Backstory, part zvei

First I would like to apologize for all the typos in previous posts. I'm typing on an iPad instead of a keyboard, & mysterious characters & words have a way of inserting them regardless of what I think I typed. And there's no spell-check available, so if I don't re-read each post mystery typos show up, like the word veer for verb - what's with that?

So back to the backstory...after our ten days (books recommend at least three weeks, but we couldn't afford to rent a coach for three weeks, so we figured that money would be better spent on a downpayment anyway, right? Besides, what do books know? As it turns out, maybe a lot...) in the coach the end of October/the first of November we started spending weekends looking at various motorhomes in the area. The other thing we did was to make a list of our ideal motor coach. We knew by this time that we didn't want a trailer (commonly called a camper) because we didn't want to have to buy a gas-guzzling truck to haul it. What, you might ask incredulously. A motor coach is a gas-guzzler. Yes, but as our mode of transportation in-between moves we didn't want to be driving around town in a huge pick-up truck. We also didn't want a fifth-wheel trailer for the same reason. Also, I don't remember where I heard it, but this is the quote that says it best, "A motorhome is meant to be driven, fifth-wheels/trailers are meant to be parked." And since we planned to be traveling around instead of snowbirding or homesteading, a coach seemed like the way to go for us.

As we looked at various motorcoaches and continued to read about RV living, we kept refining our Ideal RV list. One day we'd driven way north to Mount Vernon to see if their dealers had anything different than the Seattle area dealers. The first dealer we pulled into looked like there wasn't much on the lot, but the last RV we looked at was a 2007 Alfa See Ya coach. It had almost every single thing on our Ideal List.

This Alfa was beautiful. It had three slides, Corian countertops in the kitchen and bath, as well as granite tile throughout, oak cabinetry, three TVs inside and had more storage space

than we'd seen in any other Coach. We were hooked. Only problem was Alfa Leisure, the maker of Alfa See Yas was one of the scores of RV makers which had gone out of business as a result of the recession. The good part of that is that their prices might be lower. Only problem with this coach was it was being sold on consignment, and there would be no support from this dealer after the sale which was unacceptable to Bob.

So on our way out of Mount Vernon we stopped at Poulsbo RV. We were wandering around their sales lot looking at most of the same RVs we'd seen in the Seattle area when we started talking about the Alfa we'd seen and our Ideal RV list. This inexperienced salesman (good man!) took us inside & introduced us to Mike, who said he'd look around & see what he could find. Within 24 hours he'd found 3 Alfas in the Poulsbo RV inventory (they've got several showrooms in the Pacific Northwest) & arranged to have two of the ones we thought we might like to the Everett dealership so we wouldn't have to drive all the way back up to Mount Vernon again (we looked at all three on their website & choose the two we liked most based on their interior & exterior amenities).

Both of the Alfas were new (not used like the 2007 we'd looked at) 2008s, one with the light oak cabinetry we liked in the other coach and one with a darker cabinetry. With my Seasonal Affective Disorder (winter depression) we wanted to stay away from anything dark, so that was one strike against the other coach.  They were pretty much the same in most ways, so we went with the light oak selection. 

Wait, isn't this moving awfully fast you might ask? Well, yes, in hindsight maybe it did. But remember, if it weren't for hindsight there wouldn't be any sight at all, in many cases.

So we talked to both USAA bank & Navy Federal credit Union (both of whom we'd been with for years) and both denied the loan on "our" coach. We started to worry. Was this a sign from God to slow down? No, we got a call from Mike at the dealership, they've found us financing through one of their lenders who do RV loans all the time & understand the intricacies of RV financing (unlike USAA & NFCU) and the loan is at an even lower rate. Hallelujah! All systems are go again!

TBC...