Test Drive

I had the day off and had planned to drive up north and maybe find some hiking trails somewhere but the weather was gross and the farther north you went the worse it got. I've actually really been wanting to go kayaking but I know the water will be very cold, and I'm sure some lakes still have ice. And all the rivers in the area are flooding right now.

So instead I drove south and went to check out a motorhome. It's a 1984, and it shows but it doesn't look too bad. I took it for a test drive and it ran fine. I only took it up to 60, maybe 65 on the expressway. Probably about as fast as something like that should be driven anyway. I will say this, driving my van after driving that and I was very impressed with the power it has.

I'm actually a big fan of the layout it had. Pretty much the same as my travel trailer, only flip flopped and with the addition of a bathroom right behind the driver's seat. A big bathroom. I'm a big guy and I should have no problem using that bathroom. The shower portion was maybe a little iffy but I could make it work with little effort. Would have been amazing if the entire area was designed to get wet and had a drain but the toilet sits outside of the shower pan and the shower pan is raised up maybe 5 inches. The other negative of having the bathroom right behind the driver's seat is it leaves the driver's seat a little cramped for someone with long legs. No seat tilting ability either. At all, the seats don't even have the option to tilt. No cruise control. Both of those things could be viewed positively as it would discourage driving long distances in one shot. It would encourage taking my time and enjoying the ride (and making the gas dollars stretch). All the dash gauges appeared to work. There were a lot of little toggle switches that I have no clue what they do. Haha.

All together I view it as move-in ready. I could move all my crap in and my cats and we'd be living in an RV immediately. I would probably need to remove the carpet before I did, but overall it wouldn't be the end of the world. I just hate having carpet with my cats, and in RVs in general.

I'm 6' 3" and can stand straight in the entire thing. I like that. The added width is very nice too. The overcab just becomes storage for me but it also gives that extra space that makes me feel better about the cats having enough room.

Now for the reasons that I'm still thinking about it and not running right out to buy it. The price is every cent I have. More than that actually, but I can talk him down the few hundred to be in my range. My biggest biggest biggest issue is the tires. He calls them 'newer tires' and even with me standing right there saying 'Look at them, they're weatherchecked and separating' he still thinks they're great tires. It will need new tires. Plain and simple. I just bought new tires for my van, I don't think I'm ready to buy MORE new tires. Unfortunately they aren't the same size as the van. Tires are expensive. True, if I bought it and lived in it then I'd be staying within a few miles of work every night and having a tire blow out in that case is a much smaller issue. So I could, in theory, just drive it as it is until something happens.

He said he could probably give me $500 for my van. Which sounds stupid, I'm sure. But do you know how hard it'll be for me if I were to try to sell my van for anything much more than that? A custom, half finished interior and a severely rusted frame underneath. It's a good engine and everything, but the actual van isn't far from being junk. There's not many people out there that would buy that van and be able to just look past all the rust like I am doing. Haha.

I will continue to hem and haw about this until it gets sold to someone else. That's my usual style.