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Thursday, September 19, 2013

How we chose our "home"

How We Chose Our “Home”

Making the decision to full-time was just the start of many decisions to come.  When we came to this conclusion, we did not even have a camper of any sort, let alone one we could live in!  So, the conversation began regarding what time of unit we wanted.  We had to choose between a 5th wheel and truck or a motorhome and pull our Harley for transportation.  We looked at both and just kept going back to the idea of the 5th wheel.  For us, it just seemed roomier and homier than a motorhome in our price range.  Did we even want to keep the Harley?  That is where we started.  We decided that when it came time to sell our stick house, that would be the end of our Harley-riding days.  We felt we would be ready to let that chapter of our lives end as we began a new chapter – living and traveling in a 5th wheel.

Now, how to pick the 5th wheel we wanted.  After several years of dreaming, we got serious in February 2013.  Clark began searching the Internet for floor plans and specs.   He would capture the pictures and put them in a file.  We would enter the specs on a spreadsheet.   After we felt we had “seen ‘um all” (we could no longer find anything new out there), we began reviewing all of the pictures in the file.

We would look at the pictures of a unit and see if there was anything about it that would be a deal breaker, if so we moved it to another file – Not Interested.  This way we would know we had already considered that particular model.  In addition to analyzing the photos, we reviewed the specs from the spreadsheet on that unit.  If there was anything on the specs we didn’t like, we moved that unit to the “not interested” file.  We went down the line until we got down to 2 units.  We kept coming back to this Mountaineer.  There wasn’t really anything we couldn’t live with about it and there were a lot of things we were looking for in it.  We finally had a winner!  The problem was the particular model we liked was a 2012 – both the 2013s and 2014s had some differences we did not care for.  It was hard to find the older year and model we really desired because we wanted to buy new since we planned to live in it.  Finding a “new” 2012 in 2013 with the 2014s coming out was not easy, but Clark did find a few online.  We finally made a purchase but we had to drive from Kansas to Michigan to get it.  Wow!  But it was so worth it.  It is such a relief to have made the purchase so we could move on toward our goal.  It was really beginning to become an obsession. 


We love our new home and are excited to start our adventure, just not yet.  We still have a house to empty.  This will be truly difficult having lived in this house for 22 years.  Plus, this was the home Clark grew up in so he has even more memories.  When we begin to wonder what the heck we are doing, we look outside to the 5th wheel and see adventure calling to us and we are fortified and ready to go at it again.