RV Purchase and Baby Steps
Let’s begin at the beginning. When I was plotting this trip, I was trying to decide the best way to get across the country with my pets. I did consider the 2-3 day drive in my car with Salem (black cat) yowling the entire way (she really does that). And having to stop for Jack (dog). And having to stop because Spot (fluffy cat) used the litter box (bless his heart, he’s travel trained and WILL poo in the box while the car is moving), being overtired, not having the chance to see anything because I had 3 pets to look after, and in general just skipping what could be a great tour.
They each have a carpet they like to park on. That’s their thing. They color coordinate themselves.
I could have shipped the pets too, but they are old. Spot is 15, Salem is 10, and Jack is 8. Aside from the cost of shipping being insane, I’d have to barrel across the country to be there before they arrived.
The idea of the RV was always there in my head – it was a bucket list item. I considered renting an RV until I found out they aren’t so keen on one-way trips, and the price to get me there would be super high.
So I figured I’d buy one. Insert famous last words here for later.
After doing some research and price points, I started looking. It took me about two months to find one that suited my needs.
Buying the RV was my biggest step. It was one of those shit-or-get-off-the-pot things. Scary as hell. I had a rough time getting out the gate. Minden, NV isn’t exactly renown for RV emporiums, and getting to Reno (an hour drive) on the best of days was difficult. I eventually bonded with a fellow named Scott at Sierra RV in Reno, and he was kind enough to work with me over email and text. I laid out my parameters and he just shuffled ideas my way when he saw them.
I had planned on buying used, but a deal matching my price point came up for a new 2018 RV. After much nail-biting and second-guessing, I decided to buy it.
The thing that is different about buying an RV versus a car is all the crap you have to get for it. You buy a car, maybe get a sunshade for it. With an RV there’s a good chunk of overhead. Registration, hoses, durable doodads, special toilet paper, and whatever else you need while traveling. Fortunately, I’m a planning nut so I had all the expenses accounted for, including the overhead of getting it geared up. It’s one thing to know the big price going in, it’s another to trickle in the extra expenses after the fact.
I had nightmares about it while waiting for it to be delivered to my house. I had a lot of stress dreams and a couple of nightmares. In my dreams, the RV kept getting bigger and more complicated. The worst case scenarios played out in my brain while I was sleeping. Near the end of that cycle, I driving through an apocalypse in the RV. This kept going until the day it arrived.
The first day it appeared on my doorstep, I was terrified, excited, and stressed out from lack of sleep. But arrive it did. Two days after that, I threw the keys in the ignition and took a slow 25mph crawl through residential streets with no traffic.
Let me tell you about that experience. Anybody who’s ever been super broke and rented a giant cheap U-haul knows that fear and trepidation when you first jump in and drive it out of the lot. Totally the same. It was just like a U-haul. A little fatter and heavier, but the same gist. I was so thrilled I got the hang of it, I spent about an hour in a church parking lot backing in and out of spots for practice. I pushed buttons. I learned what will swing around wildly if not tethered down.
I’m still practicing now. I wait for suboptimal times to drive. Busy traffic. Wind. Night. Cramped parking lots. Every time I conquer one of those I feel awesome. There are still about 100 buttons to push in my RV, and I’m not so great at speeds over 55mph. I’ll work my way through it. The entire point is to prep myself to do a long trip solo and have enough knowledge under my belt to creep along the country without disaster. Today, I feel I can handle that.