As most of my regular blog readers know, we have been looking for an RV to replace our faithful old MCI bus conversion. We have lived in the bus for 8 years and loved it, but our needs have changed and we needed something different.

Our criteria was a 38 to 40 foot diesel pusher, with at least a 330 horsepower engine, and a living room slide. As many of you know, I have long been a critic of many production RVs, but I have always said that there are a handful of manufacturers whose RVs we would be comfortable owning. If we had been shopping for a fifth wheel, our search would have begun and ended with Heartland. Unfortunately, they don’t make motorized RVs, only towables.

Of the production model diesel pushers, our top three manufacturers of choice were (in no particular order) Allegro, Winnebago, and Newmar. 

We did a lot of internet research, and looked at a lot of used RVs over the past six months, and almost bought a couple, but either we couldn’t quite get together on the price, or we couldn’t arrange the financing in time and someone snatched them out from under us.

Of all the rigs we looked at, the ones that really stuck out in our minds were the Winnebago Ultimate series, which was the top of the Winnebago line from 1998 to 2004, but every one we saw was out of our price range.

In early June we drove past a car dealer’s lot in Goshen, Indiana, and at the last minute out of the corner of my eye, I  spotted a beautiful 2002 Winnebago Ultimate Advantage. We made a quick U-turn and checked it out, and though it was everything we wanted in a new home on wheels, we knew it was out of our price range. We looked at a couple of other RVs since then, but our minds kept going back to the Winnebago, and after a couple of visits and calls to the dealership, we were finally able to get them to negotiate a price we could live with.

Our goods friends Ron and Brenda Speidel are longtime Winnebago owners, and they are even on the company’s Consumer Research Panel, so they know their Winnebago’s. Added to that, Ron is one of the most technical guys I know, and he has always wanted an Ultimate Advantage, so we asked them to go with us to check the rig out.

I told Ron I wanted him to go over it with a fine tooth comb, with the mindset that Brenda wanted to buy it, and his job was to talk her out of it. After crawling over, under, around, and through every square inch of the rig, Ron had just one thing to say – “If you don’t buy it, I will.”

So yesterday we took delivery of our new home on wheels, and we are ecstatic! It has two slides, a 350 horsepower Cummins turbo diesel engine, six speed Allison automatic transmission, 7500 watt Onan Quiet Diesel generator, and every option we could ever want or need. Things like an automatic satellite TV dish on the roof, four door Norcold refrigerator, central vacuum system, and more. The rig has been babied, only 33,000 miles on it, all service done at the Cummins/Onan dealer here in Elkhart, and it lived inside a heated garage all its life.

It drives like a dream, and has more power than I know what to do with. In fact, when we were driving back to Elkhart Campground from the dealership, Ron and Brenda were following us, and had to call Terry on the cell phone to tell her to tell me to slow down. I thought I was doing about 35 and it was closer to 55!

We have the new motorhome parked next to the bus, and can’t wait to start moving in. Unfortunately, today we have to drive to Michigan to pick up the new issue of the Gypsy Journal from our printer, and then it will take several days to get it stuffed into envelopes and mailed out. And next week, we are supposed to be vending at the Carriage rally in Goshen, Indiana. But maybe we’ll at least sneak next door and just go sit in our new motorhome and grin at each other for a while.  

Thought For The Day – When it comes to going after what you love in life, don’t take no for an answer.

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Yesterday Miss Terry had her annual checkup with her oncologist, and we’re pleased to report that everything is fine, and she is still cancer free after almost nine years now. It is always a very frightening and emotional ordeal for Terry when this time of year comes around. I’m sure I’d feel the same way if I were boarding an airplane back to Vietnam. We appreciate everybody’s e-mails and positive thoughts for a good result for Terry yesterday.

After reading my comments on our recent experience with the FMCA, the things I said about Fleetwood a few days ago in the blog, and in view of past criticisms I have made about things in the RV world (namely, the poor quality of too many rigs), a longtime industry insider told me that the problem is that Terry and I are outsiders and can’t see the whole picture.

It’s true. After 10 years on the road and publishing the Gypsy Journal, almost nobody in the RV industry has ever heard of us.  We don’t go to the trade shows like the big Recreational Vehicle Industry Association (RVIA) event in Louisville, Kentucky every winter to rub shoulders and hobnob with the movers and shakers, so we have little credibility with them.

We are not a part of the RV industry as much as we are a part of the RV community. We live in an RV 365 days a year, and we have for over a decade. We’re not in an office or a boardroom somewhere deciding what RVers want and need. If you want to find us, look in your nearby campground or at an RV club potluck dinner, where the real RVers are! Those are the folks who have to live with the junk that so much of the RV industry produces.

Maybe I can’t see the big picture from the viewpoint of the RV industry, but from where I sit it’s pretty simple: build a decent product, sell it at a fair price, and stand behind it if something goes wrong. That’s not rocket science folks, it’s pure and simple Business 101!

I have been accused of putting down every RV manufacturer out there. Not true at all! There are some very good companies producing excellent rigs, and I have applauded their reputations many times. Companies like Heartland, Winnebago, Tiffin, and Newmar, who have been able to withstand the downturns in the RV industry because of the loyal customer base they have earned.

