Val and I bought an RV on the way home from our wedding in Nebraska. Here’s how it happened…
Before the wedding, Val and I not-so-seriously discussed getting a road trip vehicle that was more capable of self-sustained trips than the Element. We had looked at camper van conversions and pop-up trailers on the Internet, but never anything more serious. While on the road trip for our wedding, we saw an RV place in Iowa with trailers like the ones we’d seen online, so we pulled off to see them in person.
As we thought, pop-up trailers wouldn’t really be a good solution for us. They’re inexpensive, but the Element is really underpowered to be towing anything, and they don’t have a bathroom. We then looked at the Airstream Interstate, a van conversion that is very cool and self-contained. Our interest piqued, we left and continued talking about how serious we were about having a road trip vehicle that would be such a large commitment. We both agreed that we enjoy road trips and wanted to do more of them.
We had originally wanted to drive from Nebraska to Idaho on the way back home from the wedding, but we were delayed in leaving Omaha, so we decided instead to periodically stop along a more direct route home and look at more RVs—we needed to get more information on what was out there and how one would fit into our lives.
Our first stop was in Salt Lake City, Utah. There are plenty of dealers there, and we spent a solid day-and-a-half looking at all the brands and available features. We narrowed our search pretty specifically: we wanted a full-time bed in the back, a dinette (which can be a bed) and a bed over the cab (a lot of models have entertainment centers there). I do a lot of mountain bike trips, and we both want to be able to include our friends on trips in general, so sleeping 4 adults comfortably was a requirement. Our trips usually involve a lot of “stuff,” so storage was also high on the list.
We spent some time looking hard at our finances and doing research on some of the details that concerned us: where we would park it, how much it would cost to insure and making sure we qualified for the kind of model that would make us 100% happy. We ended up comfortable that we could do it, and so kept shopping. Interestingly enough, we found that an RV would qualify as a home for us, since we don’t own one, so the interest is tax-deductible.
As we shopped, we settled on a couple of front-runners, and none were absolutely perfect. Some had better headroom while others had better TV position, etc. We decided that the Winnebago Minnie 26 A had everything we wanted and was our favorite (the tipping point was that the Minnie has a “garage” storage area in the back). Unfortunately, the Winnebago dealer only had one 26 A, and it had an entertainment center over the cab. I like the TV (a 24" model and a surround sound system), but we really wanted the bed. The dinette converts into a bed that wouldn’t really be comfortable for 2 adults, so the longer bed up top was important.
We drove on, and shopped in the Carson City/Reno area next. Luckily for us, there was an RV show that started that morning, and they had one Minnie that was exactly what we wanted. We ended up negotiating a better price than we’d been able to in Salt Lake, and 5 hours later (!), she was ours.
It’s been a pretty surreal experience, but we’re both excited, and are now sitting down to plan trips—now that we’ve got the thing, we need to make good on our commitment to ourselves to use it. We’re thinking that a weekend at Yosemite is a good shake-down trip…. :)