When I was a teenager, my life dream involved a laptop, a motorcycle, pair of holey jeans, sunglasses, and hair that remained surprisingly beautiful waving farewell to everything I'd ever known. Life was going to be an eternal sunrise of incredible stories on the open road that would earn me tons and tons of money.
Double my years (and then some) and, well, I know my hair would have ended up in impossible knots. Not that that's what changed my life dream, but my dream has certainly evolved. First, my husband and two young boys would never fit in a sidecar, and I'm pretty sure now that I grossly underestimated the physical and financial investment in that type of lifestyle. When you're a teenager, everyone tells you to follow your dreams, chase your dreams - everything except BUY your dreams and, when you really get to it, dreams take some cashflow and writing on the road just wasn't going to earn me millions.
I don't regret that teenage dream fading into the shadow of my moderately romantic, incredibly fun marriage that's glued together by the love and challenge of two of the most beautiful little boys in the universe. Sometimes, when you're dreaming a dream, you have no idea the exact ingredients that will make it the happiest. I'd trade a motorcycle and beautiful hair any day to have my three boys next to me.
And, I did trade it in (figuratively, of course) for something with a little more space.
Save the Kids!
My husband, Craig, and I both love camping. We knew we wanted to take our children every year from the time they were young until, at least, they went off to college. Really, we hope to create a family tradition that lives on when they have children, and when Craig and I are long gone from this planet.
When we were three months pregnant with Willie, we took our last non-parent camping trip. It was going to be our last hoorah as a couple flying solo. We were going to hang out by the lake all day, him fishing and me reading, and then steam up the tent after smores. I booked us a whole week at
Clay's Park Resort a little bit south of us in Ohio, because its website boasted "...larger campsites, secluded areas and plenty of room to roam..." That was just what we needed for our hoorah evenings. I'll spare you most of the drama of our stay, but will tell you that, depsite being told we were getting the best site in the campground, none of the sites were large or secluded by even an ant's definition, nor was there room to roam. We did our best to make the best of the situation since I already paid for the week, but, in the end, I preferred to give up four nights of money than stay there any longer.
The whole point of that story is that, at one point, a horrible storm rolled through. Craig and I had a decent-sized tent and, although we couldn't do any hoorah'ing because of the lack of privacy, we still found ways to amuse ourselves - cards, chatting, and eating. That is, until we found ourselves literally holding the tent up and together in crazy wind. It was frightening!
"What do you want to do," Craig yelled over the howling wind.
"I wanna get the f*** outta here!"
We ran to the truck, my wonderful husband loading what he could, trudging through a foot of water.
So, when we decided to take our first cross-country camping trip from Cleveland, OH, to Lantana, FL, this summer with stops to visit his brother (in South Carolina) and one of mine (in Florida), I knew we had to get an RV. At first, the RV was a wish for next year or so because we weren't sure we wanted to take on another monthly payment. Well, first we were getting one, then we decided to postpone until next year, and then we remembered this camping trip. When we talked about that storm again, I imagined having our two small boys in that tent and how that would have scarred them for the rest of their lives. I mean, if we were that frightened as adults, could you imagine what a 1- and 3-year-old would be going through?!
The Best First Steps
Fortunately, we had already visited
The Ohio RV Supershow to see what kind of travel trailers were available and to learn a little more about them. Again, we didn't have any intention on buying one that day, but we wanted to check out floor plans and sizes to see what we really wanted. This was probably the best step we took in our search for an RV. I mean, looking them up online and reading about them is one thing, but seeing them live, inside and out is a must-have experience before making a purchase.
Not only did we find the floor plan we loved, but, by the time we left, we had our list of must-haves and must-not-haves.
Must-Haves:
- Bunks for the boys plus extra sleeping space in case grandparents wanted to come along
- A full bathroom with a small tub (something I didn't consider until I saw the shower and imagined bathing a young child in there)
- A two-door refrigerator because the other ones didn't have enough freezer space for the types of trips we planned on taking
Must-Not-Haves:
- Pop-outs because, well, we plain old didn't want to have to put them up and down every trip, nor did we want to have to deal with maintenance of canvas and nets
- Slide outs because, while they provide more space, they also result in more weight (maybe in the future we'll get a diesel truck and it won't matter)
Nice-to-Haves:
- Curtain or door on main bedroom for, well, hoorahs
- Built-in CD/DVD player or entertainment center (although I would like to do without a TV)
Next, we got our butts on Craigslist and looked all over our state on a regular basis (I mean several times a day) for RVs to get a feel for available used units and pricing. We also frequented the websites of the dealers from The Ohio RV Supershow to look at both new and used units. Finally, we got onto YouTube and Google and started our preliminary research on what it takes to maintain and use an RV.
The Fixer-Upper
After several months of looking, we decided to take a look at some fixer-uppers. Craigslist had a few that we went to see. The first was a 1970-something Holiday Trav'ler with all paperwork and title. It had two single beds on the one end and a large u-shaped dinette that could fold down into a double-bed. It had lots of storage and a full bathroom. When I spoke with the seller, he said the electric all worked, but the water system was untested. He purchased the 24-foot trailer from a family after the dad passed on. The dad purchased the unit new in the '70s and parked it at a campground where it sat until last summer.
