This is a question that I have enjoyed asking... When asking the question myself I have found some wonderful and fun stories. Some like me got into motor homing because of our pet(s). Some through the company they worked for and enjoyed it so much that they stayed with it. As the story starts, you see a question in each face, seemly wondering why are you asking me this question. Some try to make it short. However, once inside their head you find their true love for the outdoors, the open roads and to see this wonderful country with it's rich history and much more.
As I said, we got into RVing because of our pet. Our story, like most we wanted to go on a vacation, but with our dog it made going anywhere a problem, Most hotels will not permit a pet and some will. One day out of the blue, I got a call from an old Air Force friend asking if we would go to the dedication of the Vietnam Dog HandlersCanine Memorial to be held at Fort Benning, GA. He also informed me without asking our pets were welcomed and could stay at the hotel with us. After it was over my wife and I talked about taking some vacation time, which we had not done in years. We started to explorer the question with friends who had pets. Some were like us with nowhere to leave a pet., until he got a motor home. We explored the idea of owning a motor home and that is another story. We loved it the first time out on the open road. We drove from Florida to Texas to watch my sister’s boy get some Navy wings. He now is a pilot flying the F-18. My wife loves Football and I enjoy baseball, we found that the university Florida State University (FSU) had an RV parking a cross the street from both ball fields. We enjoyed the home games until we lost our pet from old age. She was the beat, always near my wife keeping her company. We found a RV park in North Georgia. Then a short 7 mile drive back into the hills near Blairsville.
Now, I am retired and always looking for the next road trip. I found a wonderful Motor home website called Movinon.netthey have wrote a few books on the subject of road trips along with tons of pictures. To complete this story let me just say, “It is the call of the open road. The total enjoyment and freedom to explor this rich and blessed country of ours.
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06 Winnebago, TOUR 36' W/3 sliders. My towing system is the "Unified Tow Brake" I'm old and slow and most always in the right lane.
For us it was a progression from a pop-up. We started when the kids were small with an old, leaky pop-up. Then to a brand new one in the mid 80's. As the kids grew and moved out we watched with envy the ease of others setting up in their motor homes. We bought a used class C to see if we liked the lifestyle. Discovered that is the best form of travel for us that we have yet experienced, as long as you are not in a hurry. We recently bought the class A in our sig and feel on top of the world. Perfect for the two of us. We have considered replacing it when I retire (maybe next summer), but not sure we really need to. Just waiting for the chance to take that first trip with no deadlines or specific destinations.
Tom & Barb
'98 Winnebago 32' Brave, Chev P32 Chassis
I guess my first motor home experience was when I moved from a 2 man pup tent into the motor pools 2 1/2 ton office truck in the middle of the muddy rain season. As motor sargent I had the key. My kids traveled with us and my son's first job, after he left the family garage, was shop foreman at an RV dealership. The motor home has been our home away from home during events that the kids were involved in, as the racing teams office when we were racing sports cars, as our communications center when we were out of on track activities and publishing a racing news paper, as our office when later we were publishing the New England based Wicked Good Calendar tourist news paper. Now we travel to see grand kids and kids, the oldest kid turning 50 this year and the oldest grand kid, a chef at a country club in Florida turning 21, and would not have missed out on the motor home experience for anything in the world. My main job was as a teacher (auto shop) and that left plenty of time for all the other stuff. But our motor home has always been part business and a large part enjoyment and travel. We are now planning a trip from New Hampshire to Seattle in our 1990 Foretravel the end of June for the birth of grandbaby number 9. Of course there will probably be a free lance story or two sold about the trip. Why not mix a little pay job in with the good stuff to help pay for the trip? Ya at 75 people are still paying for my words and pictures and Lucy has people that pay her for her words and pictures as well.
Brad & Lucy aka the Geezer & The Hedgehog
1990 Foretravel 38' DP
Kitty Kat: Earl
Whitey Ford the Explorer riding the car trailer
Navigation: CoPilot 9 on a lap top
ASE Master Technician
SAE
It was our pets also. We could find/trust anyone in this rural farm community to take good loving care of our family members(Yorkshire Pups) so we tried a new gas powered unit that we got at an excellent price. This worked so well, we moved into a 39 ft, 2 slide diesel and then in the past year we went all the way and Monaco build us a custom one of a kind 07 Monaco 43'QIV Dynasty Limited Edition Ralph Lauren Package with 4 slides.
I've been the RV Industry since 1976 and never got to motor home till 2001, I was to busy making products and following the RV Show circuit. Now that we've gotten inducted into motor homing, it's in our blood and our pups loves it too.
