retirement treat to ourselves

Frank Fusco

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Mountain Home, Arkansas
I know, I cry poor, living on SS and all. That is true. But recently we decided that while living, we should live. In years past we had a couple small camping trailers and loved them. I called them our Freedom Machines. We used them for, mostly, short weekender trips. Get an urge to go to some park or historical spot, or one of our reenactment events, we hooked up and went. Wifey won't sleep on the ground anymore but would like to participate in the rendezvous and muzzle loading shooting events. Truth is, in serious storms or very cold weather, I would rather be inside hard shelter with the heater on also. So we dipped into our meager savings and bought this trailer after much (make that much-much) searching and shopping. It is a 1994, 27 foot beauty that we got for about one half NADA book or what other dealers were selling it, and similar for. Now, I get scolded. I bought it off of eBay. Dealer seems like a very nice person. Did not insist on a deposit. Giving us a brand new mattress and meeting me half-way between his place in Elkhart, Indiana and my home. Considering price of gas, we won't use this for long trips, probably mostly under 200 miles and some as short as 20.
 

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ONLY once!

a wize man told me once that we only live once and you cant take all your guns or money with ya so enjoy your stay here.. if you can afford it go for it.. tommrrow may never come.. glad for ya frank and enjoy your retiremnet years you get any more tha you already have allocated to you.:D:thumb:
 
Congrats, Frank. That looks like a nice rig. I lived in a 24 footer for about 6 months while working out of town. (I pocketed the per diem money I was being paid and borrowed the trailer from my parents.) I was paying $50 a month rent for a space with hookups, as opposed to $50 or so per night at the local motels. I made good money on that job. ;)
 
does it have enough room to put an "on the road" woodshop?

my parents and inlaws both, worked hard their entire lives, all all but one died very young, 48, 51, 58,, and each always said how when they retire, they were going to travel and live a little, enjoy life. Never happenned, they never got to travel much, and although none had much money, they didnt get to enjoy any of it later on in life.
My ideas are different. Enjoy it all, dont wait.
I hope you get many, many great years in that.(I married a princess, her idea of roughing it is when they only give 2 pillows in a room instead of 3)
 
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does it have enough room to put an "on the road" woodshop?

my parents and inlaws both, worked hard their entire lives, all all but one died very young, 48, 51, 58,, and each always said how when they retire, they were going to travel and live a little, enjoy life. Never happenned, they never got to travel much, and although none had much money, they didnt get to enjoy any of it later on in life.
My ideas are different. Enjoy it all, dont wait.
I hope you get many, many great years in that.
Bringing back some memories. My dad loved to go places in our old Apache pop up when we were kids. Later on we sold the camper and he always said he was going to buy another and take my mom across the country. Well, when he was 63 he finally bought an old Winnebago. The took it for one trip to the mid west and, upon returning home, parked it in the driveway where he intended to make some repairs and upgrades. Three months later he found out he had cancer. 10 months after that he was gone.:(

Frank - take every opportunity to drag that box around the countryside and enjoy every minute of it!:thumb:
 
Thanks all. We are blessed with good health. And we have a variety of eclectic (can I say 'strange and unusual') interests. When we had our other trailers, the boys were small and so were the trailers. But, we were much younger and made do. What I learned was that our state, Indiana at the time, had many interesting places to go and visit, all within just a couple hours driving distance. All states have their history and points of interest. A trailer, like this, allows impromptu trips without great expense and little planning. For example, we have lived in Arkansas more than 30 years and have never visited the Delta region. Some would say, 'why bother?', but there is history there. So, one day, we will do the sweaty and mosquito thing and experience the Delta. I plan to take the grandsons somewhere for a few days this summer. I'm getting excited. Life is fun if you live it.
 
