OK, so it's been a while since I've written anything here. No excuses, I just know my how few people read it. But part of the reason I write it is for myself, sort of as a history, a diary.
So when we started this, our goal was to buy a sailboat. It turned out, for tax reasons, it was cheaper to do six months of RVing first than to go directly to sailboat. So we figured we may as well give that experience to ourselves rather than a big chunk of money to the IRS.
But now, after 4 months of doing this, we love it and have decided we will be doing this for a while. And that our old RV, the 20 year old Class A we started with when we were trying to get by as cheaply as possible, was not adequate for that. There were two big problems that made it tough. First, the kids didn't have their own space. That meant that there were always toys and things everywhere, and we had to fold out the beds and make them every night. Second, we found ourselves skipping day trips because the Class A was too hard to drive anywhere interesting (try parking a 33 foot vehicle at a national park!), and only got 7 MPG when it did.
So we started looking for what we could replace it with and found a trailer we liked in Modesto, CA. Unfortunately, they wouldn't take trade ins and had no way of helping us with a truck. So one day, in St George, UT, we saw some RVs in the Wal-Mart parking lot. We talked to the salesman, and he assured us he could help with the transition. So the next day we went to the dealership and found a trailer that was perfect for us. We also went to a used car dealer and found a perfect truck. The two of them worked together on financing and delivery. So after a couple weeks, we pulled our old Class A up next to our new trailer, moved everything over, and we are now living much more comfortably, and getting around much more easily. We are already finding ourselves enjoying the local areas more, and the trailer is designed much better. So, without further ado, our new setup:
