Wednesday, November 9, 2011

We Switch to a Fifth Wheel Capriciously

Fast-forward to November of 1999. Denny and I had officially been full time Rvers since September of 1998. We had just sold our 14 acres of property on a small lake near Seneca, South Carolina, so we were spending a week in Shorter, Alabama at the Wind Drift Campground after having completed the paperwork for the sale of the land. This is a tiny campground behind a gas station (they take the reservations and the fees) with a small pond, a new small recreation building with a modem access and nothing else but cows coming to drink at the pond in the evening. It's 20 miles from Montgomery, Alabama and that was our downfall; it was near RV dealers and we had time on our hands and money to spend from the sale of our land in South Carolina. We were hopping from RV dealer to RV dealer, simply checking out a variety of rigs, when we met Cliff Owen who worked at Alabama Motor Coach in Wetumpka, AL.

We were looking at a 35 foot King of the Road fifth wheel and liked most of what we saw except for the fact that it had green carpeting and green plaid recliners that had escaped from a 50s sitcom. Cliff asked us what it would take for us to buy the rig and I told him "new leather chairs" as I couldn't stand the plaid upholstery. He told us he had a friend who did upholstery work and he would have it done for us. Hmm. Back to our campground to discuss the possibilities. We didn't have a truck to tow with, I really didn't care for green, etc., but it was the last model on the lot as they were no longer going to carry the line. It seems it was too upscale for the area. They could sell Serengeti motorhomes for over $200,000 and little travel trailers for fish camping, but not the fifth wheels.

In the meantime, Cliff checked with a car dealer close to Shorter, who got on the computer looking for a truck for us. We specifically wanted a white Ford F450 medium duty pickup truck. The Ford dealer found one in Pensacola, Florida and he'd work out a deal to get it up to Alabama. Okay, we'll go for it. Alabama Motor Coach was going to do the chairs and last minute stuff and we can leave Roo (the Bounder) at their camp site on their grounds while we go home for Christmas, and then we can take all the time we need to switch our belongings from one rig to the other after Christmas. So now we owned a RV in which Denny could stand totally upright (he's 6'6" tall) as the fifth wheel has 8' ceilings. The ceiling height of the Bounder had been a problem for Denny since the ceilings were 6' 4” tall so he always had to stoop inside the motorhome.

Next we drive to the car dealer, give him a check to hold the truck in Pensacola (we had long ago checked out tow ratings for trucks pulling fifth wheels, assuming that eventually we'd switch over once we sold the land). Fine, that's done. We decided to drive down to Pensacola to look at the truck and make sure it had the options we needed to tow a large vehicle. This was a drive of 250 miles one way. We arrived at the Ford dealership, introduced ourselves to the manager of the truck sales division and told him why we were there. He got a really sick look on his face and told us he sold the truck yesterday as our car dealer back in Montgomery had not told him definitely that he wanted the truck and a buyer walked in with cash so the manager sold it to that buyer. Oh my god, now what? He immediately started checking the computer and there were no Ford F450s available in a six state area, unless we wanted to go to a Classy Chassis type vehicle at $70,000. I don't think so! He finally contacted Centurion Conversions in Michigan and they had our model with our options on their line; we put a deposit down with a sigh of relief.

It was time to head for Ohio to spend Christmas with our families.

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