Carefree Highway

After talking about taking a trip around America for many years we arrived in the spring of 2007 realizing that our oldest son Andrew’s “last” summer at home was approaching and if we were going to actually take the trip, it had to be now.

Since we had yet to discuss exactly how we would undertake such a large road trip, what seemed to be a simple undertaking grew rapidly more complex as we started to breakdown where we wanted to go and what we wanted to see. Our initial thoughts centered around simply driving the family mini van and staying each night in a hotel.

However since there are 6 of us that would mean a minimum of 2 hotel rooms in most cases. Combine this with the fact that we would have to go through the following steps every single day meant that a substantial part of each day would be wasted doing the following.

• Seek out a place to stay
• Check in
• Find the room
• Bring clothing etc. to the room
• Take the same items back to the van the next day
• Check out

With this in mind we started exploring how much it would cost to rent a motorhome. We figured that doing so would have some distinct advantages over riding in the family van.

• In a motorhome we could cook meals thus avoiding the cost of eating out every meal and we could fix food going down the road.
• Bathroom stops would be eliminated thus saving valuable time.
• Regardless of where we find ourselves at the end of the day we would have a place to sleep.

It’s worth noting that we never considered any sort of towed camper since our mini van would probably not handle the load. So it was settled, our trip would be in a motorhome.

After some initial research on the web it seemed as though all of the various RV rental companies were part of a grand conspiracy aimed at price fixing the rental cost at near identical levels regardless of whom we did business with. Since there were no real savings to be had by renting out of state I called up a dealer down by the coast and asked a few questions about renting.

As I recall the conversation went something like the following.

Me: Hi, I’d like to inquire about renting an RV this summer.

Dealer: No problem. Where do you plan to go?

Me: Well, basically a “Trip around America”, see the country so to speak.

Dealer: Fine, do you think you will get as far as Southern California, perhaps even San Diego?

Me: I think so. Yeah, probably.

Dealer: Okay, that means you will be covering about 8000 miles. How many days do you plan to be gone?

Me: We were figuring on around 28 days.

Dealer: Okay, but you do realize that 8000 miles will mean at least 16 days of 500 miles each?

Me: (After a long pause) Uh, yeah. Well perhaps we won’t go quite that far.

The conversation ended soon after with me wondering exactly what I was getting into. 16 days of 500 miles each! Sure, we’ll see the country alright… through the windshield!

It was after that very enlightening phone call that we decided to trim the grand master plan back a ways and instead focus on planning out a trip that we could enjoy while still seeing a lot of the country. But without the massive amount of driving.

It was pretty much settled though by that point that an RV would be the way to go. The details of this decision forced us to explore more about RVs than ever before. The size of the family dictated that we would need a “Class C” motorhome at a minimum and not wanting to spend more than we had to we had no interest in exploring anything bigger. We also learned just how expensive it is to rent and when we added up all of the various costs like extra per day mileage we decided that perhaps buying an RV would be the way to go. We figured that if we could buy one for around the previously figured up rental costs we could always sell it upon our return for nearly what we spent and be okay.

Buying new was out of the question. New fully equipped motorhomes can cost more than your average house and we had no intent of going further into debt.

I started checking out eBay and the classified ads in the paper when I stumbled upon an ad for one on the bulletin board at work. At first glance it didn’t look to good. The picture was a black & white “xerox” style of fairly poor quality. But since the owner must work at the mill then I figured it wouldn’t hurt to take a short drive and check it out.

When I called the number on the flyer I learned that the RV was actually located in Bingham, a drive of about 50 miles for me. No big deal, I figured that since I’d gone far enough to call and ask I might as well go and look.

What we found when we arrived was more than we expected. The owners - as it turned out - were the retired parents of a co-worker who had recently purchased a small Class “A” and were looking to sell their older Class “C”.

Although we had called and asked about taking a look they apologized that they had yet to clean the RV out of their stuff but we said that was fine. I figured it was best to examine any potential RV we looked at that had not been sanitized anyway. It stood to reason that many flaws could be glossed over or hidden with ample time and a good cleaning and since we were new to this I wanted to not miss anything.

The Doyons had kept the RV under a large custom built canopy attached to the side of their garage which protected it from the sometimes harsh Maine winters. What the canopy did for the exterior the Doyons themselves had done for the interior.

The RV was a 1992 Fleetwood Jamboree mounted on a Ford 350 frame with a 460 cubic inch Ford V8 engine powering it. The mileage was only 68k and the 4 kilowatt generator had less than 200 hours run time on it. The Doyons had replaced the original carpeting with laminate flooring which they explained was much easier to keep clean. They still had all of the original owners manuals for everything from the RV itself down to a Michelin tire guide that came with a set of tires once installed on the rig. It had been serviced faithfully every spring including an oil change and chasis lube job. In short it was a gem.

Needless to say we came away from that first look very impressed. But since we didn’t want to make a rash decision based on “RV fever” we did not make an offer but only said that we would talk it over and get back to them.

As soon as I could I jumped on the web to try and get an accurate book value as well as learn more about the model of RV and whether or not it was reliable etc. As it turned out, the amount they were asking was par for the make and model and I learned that Fleetwood RVs are a solid brand as well.

A few days had passed since we first looked at it and it soon became the topic of conversation at most meals as well as with co-workers etc. We were also very much interested in what Terri’s father thought since he has been living the RV lifestyle for 10 years now and could give us a solid recommendation.

His first impression was that it was sounded like a good deal. I suggested that he take a ride up and look at it and he said he would.

By the time he got a chance a few days later Terri and I had pretty much made up our mind but waited to hear from him. After looking at it he too was impressed with what good shape it was in and with his endorsement we took the plunge and made an offer. The Doyons countered our offer and we met in the middle so to speak at a price less than what they had asked. After a trip to the Credit Union it was soon ours!

Now that we own it we find ourselves wondering why we hadn’t done this long ago. Having the ability to just up and head out for even an overnight is so great that we firmly believe that we will be doing this for some time to come and doubt that we will want to sell it when we are done with the Big Trip.

Oh well, there are worse things in life than owning an RV.

~Steve