But, thinking about it, Ken, Bobby and Faye are right. And, Bobby, you are right about wife and I, but we will never actually agree with you. LOL
Some people spend their last years trying to make things easy for those who they are going to leave behind. They sell or give away most of their stuff so that no one feels the need to go through their house deciding what they want to keep and what is going to be tossed away. In that light, they might also downsize. Of course, there are other reasons why someone might want to do that, as well, but I think a lot of people do it because they are encouraged to do so by their children and others. They might forego doing things that they might want to do, or buying things, so that there will be something left for their children. Their children might encourage that. I get that but, at the same time, their life isn't over until it's over, and it seems a shame to spend your last days in deprivation. Seniors might give control of their lives over to others, even when they may feel capable of making decisions for themselves, because their adult children, or others, feel that they need to treat their parents as dependent children, making sure that they spend their money wisely, don't take any risks, and live their lives so as not to leave a mess. I get that too but, at the same time, it seems a shame. I'm repeating some of the same arguments I made in another thread, entitled Babying the Elderly.
They may have, but it's possible that they simply put too much faith in their GPS, and found that it would be difficult to turn an RV around on a narrow mountain road. At the risk of embarrassing her (don't believe a word of that, as I don't mind embarrassing her), my wife followed GPS instructions once and found herself on an unplowed fire road in the winter a few years ago, and had to call a wrecker to get her out. If this couple turned onto a narrow road in an RV and found themselves unable to turn it around, they might have decided to keep going with the assumption that it would eventually take them somewhere. The article says that they tried to follow their tracks back after the RV got stuck, but their SUV got stuck, as well. I can see that happening.
Still, the puzzling part is they had no food and water or a cell phone with them. They had the ability to drive from Indiana to Nevada in an RV towing an SUV and all that way no problems were mentioned, but somehow they followed a GPS off the paved road up a remote mountain on a muddy road with no food, water, or a cell phone. They were able to get the SUV unhitched and turned around on this muddy road but got stuck following their RV tracks going DOWNHILL in an SUV. I think there is a lot more to this story that we will never know. So far nothing really makes fits. If she was a diabetic how did she go all those days without insulin, water, and food? She should have gone into shock within 24 hours.
Apparently they did have a cellphone. In the story it says they tried to text their family but the messages failed to send. Seems to me those cellphones would have GPS so they could have been tracked somehow. They had been to Oregon to visit their grandkids and were on their way home from there.
An elderly couple die and are being shown around heaven by St. Peter. "Here's your beautiful new home," he says, " your maid is putting away your new designer clothing and your personal chef is preparing your gourmet dinner. Afterward, the masseuse will be here for your daily session. Oh, and since you like to play golf, your personalized Ping clubs are in the garage next to your matching set of Jaguar convertibles. Your tee-time is whenever you want at the golf club. It'll always be 78 degrees and sunny. Please pick up the gold phone over there if there is anything else you need." The old man turns and slaps his wife. "YOU AND YOUR GOL-DANGED LOW FAT, LOW SALT, SUGARLESS BRAN MUFFINS! WE COULDA BEEN HERE FIVE YEARS AGO!"
Yes, they could, unless they turned their cells off before they headed up the mountain. Nothing about this story fits and I have read several articles all with conflicting information. Law enforcement has written it off as they just made one bad decision after another.