Notice that I said earned. Customer goodwill is not something that just happens when a salesman hands over the keys to a new RV to its owners. It’s easy for any company to smile and pat you on the back when they have your check in their pocket and the ink isn’t dry yet. The telling point is when you have a problem, and how they deal with it.

Do they solve it without a hassle, like Bob Tiffin is famous for doing at his company? Or do they give you a runaround, and tell you it’s your fault their workmanship was not up to par, like too many outfits in this industry are famous for?

By the way, I’ve never met Bob Tiffin, I don’t own an Allegro or Tiffin coach, and his company has never spent a nickel advertising with us. But I am very impressed with the way the man does business, and someday I’d like to shake his hand.

Thought For The Day – People are more violently opposed to fur than leather because it is easier to harass rich women than motorcycle gangs.

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A few days ago I posted a blog with photos of RVs damaged by a tornado that hit the NACO Natchez Trace campground near Hohenwald, Tennessee. That wasn’t Mother Nature’s only assault on the RV world lately.

On Friday another nasty storm, accompanied by a tornado, tore through Saint Francois State Park near Bonne Terre, Missouri, where our friends Ron and Brenda Speidel are camp hosts. Brenda said they had five inches of rain, and they had a hectic time evacuating people to storm shelters. She told me it was one of the most frightening experiences she has ever had.

Not much rattles my pal Ron, who has pretty much seen it all in his career as a police officer and police chief, but he said it was bad enough that he felt much better inside the storm shelter.

Fortunately for our friends, their beautiful Winnebago diesel pusher was parked on high ground, but nine visitors’ RVs were flooded out, and six of them were totaled.

We’re keeping our fingers crossed that we’ll have good weather during our trip east this week, and while we’re at Escapade in Sedalia, Missouri. One reason we are giving ourselves over a week to travel the 1200 miles to Sedalia is to give us the leeway to hunker down and wait out any storms that lay in our travel path.

Our old MCI bus conversion came from the factory with just basic gauges – speedometer, air pressure gauge, oil pressure and temperature gauges, and battery gauge. I quickly got tired of using a wooden dowel rod to check my fuel level, so one of our first priorities was to add a fuel gauge. One gauge I really wish we had was a tachometer. 

At a bus rally last October I managed to pick up a digital tachometer for the bus, but the darned thing did not come with a mounting bracket. After looking at 4×4 and marine shops all over the country from the Florida Keys to Arizona, yesterday we went to Lowe’s here in Show Low and Miss Terry managed to come up with a couple of items that we could combine to create a makeshift mount.

That all came together fine, but when I hooked it up, the darned tach turned out to be dead! With power and a ground connected, we should have a reading of all zeroes with the engine off, but there is nothing. I checked the power going in, and it is good, so all I can figure out is that something must be bad inside the gauge itself.

As many of you know, we have decided it is time to upgrade from our bus to something bit newer and with a slide so we’ll have some room when the grandkids come to visit. Yes, I know it will be quite a change for us from a bus to a production built motorhome, but we’re ready. Several people have sent us information on used diesel pushers, and while we appreciate that, many have been way out of our price range.

We’re looking for a 38 to 40 foot diesel pusher with at least a living room slide, a minimum of a 300 horsepower engine, and somewhere in the $50K to $70K price range. Some of the brands and models we have looked at and liked include Winnebago, Newmar, Holiday Rambler, and Allegro. While we are not fans of Fleetwood, we have seen a couple of nice American Dream and American Tradition coaches we liked. We would prefer to buy from a private party instead of a dealership, but we would not rule that out.

If you know of something that fits into the above criteria that might meet our needs, I’d appreciate you sending me a quick e-mail. Maybe you have a friend who is thinking about trading their coach in and not getting anywhere with the dealers on a trade-in basis. If so, send them my way.

Thought For The Day – Don’t argue with an idiot; people watching may not be able to tell who is who.

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When we announced our ten year anniversary of fulltiming, a blog reader wrote to ask me what we would do differently if we had it to do over again, but knowing what we know now about the fulltime RV lifestyle. In thinking about it, there are several things that would have made our lives easier and saved us a lot of money and frustration in our early years on the road. Of course, hindsight is always 20/20. So here’s my list of things I’d do differently.

1. Do more homework. I thought that I’d done a lot of research before we hit the road, but looking back, we sure had a lot to learn. I read several books on fulltiming, as well as all of the popular RV magazines, and learned quite a bit. But that was just the tip of the iceberg. If I were planning on becoming a fulltimer today, I’d read even more, spend a lot of time reading the various internet forums on RVing, and attend a couple of RV rallies as part of my research.

2. Join RV Consumer Group. The independent RV Consumer Group rates all RV makes and models for highway control, reliability, and value, and provides a wealth of information on what to look for, and what to avoid when making an RV purchase. I have had some people tell me that they don’t trust the RV Consumer Group’s ratings because they do not actually buy and test each individual model of every RV made. Instead they rely on a formula developed by their research. My feeling is that until somebody builds a better mousetrap, they are a valuable resource for RV shoppers. If we would have known about their material beforehand, we would have never purchased our first motorhome.

