We went to Dunedin, Florida to look at a couple of houses last week but were very disappointed. The two houses were dumps. The neighborhoods weren't great and we would not want to consider buying either property. We also visited the Blue Moon Motel and RV Park that is in Dunedin while we were there. The town is great but does not have any newer homes since the town was "built out" many years ago. We have been giving buying versus traveling like we are doing now a lot of thought. We really enjoy the park we are in now. I play golf in the morning then we have a little lunch ride bikes and then hit the pool and hot tub in the afternoon. The park is awesome and we don't leave it that often except when biking, going to the grocery store, or to Port St Lucy to go shopping. The town of Okeechobee sucks but Port St Lucy is about one half hour or so away over on the Atlantic coast. We like Dunedin too but could live there for as many months as we want by staying at the rv park. Then if we get tired of where we are at you move on the next year. If we thought our kids could use the house more than a week or so a year we might go that route but today we are leaning another direction.
We are now considering buying a big diesel pusher motor home rather than a house. The two models we are considering are Newmar and Tiffin. Newmar's are made in Nappanee, Indiana while Tiffin's are made in Red Bay, Alabama. We would like to get something 40 feet or longer and would prefer a 45 footer. Must haves include a king size bed as opposed to the queen we now have. Two dogs, Janet, and my big ass don't do well in a queen size bed. We prefer tile in the living room versus carpet. We want a washer and dryer, dish washer, a residential side by side refrigerator would be nice but not a must have. Other things we want are satellite tv while traveling, side and rear view cameras. A 450 to 500hp engine with three or four slides. I have a sales person looking for our unit at Lazy Days RV in Tampa, Florida and we are going to the Tampa RV show this Thursday. Lazy Days is probably the highest volume rv dealer in the country with locations in Tampa and Tucson. I would prefer a used motor home built prior to 2010 before the latest emission standards kicked in for motor homes. I like the Spartan chassis over Freightliner. I would consider something up to 10 years old if it had low miles and had the other features we were looking for. Our current strategy is to buy the highest end, low mile unit we can that meets all our needs rather than a mid to lower level unit that may be newer that is the same price. In the Newmar brand we are looking at Dutch Star, Mountain Aire, and Essex. We looked at a 45 foot Essex in Warsaw before we left that is a 2004 500hp with 25k miles. Other than having a light carpet that we don't like the unit is very nice and like new. This is a $500K unit when it was purchased new in 2004. Today a new unit like this sells for $725k. We talked to the owner and the unit is still for sale and the owner is in Florida until April. Motor homes even more so than cars depreciate very quickly in the first five years. This is why we don't want a new one. If we go the Tiffin route we are looking at Phaeton or the Allegro Bus. God willing we think we have at least ten years we could travel in the motor home so we want something that we will be very comfortable that will last these ten years. I have looked at motor homes for the last fifteen years and consider myself somewhat knowledgeable about what is available. Before we bought our fifth wheel we considered motor homes so I did a lot of research back then.
A motor home would make going west more comfortable for Janet and the two dogs. We will keep you posted how it goes.
A journal written about life, retirement and our journey throughout the United States in a 5th wheel, along with our two Shih Tzus, Tanner and Syndey. Written not for notoriety but for our sons, family and friends, so they know where we are at any given time. And particularly for ourselves. Finally, we get to slow down and smell the roses and we don't want to forget any of it. You are welcome to join us as we go 'Down the Road a Piece'.
