Friday, Jan. 17th - WE HAVE A NEW HOME!

For lack of anything better to do on our day off this week, John said he wanted to go to Lloyd's RV Centre in Orange County, about an hour away, just to see what was available. I humored him - that was better than sitting at our site twiddling our thumbs...

We packed up our friends from last year, Paul and Mary, and were making a day of it.

It is a very large dealer, as there are RV's and RV Parks down here by the mile. Of course, with so much devastation in this area, RV's are the main type of accommodation until rebuilding is completed.

They must have had 200 units there, including fifth wheels, with slides and without, regular pull-types, buses (including FANCY buses), new and used. We walked into units that looked interesting, but there was no even one RV, including brand new ones, that appealed to me in any way, shape or form. I knew that if we ever purchased an RV, I did fancy one with two rocker recliners.

John had in the back of his mind a pull-type that he could pull behind the Imperial. There is no doubt we have outgrown the motorhome - there simply is not enough room

On our way out of walking on the lot, we caught sight of some units that they were cleaning that had just been delivered as trade-ins. John went into one while I looked at a Montana. He came out and asked me if I had been in the Dutchman he just looked at, and I hadn't. It was a 2003 -36 foot fifth wheel with 3 slides. Well, I could not believe my eyes:

• a computer desk in the huge livingroom!!! I have been fighting with this laptop for 3 weeks already - no place to type in comfort
• a brand new hideabed and two brand new rocker/recliners - the people who traded it had wanted to keep their old furnture, so they switched the new units to the old RV
• a nice big corner floor-to-ceiling entertainment centre for the TV, bigger than the one we have at home
• a built-in sound system with speakers and probably a CD player (I didn't check)
• nice kitchen, although small amount of counter space
• bedroom with walk-around queen-size bed; full width of the fifth wheel mirrored closed; a 5 ft ledge with 5 huge drawers underneath, and cupboards at the ceiling
• a sink with cosmetic cabinet above in the alley
• a lovely mini chandelier in the dining area
• a bathroom with an RV size tub, a toilet and another medicine cabinet
• a WASHER AND DRYER across from the bathroom
• a nice pantry in the kitchen beside the fridge

WOW!!

There were only a couple of "cons" I could think of: 1) the kitchen window at the sink is quite large and therefore the cabinets above the window are quite high, even for me. 2) the pantry didn't have roll-out shelves 3) the table unit had benches rather than chairs.

Just out of curiosity, I said to John we should find out how much they wanted - that would end the subject right there... He came back, disbelieving. He said $17,900.00! Well, if we were going to buy something different, that would not be totally out of our range.

To make a long story shorter (there was another lady who was waiting for the unit to come in so she could see it, but her husband couldn't get in for another 3 weeks, so they wouldn't hold it for her, and the salesman came down another grand. We couldn't think of solitary reason why we shouldn't so we did. I am counting the days until we will have our new home on our site - this Friday! While John and Paul are going to Houston with the group to see the Houston Space Centre on Saturday, Mary and I are going to move our stuff into the new RV.

WHODATHUNK!!!

Just thought we'd share our excitement (and possible insanity) with our friends. We are looking to the Good Lord to handle all of the "ifs" and "buts", because there are plenty. In the meantime, a Mexican came up to our RV after work today and was interested in buying the motorhome... I don't think we can sell it down here, but will look into it...

Bye for now. God Bless Y'all.