sitting in that motorhome as I type this, at our campsite at Jalama Beach, overlooking the Pacific Ocean, doing exactly what we'd hoped to be able to do back in 2001.

But of course buying an RV is just the start. One of the things I like about this lifestyle is that there is an ongoing process of problem solving. Nothing really overwhelming but enough to keep things interesting day to day. Where to go, what to do, where to stay, making and breaking camp. And of course the problems that crop up outfitting and maintaining any motorhome.

Throughout this whole process this forum has been right by my side, always there to help me figure out whatever little challenge I'm facing. I've made good friends here, many of whom I now see in person occasionally. Like our motorhomes, it's a humble and down to earth group. No bluster, no posturing, opinions always stated mildly and with the recognition that they may be wrong. My kind of people.

I'll always remember my early days here most fondly though, a little cadre of people gathered online to help each other out with the notion of buying, owning, maintaining and using these wonderful little motorhomes. Many of those members are now gone, but a surprising number remain. I was interested to see from this list that Larry Wade and I joined the same day. And I just saw him this past weekend at the LD Caravan Club's Live Oak Caravan. And I'll never forget Chris Horst coming to visit us in our old home of Palo Alto way back in those early days to bond over our LD obsession, and meeting again several times here and there and corresponding now and then online. And the group of us who gathered at Live Oak in December 2003 and became new members of the Caravan Club.

In the end it's not just about the motorhome, or whatever other product is at the center. It's about the cult around it, the presence of which to me is essential, a sign that the product in question is capable of inspiring passion, and thus worth getting involved with. Thank you all so much. Owning a LD and belonging to this community have been among the best experiences of my life. I'm extremely grateful to those who have kept this site going all these years, and especially those of you who took it from Yahoo! to this current platform and keep it going. You're all the best.

You can't tell from the archive, but the first Yahoo owner's group lovemylazydazerv was active in 1994, when we joined, and the lifewithalazydaze group, from which the archive was pulled, was formed a bit after that. Several splinter groups were also active in the 90's on Yahoo.

I should of said, I "nominate" Steve B. as he probably knows the history of the forums at least as well as any active member.  I do think Ed's idea of an Historian is a grand one!

Sounds like a plan, Chris!  I'll add the link to this thread as there is some history here, as well:

The Oldest LDO Forum Reply - A Long Time Ago

Who can forsee the future?  LD was started in the 1950s by Paul Newton and Harold Hamm.  Harold Hamm died a few years later.  Paul's brother Ed was brought in early on for his business knowledge.  Paul died about the mid 2000s and Ed a few years after.  Both Paul and Ed had families, but I believe only Ed's son Steve (who currently owns and runs LD) is the only family member actively involved with LD.  Last I knew, Steve does not have any family to follow him.  LD did survive the last recession, but who knows what might happen if another downturn happens.  LD has always stood behind their product and will pay for warranty service elsewhere.

Art