newby sorry long winded
let me start by saying Hi! and a little back ground info, a couple yrs ago my mom got a bug about gettind a Rv, she and her husband never had one and never even camped, but they just had to have one , I tried to talk them into just renting one for a week of camping and go from there, they didn't, they did an impulse buy(which drives me nuts) and bought a 99 Winnibago Cheiftain 35' , they went and drove it around the parking lot and bought it, uggg, well they drove it 5 1/2 hrs to our house and got out of it and HATED it, they were spooked by the size, needless to say they returned a few months later because the shore power did not work. And left it with me, they dont want it , and i am a tinkerer by nature ( i work on commercial jets for the last 24 yrs),. I really hate to see anything go to waste so I talked to them about future plans with it , they told me to do what i thought was best,I thought well let me go thru it and see how it looks and so far i found it had no hook up stuff( hoses, dump stuff) so I purchased that stuff, talked to my better half and the wheels started spinning, I said "you know we got 4 little kids ( 8yo - 7 yo - 4 yo - 3yo)this might turn out to be a blessing in disguies with some work and a little(more) money" we agreed and started going thru the rv fixing and improving things and even scheduled 3 trips to some state parks within 3 hrs of our house this summer, so far i replaced the power switching unit - that fixed the shore power problem, and went thru tightning loose screws/ bolts, being its age it had a few loose ones ,upgraded some vent fans,inverter, but over all it was in OK shape( except where my moms husband clipped the rear bumper with the tail swing,got some cracks in the skirt, I still would have never paid what they paid for it, Im am trying to make something good out of a bad decision and i think we can make it work. The biggest set back was when i looked/researched the tires, looked at the code and "my o my" that thing is still on the original tires with 46k on them and what 14 yo, that is going in monday to have a new set of tires put on ASAP. So my mom is very interested in what i am doing and her husband could give a rip he would rather sit inside and watch tv( no offence intended if thats your bag) but we are trying to get it road ready and head to Edisto Island SC in a couple weeks and trying to convince my mom to come on the trip and hang out with us and especially with the grandkids( they LOVE their Nana), My wife and i have been working our tails off for the last several years, aka never taking ANY vacation! well our kids are too quickly growing up and time is really starting to slip by and my wife had a close call on an emergency medical issue a couple months ago, we had a long discussion about how we have been running the rat race and darnit it is time to let some of that stuff go and start building memories, money/life issues will be there weather we are working ourselfs to death or making memories with each other and our wonderful children , so we are choosing memories and i / we beleive that this RV is gonna be the vehicle that takes us some/ if not most of the way, we are starting to get excited about the family times ahead, I think its gonna work out great for our situation, shoot with 4 kids hotels / condos really seem expensive now a days, not that there is no cost with RV's but there is a lot to be said about sleeping in YOUR bed and using your OWN bathroom, the one question i had was with all the people I have in the rv and with the little ones quickly growing, Is the seperate mobile black water tank a good thing to have? like the old addage " better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it"
