Levi is my little rescue Yorkie. He in fact, is one of the (many) reasons I wanted an RV. I became so tired of trying to find a hotel, or one of those rentals that are Oh so popular, you know the ones I’m talking about, use the app and find that perfect place, check the block “Accepts Pets” and suddenly that list in your beautiful vacation spot goes from 110 to 3.

In one of our favorite places we go back to year after year for literally decades, I even asked the owners with a personal note (it would be more appropriate to use the word “beg”) if they would accept a 1.5K deposit if they would allow my 7 lb little guy, perfectly house trained, flea treated, very well behaved, to stay.

They refused.

We arrive only to find dog kennels and other clues that they had dogs in their rental. It just irritated me they had this power to say no even though they obviously could have accommodated my request.

So now I am taking some of that power to say no too. Never to rent one of their places again; hotel, Bed and Breakfast, apps that will say no to my pet, because we have ordered our very first RV.

The wait has been rather difficult though. Levi and I are getting so impatient because we ordered a brand new coach, a 2021 Jayco Greyhawk Prestige 31P and it has been MONTHS.

Levi of course has no idea we are eagerly awaiting delivery of our RV. I’m just projecting…

From the moment we decided to purchase an RV, until we decided on the one to purchase, it has been over one year. As I write this, we still do not have our rig.

I know!

We considered new/used but ended up buying new. That means in this seller’s world, you put a deposit down and wait months to get your coach.

Prior to any of that happening for us, I did ages and ages of research before even stepping onto an RV lot. Buying an RV is nothing like buying a car. Not one thing about a car purchase is like an RV purchase. I bought books, yes, books, ebooks, hard and soft cover books, if there was a magazine, I bought those too. I went online and watched hundreds of hours of videos on RV channels. I watched cable RV programing (of which there is precious little of). I Youtubed my brains out.

I reviewed all of the possible ratings about RV dealers we considered. I read reviews about all the possible RV makers we considered. Today however you pretty much have two choices, Thor or Winnebago. They own (almost) all of the makes of RV’s as they essentially bought up every maker of every coach there is especially in the motor home category. Some, like Jayco (owned by Thor, independently made by Jayco) are still made by Jayco. Owned by the big mothership, but made by their original company.

It may seem dauting but it’s like buying a house. It is a house, a house on wheels, and it is a costly investment. So while I may not have made a perfect purchase, I darned well wanted to give it a good shot at getting it close to perfect. We expect delivery in April. Actually our sales guy said it could be any day – so we wait with baited breath. Photos to follow and our journey will begin with details of the historic military places we will travel to. Hope you’ll join us! Levi would love you to come along for the ride!

Until next time!

Duty, Honor and Seeing the Country RV Style!

©Carol Van Drie/RVing the Military Way 2021