Wannabees With Wine

This week I received an e-mail from a couple who live in Massachusetts. The e-mail brought up the fact that the couple was interested in Landmark fifth wheels, specifically the Grand Canyon model that we own, and that they are seriously considering selling off everything to become full time RVers. They had been unable to find a Grand Canyon model fifth wheel at any of the local RV dealers and wondered if they could make the hour's drive to our campground to look at The Beast and pick our brains a bit about our lifestyle.

Well! If you know Denny and me (or read my blog at all) you know we are avid proponents of living in a RV full time even if we aren't the staunchest fans of the Heartland RV company. Naturally I wrote back and said "come on down", so yesterday John and Carol made the trek to Rhode Island to see a Grand Canyon up close and personal. And they came bearing wine! Woot! Already they are my kind of people!

What often happens when people want to know about the fulltiming lifestyle is that they start asking questions about how we get mail, pay bills, etc. John and Carol have done their homework by reading some of the hundreds of RVing bloggers online and finding the (now) many web sites dedicated to explaining how to prepare for living in a RV. When Denny and I started researching the idea, there were perhaps two books written about life on the road and "blogs" hadn't hit the scene yet. We discussed letting go of "stuff", storing possessions versus selling them, dealing with ailing parents, traveling with pets. Talking with John and Carol was easy and they felt like friends right from the get go.

We toured The Beast, explaining why we made the changes we've made in the furnishing, modifications we've made to make the unit more liveable for us, the special touches available in the Landmark models. Denny and I didn't touch too heavily on the problems we've had; John and Carol had read some of the information on my web site and they've read many of my blog posts so they have an idea of what we've been through with The Beast. We explained that we seem to be the exception rather than the rule for the most part when it comes to having problems with Heartland products (see? I can be good!) Then we talked and talked and talked until Carol had to call "time out" since she had to work that evening and she hadn't yet been to bed since getting off work in the morning before driving out to see us. Whew! That was a sentence and a half!

Denny and I have no doubt that John and Carol will one day be out there on the road in a shiny new Landmark Grand Canyon wearing big grins on their faces. And when that day comes we'll find a way to catch up with them with a big bottle of wine to toast their new life! So until then, you two-- happy trails!