About 2 months ago the wife had this idea about living in a trailer and running around the country for a while as a means to save some money. At first I was “Sure whatever”. I wasn’t sure if she was serious or if it was just a cool idea that she had. Anyway, that weekend I said let’s go shopping for RV’s. I’m such a visual person that I need to see what we’re talking about to be able to determine if I think this is a really good idea.
So off to Camping World we went. We pulled into the parking lot and looked around and found it odd that we weren’t immediately approached by a sales rep. So we pulled the kids out and started walking around. The very first unit we looked at was a Keystone Cougar 5th wheel that coincidentally had a bedroom in both the front and back of the unit for the kids. All of a sudden I’m really starting to like my wife’s idea a bit more. So I went in search for a sales rep to help us find more of what we’re looking for. We had a rough budget in mind of what we thought we could afford. I finally found a sales rep and she was a little distracted at first to help, but then we finally got her on board. Then we walked over to a different part of the lot and started looking at the big Class A motor homes, but couldn’t find anything with bunks that we liked. At that point the rep asked if we had looked at any of the trailers yet. We explained that we didn’t even have a truck yet. She showed us a few really nice, large 5th wheel trailers. At that point I think we were hooked on the idea. It didn’t help that the rep showed us some of the higher budget items that we weren’t sure we could pull off, but it at least gave us an idea of what we liked.
The following weekend we decided to go out and hit about 3-4 different dealerships (including a different/much larger Camping World). We found a really nice 5th wheel on the other side of town that we wanted to purchase. That weekend we also went out and test drove a few trucks. On Monday night we found a truck that looked like it would be perfect (2007 Dodge 3500 Dually with only 30k miles on it and already had a brake controller on it). On Wednesday we started the financing process on the trailer, Thursday they countered for a smaller amount. Bummer.
With a new budget in mind, that night we ran out to another dealer who had a similar floor plan, but in a travel trailer setup. We went out, looked at it and said yes. Thursday night we went out and bought the truck, Friday went to the bank and signed the paperwork on the trailer.
Now to try and get it home…..
