New home for Pumpkin!

Here she is! A 2000 Coachmen 31.5 ft.

Joyce seems to really like the kitchen

But, Ditto is not too sure of the steps

Oh well, it's only money

We finally decided that taking cash from our stash instead of a loan was the best deal for us.  I’m not a paying-interest type girl, and the application fee they required would fill the great big gas tank at least once.  And the loan process was degrading.  This sucks, and screw you, we said to Bank of America.

I fumed and fussed about the money, but at the end of the day I realized I’m fortunate to have enough money to buy an RV.  I’ve learned that every minute I spend worrying about the future, I lose part of today.   So, I made all the budgetary adjustments and Tom made arrangements to go get the RV tomorrow.  A small calculation showed cost of gasoline just to get it home will be $20.73.

Now, how to pay for it

The only other concern we had, besides the doors and levelers, was how to pay for an RV.  Do we finance it, or do we plunder our accounts.  I punched numbers, crunched numbers and I laid awake fretting about numbers.  No matter the decision I made, someone was going to get some of our money.  If we financed it, the bankers got interest.  If we cashed in, the gov’t got taxes.

I spent most of the week-end worrying about money, the future, and day-dreaming of reading a book in the Smokey Mtns, squeezing through the tunnels in West Virginia, or pulling the boat to Beaver Creek every spring for the white bass spawn.  Tom spent most of the weekend looking through the voluminous “Owner Information Manuals” we’d brought home with us.  Normally I’m accustomed to “settling for” and “making-do” and seldom get to choose exactly what I like or what I want.  This felt good.

And how odd is it that Floyd Boze’s son is the neighbor of the people we’re buying it from?  The people who are selling us their RV eat eggs laid by chickens I once had.

The Pumpkin is found

Tom called late in the afternoon, and talked with the owner of an advertised rig.  It sounded good so Tom set up an appointment for us to look at it the next time we ventured out of Cedar Creek.  We were just too tired to think about another drive out our road.  And this one was located about 75 miles away.

But wait!  It had doors.  It had levelers. It had brand new tires.   It seemed unreasonable low priced compared to others we’d seen.  It was, however, eighteen inches longer than our 30 ft limit.

Levelers.  Doors!  Tires!!  Affordable.  We called back; can we come look right now before dark?

From the outside it looked like all the others.  We did our mental checklist.   No big dents, check! No faded paint, check. Roof good condition, check.  No rust in outside storage compartments, check.

The seller was really nice.  He showed us all the outside features.  Tom was totally absorbed with the generator.  The man spit his tobacco and opened the hood so Tom could evaluate the biggest engine I’d ever seen crammed into such a small place.  Ten cylinders!  The engine was clean, free of grease, and smelled pure. The seller spit again and swore it runs like a deer (There were John Deere logos all over his place, so maybe he meant like a Deere).

I asked about the mileage.  Well, the owner said, we just got back from New Mexico with it and we didn't do too good.  We were driving about 75 in a stiff head wind.

Drive it a little easier and she’ll do you okay, he said.  The owner was a younger man, full of piss and vinegar who had a garage full of big, fast, motorcycles and ATV’s.  Tom and I once drove fast, too.

We never go fast anymore.  And if the head wind gets too stiff we can just pull over and take a nap, I thought to myself.

I've known Tom long enough to know when he’s feeling good about something.  Okay, I said to myself, if this is the right one for Tom, it’s the right one for me, no matter what the inside floor plan is.

We opened the door and my old knee managed the steps pretty easy.  I’d needed a hoist to get into some of the RV’s we’d looked at.  I glanced up at the interior and I felt breath leave my body.  I actually gasped.  And my breathing remained alarmingly shallow the entire time I was looking at all the beautiful, just right, things.  The wife demonstrated the unique qualities and features to me.  I noticed the stain glassed window in the door and pinched my arm to see if I was alive.

Drive it, the seller said.  We did.  But we already knew.

The passenger door was so wide, the step so low.  It rode so smooth.  The seat fit perfectly and felt just right.  Tom looked so good in the drivers seat.  Ditto found her spot on the sofa behind the drivers seat looking over Tom’s shoulder.  She liked it.  Her tail was wagging almost as fast as ours. The evening sun shone through the stained glass.

While we were out for the test drive, Tom asked if I’d noticed the For Sale sign in the window.  Sure did, I said.  That sign was $4000.00 lower than the Internet price.  Could this be?  We’d discussed on the way there how much we could talk him down from the original price.  Now, here was a sign in the window with a price less than what we’d decided to ask for.  Could this really, really be?

When we got it back to the seller’s I wanted to make sure about the levelers.  Can you demonstrate the levelers to us, I asked apologetically, expecting it to be a big hassle and an ordeal.  He grinned and walked to the entry door.  Make sure it’s in parking gear, he said.  He spit and punched a button, and big robotic feet slowly extended from the bottom of the RV.  Just watch these here yellow lights and they’ll tell you when it’s level, he said, standing there with his hand in his pocket while we watched the big coach gently sway and settle itself.  We’ll buy it, we said.

Tom made a feeble effort, but the guy said he couldn't come off the price since he’d just lowered it by $4000.00 that morning.  He sorta chewed on his tongue and cheek and said he might come down another $500.00.  Tom said it was okay, he’d not haggle over $500.00.  At that moment, standing wistfully beside that RV, I knew Tom or I wasn't capable of haggling over anything.   We’d found what we wanted.

Deciding what we want

Okay, we said to each other, let’s just back off and take it easy today.  But once we’d made the decision to have an RV we both were like hounds on the scent.  We spent hours at the computers, searching floor plans, prices, and features.  Was it best to buy old and cheap and be prepared to put money into it?  Was it better to buy small, easy to maneuver, and make do with little space.  Or is big better?  Was it a good decision to buy one at all?

We were soon driving off to look at more.  We drove all the way to Camdenton where we looked at a very old one.  I could live with an old RV.  I live with an old man.  The old RV had good tires, a new manifold system and had been re-plumbed.  And it was cheap.  But it had absolutely no storage. I couldn't find a place to keep my heating pad, my bottle of aspirin, or tube of Ben-Gay.

We looked and looked. They were all too long, too short, too beat up, too expensive, too many miles, too nasty, bad tires.  Maybe we needed to look at the jinxed one again.

But it was a bus RV, no passenger doors.  I had to crawl over the engine cover.  I don’t crawl well over anything.  I also felt claustrophobic with no doors. I was beginning to want an RV with driver and passenger doors.  And; It still had bad karma!

Worn out from looking at RV’s, we agreed to ease off the search.  But, after Tom went to bed that night I heard an RV calling to me, so I fired up the computer and there it was.  A beauty.   A little pricey, but it was the one. At three o’clock in the morning I e-mailed the auto sales lot and told them we were very interested. Next morning, bright and early, some guy called to tell us this baby had everything.  We’re on our way to look at it, we told him.  He told us the “coach”…(like Cinderella’s, I thought) was being sent to the shop for detailing and we wouldn't be able to see it for a few days.

We were almost glad we didn't have to go look at it because we were exhausted and befuddled at all we’d seen.  This delay gave us time to think about and to consider all we’d seen and learned.  Let’s just not even think about it this weekend, we said.  Let’s go fishing instead.

But we couldn't keep our minds off RV’s.  The voices were speaking to us.   We’d learned a lot we didn't know about RV’s and we were beginning to settle on little details.   It definitely had to be between 25 and 30 feet.  It had to be low mileage.  It had to have good tires.  And I was getting stubborn…it had to have doors.

And the more I thought about it, the more I was beginning to think automatic levelers were really important, too.  The thoughts of two old broken down people, trying to park a 30 ft RV wheel on a board and a brick, in the dark, after a day on the road was not an appealing vision.  I shared this vision with Tom; him yelling at me to pile the boards just right so he could back the RV onto them.  Maybe he’d be the one to pile boards while I tried to perch the RV wheel on the board pile.   We agreed we wouldn't buy one without automatic levelers.

So, okay, narrowing it down some…must have automatic hydraulic levelers and must have doors.  We called the guy with the perfect pricey one.  Sorry, doesn’t have automatic hydraulic levelers.   But, you said it had everything.  Well, he said, frankly I don’t think you’ll find the kind of RV you’re looking for with automatic levelers.

Searching for Pumpkin

The RV decision made, we did most of our searching and shopping sitting at our computers with our shoes off.   When we began our search, we had no idea what we were looking for, or any idea what we wanted.  We chose a few advertised RV’s that sounded good and went for a first look.

The first we looked at was a huge thing being sold by an old retired queen and his partner from California who had been together for over 40 yrs. They’d thrown blankets on the steps and over the furniture to protect them from sunlight and dirt.  It was decorated very tastefully.  In fact, it was quite pretty!  But it was too big and Tom said he was a little bit dubious of its age.  Tom says that with age little things begin to break down…like seals, and gaskets and valves.  We’re familiar with that phenomenon regarding our own bodies.

We went to look at another.  This one was very nice, very well taken care of, low low mileage, price was right.  The owners told us how they’d purchased the RV in November in preparation of retiring and traveling.   Shortly after Christmas he was diagnosed with stage three esophageal cancer and is now stage four.  He looked really sick, and showed us his feeding tubes.  Meantime the wife told me how they’d bought the RV from a widow whose husband had died unexpectedly of a blood clot.  Even though that RV seemed acceptable I was apprehensive.  I know bad karma when I meet it.  That RV was old folks jinxed.