Time to Upgrade!

Since we decided to go full-time (and even some before to be honest) we have been thinking whether our Super C was the best home for us to take on the road. As I've talked about on the RV saga page, we did a fair amount of work to make it more homey and comfortable for us. Despite all of the work, there were still things that didn't make it feel the way we wanted it to and we weren't sure it would ever feel just right. Most of this is because it is a Super C chassis and it always felt like we were in a truck, not just when driving but even when settled somewhere since the front seats always face forward and are set lower than the house portion. We also lost several feet of space due to the front engine design.

Every time we were around dealers with nice selections of coaches we would take time to look and see what's out there and get ideas of what we like. We had seen some 1-2 year old diesel pushers at one dealer that we liked but they always had something that just wasn't right. Often it was the lack of a king bed. We just don't get why they build such nice and expensive class As and then put in an RV queen bed. I'm sure we can't be the only ones that like having a larger bed and with having three furry-babies that sleep with us, it's mandatory.

After getting settled into our site in Palm Desert, we walked over to Holland Motorhomes which is right next door and started looking at their selection. One of their salespeople, Harry Carroll, started showing us around and answering more questions than most salespeople we have dealt with. After looking at several coaches and finding two we really liked, Harry let us know that is was almost time for the lot to close. I actually appreciate that he was a family person who needed to get home and let us know this but he got us all the information we wanted on the coaches before we left. We set up a time to meet the next day.

It was a long night of talking about what we wanted and where willing to do to get into a new coach. When we went back we knew that the Newmar Baystar we had looked at the day before was our preference after looking through it again. Our favorite feature is the full wall slide that opens up the interior and gives a shotgun home look since you can see front to back. I had to get over the fact that I was giving up a diesel for a gasser but after doing all the research I couldn't think of a good reason to have to stay with a diesel. I know there are lots of advantages to diesels but when we looked at all the other features we wanted and the price difference to get a comparable coach that was a diesel, it just didn't make sense to us.

Holland Motorhomes and their staff were easy to work with as talked about a deal. Our biggest sticking point was making sure we got a fair trade in for our Super C. As it turned out Super Cs are apparently popular in this area due to all the off road vehicle riding people do in the area and the fact that they tow great. We got what we thought was a fair deal and became the proud owners of a new coach!

Actually we didn't get it that day of course. Holland does a front to back inspection of a coach before delivering it, so we had to get that scheduled. Since we were buying it from a California dealer and not registering it in California (they have crazy sales tax!), we also had to set up taking delivery outside of California. The dealership does this all the time so it was a simple process but did add more time to getting the coach. The process involves their driver taking the coach across the border while I followed in one of their cars and then meeting with a notary to sign all the paperwork showing the coach wasn't delivered in California and isn't being registered in California. I then got the keys and was able to head back to begin the process of moving.

We found again that the Holland was willing to work with us on this process. We had thought about trying to do it at the campground as the site next to us was open. We decided against this since by the time I was going to get back from the out of state delivery, there would only be an hour or so of daylight left and there is minimal lighting in the campground. Holland let us pull our old and new homes next to each other (door to door) right in their main lot which is well lit all night and got us all plugged in so we could take our time and spend the night in their lot after getting moved.

The night security guard came by and let us know he would be around all night and introduced us to his K9 but made sure we knew that his dog was friendly with other dogs as he saw our babies running back and forth. What we did was set up our pens between both motorhomes so we could carry stuff across without having to step over anything but the babies could run back and forth but we wouldn't have to worry about them getting out. The move definitely stressed them out, they just couldn't figure out what we were doing and they were already a bit stressed after having watched us packing up stuff the past day as well.

The babies living in the mess of packing

Spella and Prada helping unpack

We got everything moved over and placed somewhere in about 4 hours (we are still working on final places for everything). By this time we were all exhausted and the babies were plenty stressed out so we tucked everyone in for the night and set the alarm for early the next morning. The next morning we made sure we hadn't forgotten anything in the old motorhome, made sure everything in the new coach was secured somewhere and headed off for San Diego.

So far we are enjoying the new home and all the extra space inside even though the new coach is the same length as our Super C. The class A layout just makes such a difference in space. We'll cover issues as they come up and the good and bad we learn along the way and how this space works for the babies.