Well it is SOFTBALL season...

What does this have to do with RV's and my future retirement?  Nothing? Everything? ...

Well when my DW and I started to discuss retirement a little over a year ago we sat around for a long time trying to determine where would live at first.  This slowly morphed to a discussion centered on RV'ing full time to assist us in finding the perfect "settle down" spot.  Then as we discussed it further we started to realize that we may RV for an extended time to see a lot of the the US, Canada, and Mexico... and maybe even further south if we become more adventurous.

The next point of discussion became WHEN? When to retire was a little more complicated.  So I had to build a massive spreadsheet and work up all our financial numbers to see WHEN we could retire and quit w$rking.  That is when it started to become fun.  Why?  Because after I had worked up the numbers it was apparent that we were closer to this reality than we thought.  So we focused on our retirement date at first on late spring - early summer of 2011.  Then it hit us... our DD would be in her last year of college in 2011 and would be playing her last full year of division 1 softball that spring.  Thus, the retirement date became clearer since we decided that we wanted to watch as many of her games as possible her senior year.  You see we live in Texas and she goes to school in North Carolina so we have not gotten to see nearly as many games as we would like to have over the years.  So next year when we retire we will drive out RV over to North Carolina where we will watch most of her final games and then watch her graduate.

So today it is off to Florida to watch her play in a tournament.  We will rent a car and take a half day to drive over to the gulf coast and look for future sites to park our rig... see it does have to do with RV'ing and our future retirement after all...

Attending Our First RV Show...

WOW!  Over 600 RV's to look at and some brands present from our list to focus on - that is what we found a the Houston RV Show this weekend. So what did we learn? Well for one thing my gut feel for what we like held true as we still have Tiffin as our most preferred brand right now.


Now we read the forums and heeded all of the advise of those who had attended RV shows in the past as to how to best approach a show and how to best maximize your time spent at the show.  So I will share what worked for us?
 - first do your homework and make a list of those you think you like the most and want to see
- go to the show with a goal(s) in mind (for us it was 1- narrow down brands, 2- determine minimum length,
            3- study features and quality)
- start from the back of the show and work forward - row by row
- mentally separate off the show floor in quadrants 1-4
- take a pad along to make notes as to which ones you initially like so you can revisit them (list by quadrant)
- as you view an RV note the the features you like
- take a lengthy break after viewing half the RV's (we went to a seminar on RV technology at the mid point)

After seeing everything once:
- revisit those that impressed you
- now make a list of those features that you see as "must haves"
- photograph those must have features
- then revisit a third or fourth time to meet your goals (get a real feel for length, space, floor plans, etc.)

So what did we end up with?  Well we now have an order of preference in brands:
1- Tiffin
2- Winnebago
3- Newmar
4- Monarch
... and we decided that our target of 32 feet on the minimum side was not too small so we will focus on 32-35 foot motorhomes.

Coaches we saw at the show that we liked were:
Newmar BayStar 3202
Monaco Monarch 33 SFS
Tiffin Allegro 35 TSA


Coaches we still hope to see are:
Tiffin Allegro Bay 32BA
Tiffin Allegro 34TGA
Tiffin Allegro 34WA
Monaco Windsor 32 PDB
Monaco Monarch 32 PBD
Monaco Lapalma 32 PDB
Monaco cayman 32 PBD
Monaco knight 34 PDD
Monaco Riptide 33
National Sea Breeze
Winnebago Sightseer 34M
Triple E Comander
Itasca suncruiser 33V
Winnebago Sightseer 33C - a new model but we really like it (may be out of my price range)

Features we decided we really liked and want to have as many as possible in our rig are:
-as large as a Fridge as we can get without sacrificing the pantry
- a pedestal dining table instead of a booth
- only one couch in the coach (not two)
- no carpet in the living area
- lighter colored cabinets
- spill guards on the counter in kitchen
- a dining/living slide
- a bedroom slide
- one piece shower units

So what is next? More research and of course we still need to see more coaches.  But for now it is time to start researching the non-living quarters... workhouse vs ford vs chevy etc... we have been focusing on where we will live now we need to focus on how our house will move...