Our Home Away from Home over the Years

Over the years, we have owned a variety of recreational trailers.

Our first trailer was a '72 Viking. When we bought it, it had canvas tenting that you could see the sky though. But it was large, and a lot of potential. We replaced the canvas, cushions, and some cabinets. It became a comfortable and roomy traveling home. The one thing it did not have going for it was a weak roof and the way the roof went up and down. During one early summer trip to Yellowstone it snowed and when the roof was lowered, the person doing it got very wet. The roof could hold a lot of moisture up there. That was when we decided to get rid of that trailer.

Next came a '73 Argosy. This 20 foot trailer had hard hard sides, and a bathroom. These were very welcome changes from Viking tent trailer. The Argosy was in excellent condition, but was not large enough for the family and required bothe the dinette and the sofa to be made into beds at night. It was also heavy to tow for the vehicles we had at the time. As the family members grew in size, it became obvious we didn't fit in this trailer.

After that we returned to tent camping for a brief period of time, but found that our bodies were not as young as they once were. We needed something better to sleep on. The fact that during a girl scout camping trip a bear openned the closed tent without using a zipper didn't help either. (one kid left trail mix in their backpack in the tent and no body was in the tent at the time)

Next, we then bought a new '99 Flagstaff Tent Trailer (model 825D). This was large, got us off the ground, had a great lift system, was new and clean, had a slide out for even more room, and was pretty nice to live in. The one problem was that it still was a tent trailer. We didn't feel safe in bear country, and night time winds would rock the trailer a lot and keep us awake wondering if one gust would rip off the awning or take us to Oz.

Finally we decided that we needed something more substantial and we wanted to go to Alaska. In the summer of 2004, we watched eBay for the various motor homes that were often available, and lined up some financing so we could bid on one. Most of the motor homes are either in Arizona or Florida, where older people take them and either trade them in, sell them to live in a retirement place, or die. We figured that we would bid on one in Arizona, then make a trip there to return it to Colorado, with a stop at the Grand Canyon or something. We didn't win any of those bids. However, we did place a winning bid on one in Oregon. This trip allowed us to quickly stop and visit Jerry's mom in Vancouver as well, so it was a good place to pick one up.