On the road again

We missed traveling, but after those disastrous VRBO experiences last summer and Winnie and Pooka’s unease in some hotels we just weren’t sure how to get back on the road and keep us all feeling comfortable and safe. Then our friend started talking about getting an RV. Brian was just going to go shopping with him to give him some pointers since we’d had (and lived in!) an RV for a while. Apparently the RV bug is highly contagious because before long I was thinking fondly of our travels in the RV. Brian and I started discussing getting an RV of our own, but I had some big… or should I say SMALL stipulations.

I loved our our old RV. It was huge and comfortable and had tons of features, but it was HUGE. (It was a Tiffin Phaeton.) I could drive it…. if I had to… but I didn’t want to… EVER. This time I wanted something I felt comfortable driving. I also wanted something small enough that we could park it in a semi-normal parking lot. Some of the best place on a road trip are the weird little roadside shops and those places frequently do not accommodate a thirty-five foot RV dragging a trailer and a tow-vehicle. Also, I didn’t want to need a tow-vehicle.

Having given Brian my requirements he and our friend (who’d gotten us started on this craziness) took off to find the prefect (for us) RV. The salesman at the RV store took our wishlist as a personal challenge and started looking high and low. We drove from RV lot to RV lot… we sat on beds and looked out windshields….our wishlist got a few edits.

• We really liked the Mercedes chassis. There were more driver amenities and if I was going to be driving it, I wanted the lane assist and Apple Play and all the other helpful tools.
• The 24-25 foot range seemed ‘parkable’
• We liked all the comforts on the Tiffin and wanted similar on this one
• No Murphy bed. We found a couple RV’s that had a U-shaped bed in the back. It could be configured as two twin beds with a cushion in between the two headboards and an opening down the middle (making the U) or you could pull out a support, add another cushion and have a single King. We liked that option best, but a queen in the back would have been okay too. After having lived in an RV for 7 months we knew that we liked the bed ‘room’ to be its own space. Having a Murphy bed in the middle of the RV was nice in that it allowed more space for a bathroom, but we know us and we know that even in an RV we like to be able to get away from one another for a little bit sometimes.
• We didn’t love the dinette, but we could live with the small, half-sized one that was available in some. We most liked the RV that had a couch and a ‘removable’ table. (There are two holes in the floor that you can put the table’s leg into and then place the table top on top. It can be set up in front of the driver/passenger seats when they’re turned into the house, or it can go in front of the couch.)
• We also wanted things like solar panels and diesel.

Before long the sales guy came back and said ‘If you liked the Tiffin, I think you’ll like the Winnebago. Of course I melted at that point and said we HAD to have a Winnie for our pup Winnie.

There was a bit more hunting, but we finally settled on a 2022 Winnebago View. Of course we took Winnie and Pooka on all of our searches and took special note of the ones that they seemed most comfortable in. When we checked out the Winnebago both pups climbed right up the stairs and hopped up on the couch. It seemed like they approved, so we made the decision the way we’ve been making most of our decisions….. by what the dogs liked best.

Finally, we’re back on the road again…… Adventure!