It's Happening... We Bought a New Camper

I still don't believe it. The last few months have been full of ups and downs... mostly downs. We've literally been to every camper dealership within a 250 mile radius... I think 23 at last count. We've explored camper after camper after camper, only to find something wrong, or it gets sold, or the salespeople are sleazy, or the price isn't right... We finally found the perfect camper- a 2013  Prime Time Avenger 33 BHS. It had almost everything exactly as we wanted it...double slides in the bunkhouse, a dinette in the bunkhouse for roadschooling, plenty of storage space (super important since we're planning on living in it), a u shaped dinette, real cherry cabinets, heated underbelly, and, most importantly, three slides, and plenty of ROOM!

Coming from a no slide camper, where the kids had to make up the kitchen table and sofa into their beds every night and put them away every morning, it's like a mansion! We decided, oh, back at the beginning of December, this was THE.ONE. Threw away all the lists with columns for slides, bathroom rating, pros and cons, bunkhouse details, price, etc. With the craziness of the holidays, we kinda hem hawed around until the beginning of January trying to get all our ducks in a row and be sure this is what we should do. Finally, a couple weeks ago, we decided to go for it.

We called the RV salesman we'd dealt with. First bad omen- he doesn't remember us- as in has NO clue who Brian is when he calls. (Gee, this makes me think his getting all teary eyed and choked up when we shared with him that we prayed on the way down there to give us a good Christian dealership where we knew we'd be treated right was just an act!) Second bad omen- the camper got picked up by its new owners just the day before. This was a 2013 model, the only one they had left, hence the reason it was in our price range.

So, that was a huge disappointment for us... heartbreaking, even. That loss, coupled with some other ups and downs, really had us questioning what we were doing. Is this really in God's plan for us, or is this whole thing some crazy idea we've concocted in our heads?? After some thought, we decided to pull up our big girl panties and try again. There were two more of the same RVs about the same distance away. We called, and they were willing to match the other dealer's price.

We drove down yesterday to apply for financing and hopefully, buy this one. We talked before we left, and again on the way down there, and again when we were waiting for the salesman to tell us if we were approved. We both really thought that, if it was meant to be, it would happen, and if it didn't happen, it wasn't meant to be. Really, we both thought something would happen and the whole deal would fall through. After 5 hours of paperwork (who knew it took so long to buy an RV? I'd hate to imagine how long it would be if we had to pick out a camper as well.), we are the proud owners of a new camper! It still doesn't seem real- maybe that will happen when we pick it up on Thursday!

We started out camping in a 1978 Layton 16 footer with no space whatsoever. Funny thing was, we camped happily for the entire summer on the outskirts of New 'Awlins, after Hurricane Katrina, while Brian was doing electrical work, with a four year old and a five year old, and LOVED it! After a tornado took the roof off, and we had more water inside the camper than outside, we moved into a 31 foot Jayco. It was perfect for us for years.... really, until we started fulltiming. Then it started mysteriously shrinking as our kids grew. We won't know how to act in a camper with slides and an actual bedroom for the kiddos!

Thank you, Lord...