MOVING TESTIMONIALS; FREEDOM AND AFFORDABILITY DRAWING NEW RV DEVOTEES.

Byline: Carol Bidwell Daily News Staff Writer

Burned-out homeowners Megan Edwards and Mark Sedenquist needed a new home.

Artists Katie and Gordon Angerman needed an affordable way to see America's great art museums.

Actress Lindsay Wagner needed a dressing room to double as a day-care center for her two young sons.

The answer for all of them: a recreational vehicle, one of those head-down-the-highway-with-all-the-comforts-of-home houses on wheels.

Life on the move has never been so convenient, with microwave ovens, toilets and showers, televisions and refrigerators now standard equipment on even modestly priced RVs. Deluxe models can include just about whatever a wanderlust-filled - and well-heeled - owner can imagine.

Retirees aren't the only ones who love their home-on-wheels. A University of Michigan study says as many as 7.2 million baby boomers, in addition to families with young children, are quickly discovering an RV is a way to have family togetherness while saving money on a vacation.

And there's something else, too.

``To be out on the open road is a kind of freedom you can't get any other way,'' said Tara Calton, spokeswoman for the Ventura-based Good Sam Club, with more than 960,000 members, the largest RV club in the world. ``It's a kind of feeling you get, knowing you can go anywhere you want and you'll have all the necessities of home with you.''

Lots of people have discovered that freedom.

There are more than 9.3 million RVs of all size, shape and description on the road in America, according to the Recreation Vehicle Industry Association. About 8.6 million families - 17.5 million people or more - own their own RV. The rest rent the behemoths.

And more new RVs roll off the assembly line every year: 292,700 in 1998. That same year, sales of travel trailers topped 78,800, and motor home sales rose to 42,900.

``Many people started tent camping years ago and now can afford a big RV,'' said Pamela Kay, spokeswoman for the Family Motor Coach Association, a 95,000-member group based in Cincinnati.

Or, as Jeff Beddow, spokesman for the RVIA, puts it: ``It sure beats sleeping in a tent.''

That was one of the possibilities that faced Edwards and Sedenquist on Oct. 27, 1993, when their Arcadia home burned to the ground. They moved into a friend's guest house, but the few possessions they'd managed to salvage from the fire were ground into dust when the Northridge Earthquake hit on Jan. 17, 1994.

Edwards, 46, told her husband it was time to rethink their lives.

``It all started when I said, `We'd better go out and be like fairy-tale children and seek our fortunes,' '' she said.

So they went on the road, in a custom-built, 32-foot-long, $75,000 motor home they named Phoenix I, like the mythical Phoenix rising from the ashes.

Along the way, they've caught fire twice (once when they tried to bake bread in the microwave oven, again when wires under the dashboard caught fire). They've ducked under a freeway overpass to avoid getting blown away in a tornado, and driven a handful of places that were too narrow, too steep, too rutted to accommodate their vehicle.

Edwards has chronicled their adventures in a book, ``Roads From the Ashes'' (Trilogy Books; $14.95).

Five years and 150,000 miles later, they run their public relations business from an RV equipped with high-tech communications equipment. In addition to their public relations firm, Edwards, a teacher-turned-writer, and Sedenquist, a former property manager, started an online magazine, www.RoadTripAmerica.com.

They not only have no plans to put down roots any time soon, they're planning construction next year of a bigger motor home with new, state-of-the-art communications capability.

The modern communication system that makes their life on the road possible is getting even better and is sure to lure more people into life on the move, said Beddow.

``Baby boomers are now getting into RV-ing because they can get away from home, yet still keep in contact, run their businesses, communicate with their offices,'' said the RVIA spokesman.

Of course, all the technology in the world doesn't make living in confined quarters with your loved ones any easier.

``It took awhile to learn how to live together,'' said Sedenquist, 45. ``It was a little space, and we were literally bumping into each other; it was psychological as well as physical. We had to kind of reinvent the relationship we had.''

In fact, the two spent several months apart before deciding they'd make their new life work.

``This is a lifestyle that requires a lot of commitment,'' said Sedenquist. ``You really have to work at it. Everything you have at home - anxiety about money, relationships, the kids' future, retirement - is going with you. I think the biggest mistake people make is they just look at this and think this will solve all their problems. But it's not magical. The only thing you leave behind is stuff.''

The saving grace: ``We have a 3,000-mile back yard,'' Edwards said with a grin.

Wandering here and there, home in tow, provided the perfect segue into retirement for Katie and Gordon Angerman, both 71. They sold their Thousand Oaks home, sold or gave away most of their belongings and bought a 30-foot-long, $27,000 travel trailer to tow behind their pickup truck.

Inside, Katie, who does quilting and textile art, had her art books and sewing machine; Gordon, a ceramics artist, had his potter's wheel. They also had the niceties of home: stereo, television, computer.

It was all they needed to embark on a trek from one art museum to another. And if there was a pottery class in Savannah that Gordon wanted to take, they'd head to the Georgia town for six weeks or so. If there was a class in textiles in Boston that Katie longed for, that's where they went.

