In the Beginning

As we sat at our desk one day back in August, looking at houses for sale on the internet, we talked about the possibility of buying a house in Florida. We'd spent a week in the south on our honeymoon in July and fell in love with the sun and the people and the way of life down along the southern coast. It was an exciting idea. If only we could take our whole family along. Could we live without the grandkids being close by? Could we stand being so far away from mom and dad? What if we got moved down there and found out we missed them too much? We'd hate to have to put our new house on the market and move everything back north. Almost at the same instant we both had the idea of getting a motorhome and spending the winters down there. I don't know which one of us voiced it first. I think it was actually in unison. Bingo! A plan was born. One we were both equally thrilled with. Not only were we going to spend our winters in a motorhome, we were going to LIVE in it year round for at least two years. Life on the road, moving when we felt the urge. We switched our searches from homes for sale to RV's for sale. The hunt was on. We began looking at picture after picture of coaches and their interiors. We made a list of things we wanted in our coach. On the week ends we began traveling around to various dealers looking at them and most importantly, smelling them. We learned that some didn't smell nice at all. Smoke and pet and cooking odors can leave very unpleasant impressions on our sensitive noses in such a small space. Since we spend the majority of our indoor time at our computers we knew we needed adequate space for a desk. Chuck also knew if we planned on putting a lot of miles on it we'd need a diesel. We found a number of coaches we really liked but for one reason or another we ruled each one out. Early in our search we'd come across a Monaco we liked but since it didn't have a slide or a washer/dryer unit we kept searching. It's not all that easy to find the perfect coach in a sea of thousands. The more we looked, the more we kept coming back to the Monaco we'd found in Lysle Illinois. She was such a pretty thing. The price was right, the mileage was low, it was close to home. Chuck even called the owners and talked to them about their experiences in it. The fact that it didn't have a slide was getting less and less important as we'd talked to many people with slides who had too many problems for no more extra space than you got. Did I really need a washer/dryer in my home? From reading posts online I'd learned that most campgrounds had laundry facilities and the washer/dryer combos weren't all that convenient. You could only wash a few things at a time and they took forever to dry. Maybe I'd be like most people I'd talked to who had the washer/dryers on board but used the laundry facilities in the campgrounds anyway. We were falling more and more in love with the blue Monaco in Lysle. Finally we decided to give it the sniff test so Chuck called the owners one more time to make sure it was still available and we scheduled a visit for the upcoming weekend. I could hardly wait. The days seemed to drag by. We made preliminary arrangements with the insurance company and we had a cashiers check cut at the bank for our offering price. I did a check on the vin number to make sure there were no leans against it. We even made our first camping purchase of walkie talkies at WallyWorld. Finally Saturday morning arrived. My nose was ready. We picked up Mom and headed for Lisle. It was a two hour drive and the minutes clicked by slower than I can ever remember in my life. Finally we arrived and began looking for the Perkins house. I remember when I first caught a glimpse of the Monaco for the first time. It was even more beautiful than the pictures we'd received. Paul and Ro, the owners, had her washed and waxed and all the awnings out and I swear she was winking at us when we pulled in the driveway. I was almost lightheaded when I stepped thru the door and took my first deep breath. She smelled wonderful! No smoke odors, no pet odors, she smelled like the inside of the dryer when you've soaked your clothes in Downey. Our hearts melted. It was love at first site for Chuck and I both. We searched every nook and cranny inside and out. She was 36 feet of heaven. We had to have her. I could already picture us living in her and hitting the road. Even mom was impressed. Chuck made our offer and Paul excepted. She was OURS! Blue Skies were on the horizon.