Introducing... Me!
Hello everyone. The name is Walt. Been lurking a for a little while gleaning a bunch of useful information from the combined centuries of knowledge this forum provides. I've been a camper for years, typically camping 3-4 times a year with my wife and a 4-man Eureka Sunshine because we like our space.
Every federal holiday can be a 4-day weekend for me. My wife is a teacher so she gets good chunks of time off and I can typically take a week or 2 off with her if I want at any time. This year's Thanksgiving and Christmas weeks will be spent RVing for sure.
Last year I remembered my youthful dreams of RVing and thought to myself, it's time. I'm retired, got an empty nest. Got a couple small dogs that usually remain home while we are away, as they are provided automatic water and food - combined with their own doggy door, have no problems with us departing for a week or 2 at a time.
The plan was to buy a new Four Seasons 22E this coming July. My sales rep I've been dealing with at Camping World won't be happy because the in-laws ruined those plans when they offered us their RV for practically nothing. Mainly, they're getting too old to keep going out, and turns out they spend most of their time caring for the RV instead of using it. They found out we were looking for one. Couldn't turn that down. Even if turns out that we hate it, the trade-in value alone would be worth 3 times what we're buying it for. Best case scenario we use it for years, worst case is that we end up trading it in for that new Thor.
So we get to experience the RV life on the cheap for now. Who knows... maybe we'll really like it enough to use it for quite a few years before getting our brand new RV. At least I'm hoping that's what will happen. They will be delivering the rig in March and I look forward to many summer/fall/winter excursions this year.
We live in El Paso, Texas, the weather is very amicable towards camping all year long and makes for an excellent base of operations for heading into numerous mountain ranges and camping sites. We have a couple places we like to go visit on a annual basis, Big Bend National Forrest, Tombstone, AZ.
My hobbies other than camping include biking - v-twin kind. I've got my dream bike, a 2009 Harley Davidson Heritage Softall Classic purchased in 2008 and I've put 65k miles on it since. Cigars, and fine whiskey. My man cave has a fully stocked whiskey bar (to include a bottle of 20 yr Pappy, if that tells you anything) and literally a store's offering of fine cigars in a 20 cubic ft humidor with 5 display shelves. Every night I have 2 fingers of some good whiskey and smoke a fine cigar. I also enjoy belting out Rocky Mountain High on my strat now and then. For me, the best part about preparing to go out on a camping trip is choosing which drink and smoke I'll be finishing each day off with.
Now a little about the rig. It's a 1989 Fleetwood Tioga 24 footer. Chevy 350. 25k miles on it. Yeah, they don't take it out much and when they did it was mainly within a couple hours from their home. I've seen it before and know they take good care of it. It has all the usual amenities in it so I won't bore you with those details. We are really looking forward to it. They did a couple mods to it. They replaced the fridge with a larger home unit on an inverter. They also wired the genny so that instead of powering the RV it could provide power to their house in the event of a power outage.
Every federal holiday can be a 4-day weekend for me. My wife is a teacher so she gets good chunks of time off and I can typically take a week or 2 off with her if I want at any time. This year's Thanksgiving and Christmas weeks will be spent RVing for sure.
Last year I remembered my youthful dreams of RVing and thought to myself, it's time. I'm retired, got an empty nest. Got a couple small dogs that usually remain home while we are away, as they are provided automatic water and food - combined with their own doggy door, have no problems with us departing for a week or 2 at a time.
The plan was to buy a new Four Seasons 22E this coming July. My sales rep I've been dealing with at Camping World won't be happy because the in-laws ruined those plans when they offered us their RV for practically nothing. Mainly, they're getting too old to keep going out, and turns out they spend most of their time caring for the RV instead of using it. They found out we were looking for one. Couldn't turn that down. Even if turns out that we hate it, the trade-in value alone would be worth 3 times what we're buying it for. Best case scenario we use it for years, worst case is that we end up trading it in for that new Thor.
So we get to experience the RV life on the cheap for now. Who knows... maybe we'll really like it enough to use it for quite a few years before getting our brand new RV. At least I'm hoping that's what will happen. They will be delivering the rig in March and I look forward to many summer/fall/winter excursions this year.
We live in El Paso, Texas, the weather is very amicable towards camping all year long and makes for an excellent base of operations for heading into numerous mountain ranges and camping sites. We have a couple places we like to go visit on a annual basis, Big Bend National Forrest, Tombstone, AZ.
My hobbies other than camping include biking - v-twin kind. I've got my dream bike, a 2009 Harley Davidson Heritage Softall Classic purchased in 2008 and I've put 65k miles on it since. Cigars, and fine whiskey. My man cave has a fully stocked whiskey bar (to include a bottle of 20 yr Pappy, if that tells you anything) and literally a store's offering of fine cigars in a 20 cubic ft humidor with 5 display shelves. Every night I have 2 fingers of some good whiskey and smoke a fine cigar. I also enjoy belting out Rocky Mountain High on my strat now and then. For me, the best part about preparing to go out on a camping trip is choosing which drink and smoke I'll be finishing each day off with.
Now a little about the rig. It's a 1989 Fleetwood Tioga 24 footer. Chevy 350. 25k miles on it. Yeah, they don't take it out much and when they did it was mainly within a couple hours from their home. I've seen it before and know they take good care of it. It has all the usual amenities in it so I won't bore you with those details. We are really looking forward to it. They did a couple mods to it. They replaced the fridge with a larger home unit on an inverter. They also wired the genny so that instead of powering the RV it could provide power to their house in the event of a power outage.
