The Beast

According to spell check (and Webster’s), “motorhome” is two words, not one.  But I feel like motorhomes have been around long enough that the good people at the dictionary should’ve made it into one word by now, kind of like they’ve done with “basketball,” “sunflower,” and “watermelon.”  Even though I consider myself a rule follower, I will continue to use “motorhome” as one word. Some might consider me a rebel, but a real rebel would just do it and not bother with an explanation as to why he’s breaking a rule.

If you ever meet a travel nurse, there’s a good chance he or she is single and rents an apartment or room.  Many travel nurses, however, have an RV they take from city to city. It keeps them from having to pack up their stuff every 13 weeks, not to mention trying to find a place that will rent to them for three months.  Taking this into account, as well as the deposits we’d have to pay for our two cats and a ferret, we decided the RV option would work best for us.

Our decision to purchase a recreational vehicle was not made on a whim.  We spent hours exhaustively researching what kind of RV would suit us best.  (By “we” I mean Tara.) Then we had to figure out the most suitable RV for our price range.  Once we settled on a motorhome (instead of a travel trailer or fifth wheel), we headed to a local RV dealer.  We stepped inside a class C motorhome and immediately decided class C’s weren’t going to be big enough. So, these people who had never owned any kind of RV before were going to go big or go home (which we hadn’t yet sold).

We spent a couple months checking out different motorhomes.  One thing we had to keep in mind when looking at the various makes and models was whether or not there were any crevices the ferret could get into.  I can guarantee there aren’t many people who had to think about that before purchasing their RV. I hope not, anyway. (In a future post I’ll tell you about the time the ferret got into the dash.)

After a lot of research, discussion, and consideration, we purchased a 2020 36’ Entegra Emblem from a dealership in Sacramento, about 2 ½ hours south of Tara’s apartment in Redding.  Since there’s no sales tax in Oregon -- order a $5.99 value meal at McDonald’s and you pay exactly $5.99; it’s a beautiful thing! -- we couldn’t take delivery of the coach in California without having to pay thousands in taxes.  But, because our tax home was still in Oregon, they let us take delivery in Ashland, which is just north of the California border.

When you start looking into buying an RV, you quickly discover that, in general, RV’s are pretty shoddily manufactured.  (I’m sure there are some exceptions to this, possibly with the really high-end coaches.) It’s not a matter of ‘if’ you’ll have problems, but ‘when.’  So, we hired a certified RV inspector. Yes, that’s a real thing. Not only did he inspect the motorhome before we took possession, but when we got the motorhome, he and his wife also spent the weekend putting us through what they call RV Boot Camp.  It wasn’t nearly as intense as it sounds; we didn’t have to do pushups or get up early or anything like that. Being brand new to RV-ing, this was (a lot of) money well spent. I can’t imagine trying to navigate the ins and outs of this thing without having gone through boot camp.

Pat, our inspector, did discover several issues, some which were fixed immediately after inspection, others which are covered by our warranty.  He also told us something we’d never thought about: every time you drive a motorhome, you’re basically putting it through an earthquake. And that was certainly the cause of some of the problems, as the vibrations cause light covers to pop off, wires to come loose, etc.

Pat also taught us the BOAT rule. BOAT=Break Out Another Thousand.  If you think after buying an RV you’re finished spending money, think again.  Once we knew what motorhome we were purchasing, we just assumed we could put my RAV4 on a trailer and tow it behind the coach.  Due to weight restrictions, that was not an option. Not only did we have to trade it in for something we could flat tow (with all four wheels on the ground) -- we ended up with a Ford Fusion Hybrid, which we really like -- we had to rig the new car for towing.  And that wasn’t cheap. Our new home was now complete.  Well, complete-ish. There were still many accessories and things of that nature we needed to acquire.

Many RV owners have a name for their RV.  Without any discussion whatsoever, Tara and I each decided ours would not have a name.  However, Tara mentioned “the beast” in a text message to her sister Lisa, who said that’s what we should call our motorhome.  We both thought that was pretty humorous, but we literally haven’t called it that since then. Apparently, we just aren’t name-your-motorhome people.