I'm back. Went up to get my trailer Tuesday, ten hour drive. I was very stressed out about this deal. All seemed well. But it was a big transaction. Seller didn't accept plastic so I carried cash, and a pocket sized 'friend'. Buying from eBay always has an element of uncertainty. We met at a State Park near LeRoy, Illinois. Happily, the seller turned out to be a fine person, we could easily become good friends. He is honest to a fault. Tossed in several hundred dollars worth of accessories that were not part of the deal. I never asked, he just did it. Trailer is exactly what he said it was. Doorknob in bathroom was broken. I got an e-mail this a.m. he said a replacement is on the way via UPS. At 27' this thing is bigger than I visualized. Coming home, at Interstate speeds the fuel consumption with my Dodge truck was outrageous. I will not tell my wife how much I spent on gas coming back. (paid $4.09 at one place) It was another ten hours on the road coming home and I was totally exhausted, physically and mentally. But, it is here and (big relief) meets with wife's approval. We will use this for short trips, probably all under 200 miles, weekenders and our muzzle loading shoot activities. I'll take it to a writers conference in October. The conference is good but the hotel rooms are killer prices. I'll just pull into the parking lot and bunk there. Looking forward to enjoying our 'Freedom Machine'.
 
does it have enough room to put an "on the road" woodshop?

Allen, this question made me laugh! This is exactly the reason that we are trying to sell our motor home--LOML says that we don't have enough room for a woodshop OR the laser shop in it!! When we bought it, we had visions of being able to travel for 4-6 weeks at a time, then home for a time, then out again. However, with the laser business (and supporting woodworking) booming for us, we can't follow through on that dream. Besides, I decided that I like having someone else cook my breakfasts, wash my dishes, and clean my toilets. So we'd like to sell it---but with gas prices the way they are, we don't see much hope. We'll let the children deal with it when we are gone.
 
Allen, this question made me laugh! This is exactly the reason that we are trying to sell our motor home--LOML says that we don't have enough room for a woodshop OR the laser shop in it!! When we bought it, we had visions of being able to travel for 4-6 weeks at a time, then home for a time, then out again. However, with the laser business (and supporting woodworking) booming for us, we can't follow through on that dream. Besides, I decided that I like having someone else cook my breakfasts, wash my dishes, and clean my toilets. So we'd like to sell it---but with gas prices the way they are, we don't see much hope. We'll let the children deal with it when we are gone.

The dealer I dealt with said motorhomes are a drag on the market right now with high fuel prices. They just aren't selling. But, trailers like ours are popular. Go figger. Still takes fuel to propel them. :dunno:
 
OK, a quickie for Rennie. :rolleyes: This is taken from our living room window. (we have a hillside, two-level house) Peeking out from behind on the left is our old, very old, 18' trailer which we haven't used in years.
 

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Congrats Frank! My parents take there small RV on the road quite a bit too. I know sometimes if they are just stopping to sleep, they have parked in a Walmart parking lot to "camp". Walmart doesn't advertise it, but they welcome campers and truckers to do so. Have fun!
 
The dealer I dealt with said motorhomes are a drag on the market right now with high fuel prices. They just aren't selling. But, trailers like ours are popular. Go figger. Still takes fuel to propel them. :dunno:

Yep, and no one wants a 12-year-old motor home, no matter how nice it is, if it gets only 8 mpg. It's a situation where if you have to ask how much it costs, you can't afford it!! People are still buying them---but they don't care how much the gas costs!!
 
Im pretty sure these big rigs eat gasoline like we drink water.
What I noticed this weekend also, on a perfect weather day, I went over to the freeport nautical mile, a place of mainly restaurants, but its along the docks where all the boats are. All the boats were docked, and so many people just hanging out on their boats, bbqing, sunning, so I figured due to the price of gas, and these things probably only get a few miles to the gallon with those huge engines, its too expensive for even the rich boat people to just take as many fun cruises these days.
 
thinking about the math, if you do 400 miles a day in one of these rigs, it might pay to just get a 4 cylinder car and stay at inexpensive motels at night.

225 bucks for a trailor or camper, for a 400 mile trip
70 bucks for a 4 cylinder, take the 150 bucks get a room with breakfast.
 
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