How did this all start?
Around Fall 2010 Pauline and I started discussing the idea of living a “Nomadic lifestyle” and like a spark igniting a fire, it just took off. We love to travel, we love seeing new things and learning new things.
But since 9/11 and the TSA and the insane high cost of airfare’s, flying became just too much of a hassle. Train’s are a option, but take too long at times. Driving is possible, but by the time you get there, you are tired, and you hardly recover when it’s time to drive home and we have also learned that we do not like leaving home for more then 2 day’s, mostly due to wanting to be in our own bed, eat our own food, use our own shower’s and kick our own cats.
Why not just eliminate the bad and keep the good? If you don’t like being away from home, and you love to travel, bring the home with you.
So the question was, can we do it? Yes we can. Ok, now what do we do it in?
This was the hardest question. So we started going to RV dealerships. The first one we looked at was a Class C, and while we liked the setup, we wasn’t so sure it was the right size. So we started to look at Class A’s and going to RV show’s we saw a pretty nice Class A and it was priced within our range.
As the days and week’s passed we thought more and more of this rig and kept asking “Did we just miss a perfect opportunity?” A few months of this thinking we pretty much set in stone, we want this model. A few months after this, we discovered this model was a known maintenance nightmare and fire hazard.
Google is your friend.
Go back to square one.
We found a bus! The biggest reason we had not considered a Bus until this point of the search, was all the Bus’s we had seen started at $180k which was way outside our range of cost.
But this Bus was much cheaper and while 18 year’s old it was in excellent condition and from our experience, it was under priced, so we went to go see it. It was a very nice Bus. However the inside could and was described as “A 1980’s Las Vegas Strip Club”. Neon lights, and mirrors. Lots of mirrors. The wall’s, ceilings, cabinet’s, fridge, all covered in mirrors. We had no time, space, or knowledge to deal with all this so we had to walk away.
Square one.
Once more we started to look at Class C’s. Both used and new and while we know we could do it, it really boiled down to it is just too small for us. Our goal is to spend more time boon docking in BFE then in RV Park’s or Urban areas. And the cat’s were also a huge factor, they need room to run and spazz out like they do now. So for our own comfort level, we need more storage and larger tank’s to live the lifestyle as we envision living it.
Ugh. Square one again.
We found a Super C! It was larger and more powerful then a Class C! We liked it! We spent a few months looking them over online and really fell in love with them. They just worked for us. And as an added bonus, we have yet to see any nomadic lifestyle blogger out there who is driving a Super C, so how unique would it have been to be the only one in a small world? Sadly we only found 3 or 4 West of the Mississippi river in our price range, with the most of them in FL or NY. The logistic’s just could not be worked out.
Square one, we meet again.
For the better part of the last 2 year’s our favorite hobby has been reading the blogs of people currently living the nomadic lifestyle and looking at rigs on RVT.com. We have seen hundred’s if not thousand’s of different models. We have gone to 4 RV show’s, we have gone to 5 or 6 dealership’s and a few private listing’s. Nothing seemed to click with the both of us.
One night we came across the rig that would now forever known to us as Admiral Ackbar.
As I showed the Admiral Ackbar listing to Pauline, I was already thinking of the name so I pointed out the model name was “Admiral” and before I could finish, she blurt’s out “Ackbar!” which I fallowed with “It’s a Trap!”
Good laugh’s!
We gave the listing a look over, we loved the solar panel’s, the setup worked for us, we loved the green color and it was only a 45 min drive from us so a few week’s later we drove down to look it over.
Which turned out to be a good call. We both liked what we saw. It was in excellent condition and was “pimped out” for 2002 and was already w/d ready. We decided to take it for a test drive, it handled wonderfully. Started right up, nothing seem’ed wrong with it. We gave it some time, thought it over, talked it over, and we both realized this was the first rig we have seen that “spoke to us”.
We made a offer and they accepted.
Now the next 3 week’s was not pleasant at all. I won’t get into too many detail’s, just because it was such a negative experience that I do not want to dwell on, but it went from the highest high to a very low low in a very short amount of time.
The short version…
We accepted the loan, the dealer start’s doing what they do regarding paperwork etc and a few day’s after being approved, we was told the bank withdrew the offer. We are still not 100% sure why, the bank claimed the bank did not have the correct information while the bank said they did have it.
So we applied to 4 other’s and got instantly approved to the first, but at a much higher % (Which turned out to be about the average % for RV’s.) After a week plus of this back and forth with the other banks who was going out of their way to slow this process down we said enough and we contacted the offering bank and accepted their term’s.
A few day’s later, our dealership contact’s us telling us current owner’s bank is changing their term’s to current owner, so now the current owner’s bank could stop this whole deal. So we had to wait for that drama to play out. During this time our pickup date was changed 3 times. The original pick up date was Dec 6. We finally got Admiral Ackbar on Dec 21.
STRESSFUL.
But it has all worked out so far, so we are just going to keep going with the flow.
Emotion’s have ran high here for the last month. We have both been stressed and just wanted this to be resolved. Right now we are in recovery. I am still stiff in place’s but I am stretching more and that seem’s to help.
It has been a long 2 years. We did our research, and while we still have much to learn, I am very confident we will love this as much as we thought we would and that we have done the right thing for the right reasons.
For us.