Monday, September 28, 2015

Cutting to the chase - IE, starting down the road to retirement

August / September 2014 ---
We're thinking at this point that we have a few years to go before we retire, but we really want to find a way to get away from home & work and just take it easy.  We tried the motorhome thing back when we were still racing cars (more on that someday when we run out of other things to talk about) and the motorhomes just didn't work out too well for us.  Long story made short, we decided that we loved the RV lifestyle (at least on long weekends) but we really wanted the ability to leave the HOUSE parked somewhere while we drove to dinner or elsewhere.  No a Toad (towed vehicle) would not work for us - we just didn't want a motorhome any longer.
So we decided that we'd look into campers.  Our search had us looking at everything from large Pop-Ups to Mammoth 5th wheel trailers that would certainly put us in the same league as a Semi Truck in terms of size.  Not wanting to buy someone else's problems, we thought that NEW would be best...
Oh my gosh!  They sure are proud of these things!  Some of them were well over $100k and that was just not doable..  Meanwhile we ordered a new truck that was going to be capable of pulling just about anything that we would come up with. Early August, our new 8,800# Ford F350 Diesel Crewcab Dually now appropriately named "Big-Foot" was delivered.  Of course the parents are absolutely beaming!

Randy started spending his sparse evening and weekend hours scouring the forums to glean whatever information he could about the quality or various manufacturers.  We came to find out that the same thing held true of new Campers as it did for our last (new) motorhome..  The owners all had lists of problems that ran multiple sheets..  
Having spent over 2 years trying to get the last motorhome's list down to just a half page of problems - well - we just didn't want to go there again.
So, it looks like we're now going to look at used units.
On the plus side - the instantaneous 20% depreciation from showroom to driveway hit would be gone.  But then, there's a hidden "List" in every single unit out there...  We're  certain of it..  The hope is that the list is short and serviceable by us rather than having to deal with a deadbeat dealer and manufacturer like we had the last time..
So back through the vastness of the WWW in search of the right unit.
Randy's found a particular type of Camper that's just a little on the bigger side (whoa - we're not just whistling Dixie here) that actually has a small garage in the back where you can put things like ATVs, Motorcycles, maybe even our Jeep Wrangler "Wambo" that Randy loves so much..
We took a couple of weekend trips around the state to various RV Dealers to look at units they had. Spending hours on CraigsList, Ebay and RVTrader was not getting us what we needed..  The units we looked at were either waaaaaay beyond our limits price-wise, or they looked like the "Dew Drop Inn Motel" on wheels..  You know - the place that you really don't want to spend an evening in let alone drag it home and introduce it to Mom!
I won't bore you with all the details, but we finally found one that was built by a manufacturer that had a great following but recently reorganized in a merger with another manufacturer. 
This was a Fifth Wheel / Fiver / 5er - (insert your favorite Internet slang here) camper.  It's a little on the large side.  But it seems to have all the amenities that were required.  
You see - it's not that we wanted to get away from it all - we really want to take it all with us!
Yes, it's a little bit on the bigger side, I suppose...
It looks really good in the ads.  And now it is late August and Labor Day is just a week away, so surely that would mean a better deal could be made?
We made the 450 mile trip to Beatrice Nebraska to take a look at it..
After looking it over well, kicking the tires and praying that we've seen the bad stuff and the rest will be an easy list - we make the deal..

and hold onto your hats ---
We had to go and buy the TOY to go into the new Toy Hauler...  This is your first look at the "GrassHoppah" SxS (Internet slang for Side-by-Side ATV)..   Yes - that's Dar behind the wheel!

Let the FUN begin...



Friday, September 11, 2015

The beginning... Well sort of....

Having never been Bloggers before, this is all rather new to us.
We are kicking off with our first post today (September 11, 2015)..  From here the plan is to step back a little way in history and roll forward.
Randy will probably be doing most of the entries here as he seems to have a little more affinity for technical things.  We'll see though.
Please bear with us as we experiment with various features and settings here..
Pictures? Hmmmm...
I have to figure that out yet...  It apparently wants a plug in?
Have you ever been just a little skittish about letting some App have access to all your pictures, etc?

Sigh...  Okay - here we go...  39 years ago TODAY!!!