3. Buy a diesel pusher. There is no one best RV make or model to meet everyone’s needs. We all have different RVing styles and priorities. For our needs, a 38 to 40 foot diesel pusher by a quality manufacturer such as Allegro, Winnebago, or Newmar would have served us much better than the 36 foot gasoline powered motorhome we originally purchased.

4. Not buy a campground membership. Within our first month on the road, we purchased an expensive campground membership, which turned out to be a total waste of money. I always advise new fulltimers to wait at least a year before they buy a campground membership. It takes that long to develop your traveling style.

5. Join the Elks and Moose. My memberships in these two organizations have provided us many nights of free and low cost camping. Our membership dues and the donations we make to the lodges where we spend the night help them with their many good works in their communities, so it’s a two way street. I wish we had not waited several years before joining.

6. Avoid Camping World. It took us a couple of years to realize that just about anything we can buy at Camping World can be found for less money at many other retail locations and online.

7. Not join Good Sam Club. From the day we joined the Good Sam Club we were flooded with junk mail wanting us to upgrade our membership and buy some other product or service they offered. The small discount we got on camping at Good Sam parks was not worth the cost and hassle of the junk mail they sent us.

8. Buy a Blue Ox towbar. When we started fulltiming, we purchased a Roadmaster Falcon 5250 towbar, and fought with it for years. The release buttons were very stiff to push to disengage the arms, and if our dinghy was not perfectly straight , we could not unhook it. A few years ago we upgraded to a Blue Ox Aventa tow bar, which releases with levers, and we have found it to be a much more user friendly product.

9. Research health insurance issues. When we changed our legal domicile from Arizona to Texas, our insurance agent assured us we had full coverage, and we took his word for it. Eighteen months into our fulltime lifestyle, Miss Terry was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer, and our insurance company denied the claim. As it turns out, there was a 24 month exclusion for cancer, and even though we had the policy long before we started fulltiming, the clock started ticking all over again the day we switched addresses. A bridge policy to cover the gap would have saved us a fortune.

10. I would have started a blog earlier. I’m a dinosaur, and when people first started talking about blogging, I did not pay any attention. Since then, my thinking has obviously changed. Blogging has become an important part of our income stream, and the commissions we receive from those little ads you see on the blog help us pay our bills. But even if we did not have a business, or any ad income, blogging is a great way for RVers to stay in touch with their family and friends, and to record their travels.

So there are my Top 10 Things I’d Do Over. I’m curious, what would you experienced RVers do differently if you could start all over again?

Thought For The Day – Don’t go to bed angry. Stay up and plot your revenge.

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After a month at the Pinal County Fairgrounds in Casa Grande, we left yesterday and drove an hour south to Tra-Tel RV Park in Tucson, our home for the next month. Tra-Tel is a small, comfortable park which has been a regular stop for us ever since we hit the road.

We were more than ready to put the fairgrounds behind us. I wrote earlier about how filthy the restrooms were at the fairgrounds. If you would have been there this past weekend, you would know why. There was a kids’ rabbit and livestock show at the fairgrounds, and the participants were washing their sheep and pigs in the restroom showers! Doesn’t that just make you want to strip off and soap up?

I asked one mother why she was allowing her kids to do this when there were plenty of water outlets all over the fairgrounds, and she responded by saying that this was the only place that wasn’t muddy. It sure was by the time those morons were finished!  

Terry and I have been doing a lot of talking about our needs in a fulltiming rig. We have been comfortable in our MCI bus conversion, and it has served us well for eight years now. However, we have come to realize that the time is coming when we will need to replace it.

The bus has a lot of life left in it, and would be a comfortable home on wheels for someone who does not put on the amount of miles we do every year. But we travel much more than most RVers and have outgrown it.

Now what to do? We have considered several options, from buying a newer bus shell and converting it, to building a truck conversion, to (gasp) buying a used production model diesel pusher. Each has its pros and cons.

As far as I’m concerned, nothing beats a bus conversion for safety and cargo carrying capacity. We could buy a newer shell, with a bigger engine and more power, but it would still have at least half a million miles on it. And then we still have to convert it, and that is a lot of work. We’re both 56 years old, and we wonder if we really want to start another major project like that again.

I’m enamored with truck conversions, and these days we could buy a fairly late model semi with a modern engine for around $20,000. But then we’d need to have the frame stretched, build the box, and build the conversion. Again, a lot of work.

The third option, finding a used diesel pusher, may well be the best for us at this stage in our lives. I’ve seen a lot of nice rigs at attractive prices lately. I’m no huge fan of many production model RVs, but if we could find a well built diesel coach by a reputable company, we think we could be very happy in it.

But we would need to sell our bus conversion to buy something else, unless we could trade it in and arrange some short term “creative” financing. Right now there are a lot of RVs for sale, so who knows? We are in the looking stage, and keeping our options and our minds open to what may come along.  

Thought For The Day - A man without a purpose is like a ship without a rudder.