Things weren't all that great with the first 2 W coaches and we almost dropped out, but thanks to Monaco and all the fine Monaco Folks(Mike,Jowel,Fred,Larry,Jeff and Tim DeMartini at DeMartini RV who helped us build our new coach the way we wanted it, we are here to stay, especially when we consider the more then excellent support and service Monaco Coach Corp has given us, thanks inpart to April Kleins department.
It's one thing to get into motor homing and have to put up with some bull dung that follows, it's a heavens delight when the bull dung is left with the other coach manufacture and we can truely enjoy the best of the best of motor homing in a coach that is extremely well supported by the manufacture and it's people.
And the next best part of this story, is the close friendship we have with the folks at Monaco. They really want our motor homing experience to be it's best...
It was shortly after immigrating to Canada in 1969 that I discovered the joys of camping in our magnificent parks. First a tent, then a tent trailer, then, after moving west, a class C motorhome. We checked out a huge amount of the west in that -- Yellowstone, Zion, Grand Canyon, you name it. I sold the motorhome in 1985 for $16,000 in start-up funds for my own business, and when I sold the business in 1997 it had prospered, so we did what I have long wanted to do: we bought a 45-foot sailboat and lived aboard in the Caribbean for two years. You want a lifestyle experience? Try that for size! But we had to stop for family reasons, so after spending six months at home, we bought our 2000 Discovery and lived aboard that for a year. I really didn't enjoy the fulltiming lifestyle in the motorhome, as I found it kinda boring and I really don't care for places like Florida and southern Arizona, so we came home and started another business. We still have the Disco and we use it pretty much every year for our summer vacation. Like many here, we travel with dog, Suzie the Great Dane ("I'm not big. Other dogs are small."). Despite many of the negative things I hear about the Discovery, ours has been excellent, reliable, and tremendous value for money. At this point I have no desire to trade up, but I am sure if we ever sell our current business, we probably will!
My first motorhome experience was in '75. My parents bought a '73 Concord. After having a valve drop through a piston, they purchased a '78 Midas. We had that all through my high school years and they had it long after I moved out on my own. 'bout 10 years ago I got the itch, after stumbling on some RV listings that were within reach, I started a formal search. I looked for over two years, nearly every night researching motorhomes. Within a short time I had pretty much narrowed it down to 4 brands - Vixen, GMC, Revcon, and FMC. The Vixens were eventually eliminated because they were just a touch too much money and a bit small. Later eliminated FMC, do to potential overheating and tail waging the dog issues. This left me with Revcon and GMC. Was leaning toward Revcon, but went to test drive a GMC. The GMC cabinetry was a bit ruff and warped. The shell sagged which made the door not fit correctly and the interior wall was pulled away from the exterior wall - discovered this is a common problem. After test driving the dealer also had a Revcon sitting there. Although it was slightly more money than we could afford, we asked to just see it anyway. Stepped in and realized this was in a different category from anything we had previously looked at. Since it was more than we could afford, I told the dealer I would call him back in 5 months and give him what I could afford. He laughed and said no way, it will be sold long before then and no way it will go for that cheap. I waited 5 months and called the dealer back. Sure enough, he still had the unit. I told him if he would sell it to me for a specific dollar amount (assuming no glaring problems after a test drive). I would come out and buy it that night. He negotiated me up $1K and I drove to the dealer and bought it.
I had committed to a 1K mile business trip/vacation 4 days after I bought it. It was a bit scary. Had very little time to go through and make sure it was reasonably mechanically sound and would make the trip. It took about half way home on the return trip before I finally settled down and was feeling confident that I was not going to be stranded somewhere.
I've put nearly 50K miles on it since, and put a ton of work into it. Its certainly been a fun ride.
I travel all over the world and when I am on vacation the last place I wanted to go was the airport and the obligitory hotels...plus we have a dog.
With the mh we can now really see the country and not see a TSA agent or another hotel. We enjoy the trip as much as the destination...we have a dog. I really think that the dog is really why my DW initially gave in!
Joan and Bruce
05 Excursion 39L
powered by 350 KittyCATS on a Spartan
2005 CRV SE toad (Blue Ox & Breakbuddy)
...and a "road dog" named Max
"May the wind be always at your back"
The kids this past summer saw one in a parking lot and said they wanted one. I started looking at them on E-Bay and the daughter decided on a Class C. It was 1000 miles away but before we could make much progress on the deal then one Saturday we ran into a person who had bought a pop up out of a local shopper for her and the grandkids. On her advice we went of the restaurant she mentioned and the kids got a copy of every different penny shopper. We found an 1993 32' Class A Pursuit listed take it or leave it price of $7995 which was less than we were looking at paying for an 1887 Class C and it was only 100 miles away.
