Who are these people

Scott (SoCalOilMan): Oil field worker in Downtown Los Angeles for 30+ years.

Nancie: Retired LAUSD 2nd grade teacher after 39 years. Now domestic goddess and love of my life.

This blog is just for our impressions and experiences of getting into the life of RVing. If you don’t know us, and maybe if you do, this may be boring. It is here for my entertainment and to look back on to remember what we have gone through...and at our age, this may come in handy.

The Back Story

Nancie and I have known each other since 2nd grade. We reconnected at a 40+ High School get together after years of not seeing each other. Both of us without a significant other and having found many things in common decided to get together and pursue the rest of our lives together.

One of our shared passions is getting out into the wilderness and enjoying what G-d has bestowed upon us. We both look back on our separate camping experiences as some of our best memories over the years, however, tents and sleeping bags on the ground are something for people with a few years less wear on them. We talked about pop-up tents condo rentals and RV’s.

Pop-up tents are nice but only one small step above a regular tent and cold at night, not our thing.

Renting a Condo someplace is nice (we did this last year), but it involves a good outlay of cash and a fixed destination. If the weather and/or people there are not to your liking, you’re stuck for the duration.

So an RV seemed to be the answer. Free to go where we want and at any time we want, outside of my work schedule. I work a 4 on/4 off schedule, so taking a 2 to 3 day quickie vacation is very doable.

So, an RV became our choice.

Now...what to buy?

In August 2017 we went to a dinky RV Show and investigated. Size, price, and amenities. Believe me, you will be overwhelmed with the choices. The size for the two of us was fairly easy (cost helping limit our choices at this time), but the layouts from all the makers, not to mention the multiple choices by one maker can make your head spin, and it did.

For the next two months, we debated, watched videos and read articles on RV’s. When the major RV Show in L.A. came in October, we had a really good idea of what we were looking for...we thought.

Just overwhelmed again, even with the basic restrictions we had set. It took the entire day to decide, and even then we weren’t ready to close a deal. The salesman said to call him when we settled or wanted to explore more vehicles and he’d get us back in for free (I would hope so).

Nancie and I discussed every facet of all the rigs over two days and came to a consensus. It wasn't hard, just had to convince ourselves we were buying something we would both be happy with.

We picked out the Thor Chateau 22B. Small, with a slideout for the bed. The one thing we splurged on was I wanted a Ford chassis as opposed to the Chevy they offered (says something to me if it costs more to get a thing...like “there’s a reason it costs more”. Also, Nancie knew that if one thing had gone wrong with the Chevy, I would have hated the whole vehicle for eternity (I can carry a grudge sometimes).

The Ford part is an E-350 with a Triton V10 engine. The biggest gas engine they make, so our rig could be 38 feet long and an E-450 chassis and no more power unless we went diesel, and that was a price factor this time.

We picked up our baby on October 24, 2017, and she’s beautiful. The rest of the saga will be in the following

posts.