Black Friday it is...

We have embraced the American holiday weekend, it beats the pants off the Canadian Thanksgiving and then followed up by one of the biggest shopping days of the year.  Cat loves the chaos but I prefer sleeping in.  The poor suckers camping outside BestBuy at 3am in Maine.  And that takes us to a tragic note.  Three people were killed in the madness of these sales.  One Walmart employee was trampled and two others at a Toys R' Us shot one another over a piece of discounted merchandise.  Come on!  Yesterday was Thanksgiving wasn't it?

So we are looking at the Class A, as Cat highlighted in the previous post, the main reason being the discomfort in moving long distances with a 5th wheel.  No slides is fine, I don't want to have to pack up and move a lot of items everytime we go somewhere.  We're going with an old one since we would have to get another vehicle regardless in June once the lease is up on the truck.   Trading the Escalade makes zero sense...  we're in a negative equity situation, and the prospects of getting that much more money is slim.  So the next step will be to find a piece of land where we can park the Escalade permanently.  I'll have to talk to the bank to see if they'll consider it a primary residence (mobile home), and then work on negotiating a much more favourable - traditional mortgage.  I'm aiming for the least amount of debt right now.



We are currently at Jonathan Dickinson State Park, and it is significantly warmer here than North Florida.  It was the first day we have run the A/C -- instead of the fireplace!  Love this park, it has really grown on us. The first time we came here, we thought it very decrepit, the place is brush filled and has fire charred trees. It's a very dry area and the park often conducts controlled burns.  I really like the area around Jupiter.  It's more laid back before hitting busy south Florida.

A possible new addition....

....and not of the animal varity. Nor human, thank goodness. What is this possible new addition? That would be a 1997 Damon Intruder....that's right, a Class A.

What about Mr.Escalade? Not to worry, we're keeping him. If we were to trade in, we'd take a loss. Not like we want to trade him in either, no way. We figured it would make more sense to get a used Class A in excellent condition and keep the 5th wheel....it's cheaper than getting a new truck for the fiver when the lease runs out this June. That and we are itching for a Class A for more reasons than I care to list on here! I'm sure any one with an A would know about this!

And so, the search has been going on for months....the discussion, the debates, the frustration on what route to take, but it's falling into place. We're currently scouting out some land (not quite sure where yet however, ugh) to park the Escalade on....build a deck around it and use it as a home base. Then in the future we have the option to get a used truck or whatnot to pull it.

Back to the search, we've looked at every RV known to man. From new to used, to literally falling apart. Just trying to gage the differences, the prices of 'fixing them up' and things like that. Well today we found 'the one'. The only floor plan we truly loved. We had recently looked at one of these 'rare' floorplans in person, but the unit itself was pretty run down. Listed for $15,000, thought maybe it would be worth the fix up cost at $5000 less but the seller would never have gone for it. Glad we waited for a while, because today I ran across our guy online....in Michigan. For the first time BOTH Bryan and I went: THAT'S IT! Good sign!

Of course buying sight unseen is risky (we're still having someone take a look at it, with the slight possibility of Bryan flying up for a few hours to see it and back down again), but with the price it's worth it to us. We know we'll be spending quite a bit more fixing it up and taking care of the 'unforeseen problems'. It's listed in EXCELLENT condition, and super clean interior. Enough for me! The only problem is we don't want to put the full amount down....especially with todays, er, 'problems'. What if the dealership went bankrupt?! Very bad. Well we've worked out a plan to get us around it, and have some back ups....we'll see how it goes. Also, we'll have someone to check it out before the full amount is paid, so that's good enough for me!

Enough of the boring stuff, here it is. Putting a deposit down on it soon after we get some terms and conditions out of the way. My mother is freaking out about buying sight unseen, which is understandable. She also manged to get some people all riled up on the RV forum about how stupid a decision it is. But you know, we're kind of a different, er, 'type'. And young enough to bounce back....and pretty damn resourceful if I say so myself;-) Starting off on an RV at a young age was a risk itself, and one we never look back on. All those folks, they've lived and learned through their mistakes over the years. We've only just begun;-)

That being said, hopefully we can write a post in the future that doesn't warrant any 'I told ya so's! I have a feeling we're going to be A-OK.

Meet, Mr. Intruder! Muhahahaha! We may be meeting him in January!

Where are we exactly...

We made it to our destination, good ol' Florida.  Only thing is, we got a little confused, or maybe it was mother nature, because it sure hasn't seemed like Florida the last three days.  It has been freezing, yes freezing in Florida.  Albeit we're in north Florida, near Jacksonville, but these are record lows we're seeing.  It was 30 degrees F the night before, and inland it dipped to 20, that's well below the average nightly tempature of 50 degrees.  It's so mixed up that it was warmer in PEI the last 3 days.  Go figure.  But this cold front will surely break soon, plus we're headed farther south in a few days, then Cat can go outside again;)

Cat snapped a pic of the welcome to Florida sign, but it turned out blurry.  I like this one a lot better.   



 

This is at Fernandina Beach, nice spot, you can drive out on the beach too.  I know you can do that at Daytona Beach too, but for some reason we've passed right by this general stretch of Florida on our previous treks.  We'll hit the beach soon, the water was a little cold though.

Greetings from the deep south!

Alright, we've been on the road again and I've been short on my time online.  As per the last post, Cat never got to see Billy Corgan...  better luck next time.   Right now we're in Savannah, Georgia and soon onward towards Florida.

We left Toronto on Monday, and yes, it was cold, and a bit of snow too.  Our border crossing was the quickest one yet, through in a minute flat.  The border guard was cool, he asked if we had any hand grenades or bazookas.  We might need them in Miami!

Generally we keep driving till it gets warm.  We stopped in Charleston, South Carolina for a couple days.  It actually reached 80 degrees.  Stayed at a great State Park on the ocean, Edisto Beach, it's on an island. Checked out Charleston on a drive through and on our way.  Destination Jacksonville for over a week.

Halloween Haunt

Hey, hope everyone had a Happy Halloween...  Hooray!  Ok, enough of that.  We kept it nice and relaxing...  in haunted houses and on roller-coasters through the pitch black haze.  Much tamer than all that getting dressed up and thrashing about among all the drunken ghouls and super-heroes at the clubs!  A change of pace, it made Halloween a little more romantic in the red glowing mist and haunting music.  Canada's Wonderland puts on a good show for Halloween every year.  Everything is more fun in the dark;)









Here's our pumpkin, I call him Two-face, has the split personality going on, depending which side you ask. Not sure if he was too happy parting with his seeds, but I tried a new recipe for roasting them.  Try them with cinnamon and sugar, and a bit of butter/oil.  Mmmm...  caramely goodness.


We have had our fill of cold filled fun.  Now it's the change of the seasons.  Our change-over is standing at T- 10 days and counting.  It's getting close, just a couple more events in Toronto and that'll be that.