We called and made the drive getting there just before dark. At 10 PM after seeing our first motor home on the inside we wrote the owner a check which I replaced Monday morning with a bank draft and I drove it home. It has been a great 5 months so far and the motor home seems to be great.
The kids have since turned 10 and they help with its repairs and service as it is part of their shop training in home and vehicle repair. The daughter has turned out to be our trip manger because she makes sure that her brother and I have done a good job on our pre launch inspections. She has even pulled us off the road when she would realize something was not checked out.
With everything else we were not going to spend $25K or $100K on a motor home but even if it had turned out to only be a driveway play house for the kids I was willing to risk $8-10K to see what it would be like. We are very pleased with it and it seems to be a dependable unit and runs very well.
The kids have done some "deep" cleaning including total removable and reinstalling of the sofa. The son removed and replaced the spark plugs and all three of us replaced the spark plug wiring harness and other tune up stuff. A few weekends ago they helped me in the drive change the engine oil and drop the pan and flush the automatic transmission and we flushed the radiator several times and filled with antifreeze.
We are planning on seeing the Grand Canyon next summer. One day when we were working on it one of them asked if we got it fixed up really well could we make it as far as the Grand Canyon and I said sure in a technical answer. Then one day I went into the Chiropractor's office and the doctor said I hear you are going to the Grand Canyon. Well it is about time for a field trip.
I understand an older home is not for everyone because if you have to depend on someone else to detect and fix all of the house and chassis issues then it is questionable. In our case while I now have physical limitations I do know about home and vehicle repair and wanted a way to pass it on to our kids. The wife's father who is still going strong at the age of 91 and the kid's only living grand parent is the do it yourself type and he gets a kick out of watching or hearing the kids tell him what they have down MH since the last time they saw him.
I think a lot of guys have a problem slowing down and spending time with the kids while they still are listening to their parents and what they have to say. The wife is running them to activities daily and all of the normal MOM stuff so I am finding messing with the motor home can be a good time for me and the kids to interact especially since she works at the hospital every weekend.
The grandmother and the pop up at the beginning of this post is another example of how to use an RV to do family things. She got a nice unit for less than $3K and had a pick up truck and they are having a blast in nearby state parks. I spent two days (nights at Wal-Mart) during an out of town swim meet and that was the first time I had been in a small box for two days with just me and the kids. It was a good experience but Wal-Mart was just too close because the daughter loves Wal-Mart and my son said since we were sitting in the Wal-Mart parking lot it was like Wal-Mart was our huge vending machine.
I know some do not buy their first motor home they see and on the initial look but I had been on E-Bay and RV.net so I had done a lot of homework which enabled me to make a snap decision when the wholesale priced unit was sitting in front of me. As luck would have it we were the first to call and he had not even uncovered it because he thought the ad was to come out on Monday. The reason for the wholesale price I learned after agreeing to purchase it was after loosing his DW to cancer three years before he was starting chemo the following week and did not want to have to deal with it sitting in his drive at some point in the future. He had make a recent trip in it but he said it just was not the same any more plus he had also just experienced kidney failure. He seemed pleased that after 10 years he was giving up the MH to a family excited about getting an older motor home.
As a recap if you are reading this forum and DO NOT have a RV you should stretch to get something. You are not reading here by accident but by intent. It can be old and ugly but if you have kids they will only see FUN FUN FUN. Do not overspend if you are on a budget. I will say due to health issues the wife and I have I doubt we would have purchased an RV ourselves but we will do anything for the kid which in this case is turning out to be great for everyone. Also do not take everything you read on this or any internet site as truth you should act upon. Read here and at other sources, work E-Bay hard to learn options and prices out there. Private sellers tend to be honest because they are just like you and me for the most part. Sales people can be the same way or just only interested in that truck payment due next week. You will find in just a few months you will know more than most anyone one working on an RV lot. Do not hesitate to act when you see the right deal. Pulling the trigger is the hard part that keeps many from ever owning a RV.
erniee has hit it right on the head of the nail. Motels, we have stayed in motels when we would go fishing for a week. not there is only one motel in Richland Oregon and you would have to pull the bed apart to make sure the earwigs were all gone for the night. That week was all I needed to make me bring my own bed with me where ever I may roam. Thank God I was able to do that. I think the hard part is earwigs do not make good fish bait.
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I really think that the dog is really why my DW initially gave in!.jpg)