Based on my research, I knew to ask about leaks and the tires. He said there was a leak at one point, but it had been repaired the roof resealed already; some panels inside would need replaced. He said the tires were probably original and did show some wear.
I scheduled an appointment to go see it, and then employed my good friend, Google, to seek out more info about this particular RV. I found a lot of promising information, but also realized that it would absolutely need new tires before we moved it. So, I priced those as well. With the asking price ($800) and new tires (about $600), we could definitely afford to buy the RV out-of-pocket, and then invest a little to fix it up...or so I thought (I really underestimated the cost of stocking and purchasing the basic water and sewer attachments, battery, etc., that comes with an RV purchase, but we'll talk about that more another day).
The second fixer-upper we found on Craigslist was a 1986 26-foot RV with a two-bed bedroom, full bath, and sofa bed. It was a little more expensive at $1,000, but we figured we'd go see it if the first one didn't work out.
Fortunately, my husband is a real, genuine handy man. He knows quite a bit about carpentry and electrical and plumbing. So I left the in-person assessments up to him, despite doing my own research on what to look for in a used RV.
I could barely contain my excitement going to see the first unit in person. They seller was a really nice guy, and he pointed out some of the flaws he knew about while underestimating (or downplaying) what it would take to repair it. In the end, my husband and I agreed it would take too much time and money to fix this one up. If we didn't have two small children and a cross-country trip just around the corner, it might have been fun to dump some time and energy into making it our own, but it was just not the right time to take on a job that big. Unfortunately, the second one was worse off and didn't have a title.
Warning: In states where registration is required, do NOT purchase an used RV without a title unless you plan on parking it somewhere and leaving it there indefinitely. All of our research indicates that it is a nightmare to obtain the title if the seller is not the original registered owner. The second seller tried to convince us that we only needed a bill of sale, but a smartphone lookup on the spot confirmed our previous research that it takes much more than that. Don't do it!
Finding Mr. Right
After a couple months of looking, our income tax return banked, and high hopes of finding something that at least had bunks for the kids and the freezer I wanted, I finally found the perfect RV. It was the same floor plan we fell in love with at the RV show, which means it had all of our must-haves. It was the right weight, the right length, and only 5 years old. Sure, it was more expensive and meant a monthly payment, but we wouldn't have to put any work into fixing it up before we hit the road. Well, we still had to do the fun stuff, like make the beds and stock it with camping gear.
We found a
2008 Coachmen Spirit of America 26 DBD at Kamper City. It was gorgeous online and priced right. So, I put down a deposit for them to hold it until the weekend, when I could go see it in person. When that day came, we packed into our Yukon XL and headed to the dealership.
Thankfully, my husband and I spent a good bit of time learning about what to look for on used RVs. Number one everywhere was leaks, followed by tires.
Some resources we used that may help you, too:
The Coachmen was gorgeous. The inside was incredibly clean and all the pieces were there, including all window dressings and the curtains that close in the bunks and the queen bedroom. Every book and piece of literature pertaining to the unit was in a cabinet. All the lights worked. It was in the dealership's garage, so we could not test the water or sewage systems, but we were assured that everything worked; that someone would walk us through the pre-sale inspection information when we were ready.
The first concern we had were the tires. They were expired. RV tires are only good for 5-7 years, regardless of their shape. We could see cracking in the sidewalls, anyway, so we knew we needed new tires. At the dealership, used RVs are sold "as-is" but the salesperson said he would see if he could work out a deal with the owner to at least split the cost of new tires.
My husband decided to go take a look up on the roof, too; Glad he did. He went up and foot-tested just about the whole roof and checked all of the seams around vents.
Pointing to the rear, he said: "This corner is all mush. It's a good thing I didn't put my weight on it or I would be inside right now."
My heart sank. This is the biggest caution: LEAKS! Sure enough, we went back inside and, what we didn't see before on our once-through, was that the paneling in the back of the bunks was rippled and mushy, too. I told the salesperson that that was a deal-breaker and I would not purchase it in that condition.
The dealership owner came over and said he would fix the roof and the paneling inside (although the new paneling might not match the rest of the decor) and would split the cost of brand new tires. The owner brought his carpenter over for an introduction and assured us that this was the guy who did all the repairs on his personal RV. I suppose that is one advantage of buying from a dealership: If something is a deal-breaker, you can negotiate repairs, especially since they're not nearly as expensive for the dealership when they have staffed resources to do the work.
So, there it was. I shook his hand. We went ahead and filled out all the paperwork, secured the loan, got the RV breaking do-dad installed on our truck, and agreed to come back the following weekend to pick up our new RV. And, we did. When we arrived the next weekend, the whole section of the roof was repaired and resealed and they even found a panel that matched our decor! It was beautiful. We did our pre-sale walkthrough, got it hitched up, and drove it home
. We are now the proud owners of our very own travel trailer, and can't wait to start making memories.
The owner was great at providing minimal-turn directions to a public
beach. We couldn't wait to take our boys for their first view of the
ocean, and we could not have picked a better place to do that. St.
Augustine beaches are beautiful and big. There was enough space to
settle our family in to play in the sand and water without imposing on
other families' activities. It also allowed us to keep a bit of distance
from the edge of the water for this nervous mom's peace of mind.
