(How all of this started)
In August of 2015 I saw an ad for the upcoming Pomona RV show. It was billed as the biggest RV Show in the country. Or something like that anyway. We were still debating our retirement lifestyle. We weren’t sure if we were going to buy a smaller house somewhere or live in an RV, but we were pretty sure we’d need a new one soon. Our faithful Jazz had given us 10 years of fun times but was starting to show lots of wear. I told Larry about the show and said, “We don’t have to buy anything, but it’ll be nice to see what’s out there.”
Famous last words.
If you check your almanac you’ll find that Pomona, CA was
well over 100 degrees that weekend. IN OCTOBER! We were told multiple times,
“It’s the hottest it’s ever been at this show!” We know already! Stop saying
that!
We dragged ourselves through the heat to every 5th
wheel that looked promising, and they were right. The show was huge! There were
miles of RVs. Few of them hooked up to any electrical outlets so… no AC. They
were almost as hot inside as out.
We both had certain ideas of what we wanted in a rig. He
wanted ALL the ceilings to be at least 6’4”. He’s 6’3” and was tired of ducking
all the time. I wanted it to be less than 40’ long. I’d read lots of blogs and
heard too many horror stories about trying to get a spot for anything over 35’.
I also wanted a TV across from a sitting area. I was surprised at how many RVs
have a TV at the way back with a couch off to one side and chairs off to the
other. I want to relax when I watch TV not strain my neck! And of course it HAD
to have room in the bedroom for my puppies beds!
At first I tried to be polite. I’d walk in, see the TV in
the back and think, nope, not this one, but I’d listen to the sales person’s
pitch anyway. But as the temperature rose my patients fell. I’d look inside,
see where the TV was and just walk out usually with one of them following me
saying, “Wait, wait, let me show you what we have!”
We saw a lot of rigs that we liked but they all had one or
two things we didn’t. Larry was concerned with some of the technical things, I
was looking at the livability. And we were both surprised at the number of rigs
that had a nice little decretive archway at the doorway to the bedroom. I could
just see him with a permanent bald spot on the top of his head where he’d
scrape it. Not to mention the flying F-bombs!
We both appreciated that so many of them came with a
residential size refrigerator standard and I loved the idea of a kitchen island.
Some of them had a washer/dryer combo and some had stacked washer and dryers. I
really thought both were an unnecessary added weight but Larry kept insisting
it would be worth it.
We went back to the hotel tired and hot with a lot to think
about. One of the first things I did was call my mom. My parents had been full
time RVers for 10 years and their 5th wheel had a stacked washer and
dryer. I asked her if it was worth the weight. She told me she LOVED not having
to go to a Laundromat! She convinced me. And she was right. I LOVE my washer
and dryer! I did say I’d rather have the storage drawer for my pots and pans
rather than the little dishwasher some of them had. That turned out to be a
great decision because Larry does the dishes anyway!
We ended up spending 3 days at the RV show and buying a
Heartland 3270RS Bighorn. We bought the show model with the promise of them
adding a generator and washer and dryer to it. We told them right off the bat
that we wouldn’t be able to pick it up until early January. The particular unit
we bought was the only one that was hooked up to an outlet big enough to run
the fan. No AC but a fan. I wasn’t thrilled with the idea of a thousand sweaty
bodies sitting in MY chairs to get
cool but the show price was great and I thought a little disinfectant wipe
would fix that.
A few days later I got a call from someone at the dealership
asking why, if we weren’t going to pick it up until January, did we want the
show model?
Duh! The price!
He told me they didn’t really want the unit to sit on their
lot for 2 ½ months and asked if we got the same price and could deliver it by
January 2nd, would we consider a new unit direct from the factory?
He said we could order it in any color we wanted and add any other features we
wanted, of course we’d have to pay for anything extra. I thought it sounded
like a great idea! No sweaty bodies and Larry had been concerned about adding
the generator and washer and dryer aftermarket. I talked to him that night. He
was really excited because he wanted dual pane windows and the Yeti package that
would make it more cold weather proof. That was something they couldn’t add
afterward. It was set. We went with the same color we saw at the show and our
new unit was being built just for us.
At the show they kept trying to tell us the 2006 Chevy Silverado
1500 crew cab we had would pull this new trailer. No problem…they said! Larry knew
that wasn’t true. He knew we’d need a bigger truck to pull this bigger trailer.
But knowing what we were getting would make it easier to pick out the right
truck. Or so we thought…
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