Both have mobility problems - Katie wears braces as the result of a congenital leg deformity, and Gordon battles problems from childhood polio - but found life on the road no more difficult than getting around at home. They got to know doctors in a few major cities and planned their route so they'd be in town when it was time for a checkup.

``And if we were tired, we just didn't do a lot,'' Katie said. ``We were happy to stay in the trailer in a campground and rest up.''

It was exactly the retirement the two had envisioned. Gordon had worked for years for Lockheed, Katie as a librarian for a local newspaper.

``When Gordon was still working, we decided to go on the road,'' Katie said. ``We went to every RV show at Dodger Stadium for 10 or 15 years before deciding what (kind of RV) we wanted.''

They hit the road in March 1989 and put 192,000 miles on their rig before settling into a new home in Las Cruces, N.M., in May 1994.

They finally quit life as road runners, they say, because they just ran out of art museums to visit.

But their five years of enforced closeness in a 30-foot trailer has changed their relationship forever.

``You become very appreciative of what you have,'' Katie said.

``If you're still speaking to each other, it's a nice life,'' she added with a laugh. ``If you're not speaking to each other, it's hell on wheels.''

They sold their big trailer - but, still yearning to hit the road at a moment's notice, bought a smaller one for short jaunts.

``We pick up and go whenever we want,'' Katie said. ``Life on the road is great because you're always looking forward. There's always a little bit of the unknown. When you live in a house, the biggest unknown is what the mailman is going to bring you. It's an adventure to be on the road.''

For parents like Lindsay Wagner, an RV can be a prime family gathering place.

According to University of Michigan research, 92 percent of parents who own an RV - owners' average age is 48 - say they're the best way to travel with kids.

For Wagner, 49, the decision to acquire an RV - a cab-over, 40-foot-long trailer called a fifth wheel - came after the birth of the first of her two sons. It doubled as a place for her to nurse and for the baby to nap and play while she was working.

``He went with me everywhere,'' said the actress, best-known for her 1970s TV show ``The Bionic Woman,'' and, most recently, for a series of Ford Motor Co. commercials. ``That was his home away from home.''

Four years ago, with now-teen-age sons, she ordered from Rexhall Industries Inc. of Lancaster a custom-made, extra-wide, 32-foot-long motor home that is her dressing room when she's working - and is a way to get her family close to nature when she's not.

Last summer, she loaded her boys, two of their friends and her boyfriend into the motor home and took off on a six-week vacation through Montana, Idaho and Washington, stopping along the way to canoe, white-water raft, fish and camp. When the weather's nice, the boys sleep outdoors in a tent; when it rains, ``there are bodies everywhere inside - on the floor and on the couch, pulled down as a bed, on the table. But my kids are used to that. They've grown up on the road.''

Her favorite parts of an on-the-road vacation are the outdoor shower and RV cooking. ``I'm inspired when I'm on the road; all these gourmet meals come out of me.'' As much as she loves her custom-decorated motor home - filled with nature-patterned fabrics and American Indian-style pottery - she's contemplating trading it in for a trailer that includes both space to transport her horses and sleeping quarters for at least four people.

One thing's for sure: She's one of those people who'll always find a way to get away from work and all the other annoyances of life.

``Sometimes, just to drive out to the middle of nowhere, to drive out and just spend the night and see the stars, is so rejuvenating,'' Wagner said. ``Being out in nature this way makes me happy.''

Make Web sites first stop

If you're an RV-er, or contemplating becoming one, here are some Web sites to check for information:

RV clubs offer various member benefits, including insurance, financing for purchase, campground discounts and more. Contact the Good Sam Club at www.goodsamclub.com, Escapees at www.escapees.com and the Family Motor Coach Association at www.fmca.com.

There are 16,000 campgrounds in the nation that welcome RVs, including state and national parks and privately run campgrounds. Check out the California Travel Parks Association, which run about 360 private California campgrounds, plus some in Oregon and Nevada, at www.gocampingamerica.com. To buy a 96-page directory of private campgrounds, send $4 to the CTPA, P.O. Box 5648, Auburn, Calif. 95604.

An RV doesn't necessarily have to be on the road. Check out recreational park trailers, which can be permanently parked on owned or leased land near a vacation spot, by contacting the Recreational Park Trailer Industry Association Inc. at www.rvamerica.com.

The California RV Show, with dozens of vendors and new models of RVS, runs Oct. 15-24 in Pomona. For information, call [phone].

- Carol Bidwell

CAPTION(S):

4 Photos, Box

Photo: (1--2--Cover--Color) LIVING LARGE

RVs aren't just for retirees anymore

(3) Actress Lindsay Wagner's 32-foot-long custom motor home is her dressing room when she's working - and is a way to get her family close to nature when she's not.

(4) Former Arcadia residents Mark Sedenquist and Megan Edwards (pictured with their dog Marvin) run a public relations firm and an online magazine from their high-tech RV, dubbed Phoenix I.

John McCoy/Daily News

Box: Make Web sites first stop (See text)