Hi all,
Just found this thread, so guess I'd better say a bit about myself. I was raised in the UK and came to Canada to be with my wife 14 years ago. We live quietly and modestly in the Niagara region of Ontario.
I kind of grew up around and in "Class B" campers, the first vacations I took as a kid were in my Dad's Ford Thames Dormobile conversion, which I don't remember allll that clearly, being very young. After that we had a small hardtop travel trailer, which was pulled by the family sedan for a couple of years, then we got a VW Transporter (T2 bay window) Devon conversion, of 1972ish vintage, that we had several seasons of vacations and weekends with, which we also pulled the small camper with, and brought my Grandparents along a couple of times. It wasn't the pop top moonraker, but only had a double bed, folding down from a center dinette, I would sleep across the front seats, my sister curled up in the hatch. Maybe because us kids were getting too tall, but also I think the VW passed out of favor when it developed some structural rust spots, and we downsized to a "tent trailer" which wasn't really the popup type, opened up large, but was draughty as hell, no camping at Easter in that one. Then we were back to a different small hardtop camper again.
While I was learning to drive, I was dreaming of getting a VW "bus" of my own, at this time in the UK they were still rather affordable, it was the early years of the classic car boom and the focus was on the more upmarket and enthusiast type cars at that point, however, by the time I passed my test, the insurance industry had had a meltdown, with pricing by engine size and number of seats making premiums astronomical for a young driver... I ended up with a tiny hatchback... I went through university, was temping when I met my wife, moved to Canada, settled down...
We've been tent campers the last dozen years or so, and the first half, we were scrimping and saving to get a home of our own. I missed the "bus" there again so to speak, back then there were still enough VWs around in the wild that they were reasonably priced, but it's been more a case of liking the package rather than being such an ardent VW fan, so I now regard them as somewhat unreasonably priced for what you get, as a practical RV these days, in this area. (Parts availability has gone very poor, probably better out west where more of them survive) If I'd bought one back then, I'd probably still be running it, but cursing the 2 week delay in shipping for the most basic items. Anyway, tent camping is beginning to pall, it seems like too much effort to pack up for weekends, and then we don't wanna pack up wet and spend the next week trying to get the tent dry, so don't go if there's rain in the forecast. Also off peak opportunities are limited. Then on-peak as it were, the sun can be brutal, still feel it burning through tarp and canvas unless you get real shade. Then enjoyment is pretty much determined by which particular site you get, some are lumpy and uneven as hell, some have no shade, some are dustbowls, which instantly become mudbowls in a thunder shower. That and we're getting older, and the damp in the mornings has us aching like hell.
So we've been wanting an RV that can be left "Ready to go" mostly, grab some clothes, food, take off and that gets us off the ground, and keeps us drier. Also something with more of a "3 season" ability would be ideal so we can take off more often, not worrying that it's gonna be a bit cool or might rain. We've been fall camping quite a few times anyway though, so don't need arctic standard insulation and high capacity furnace. Mostly we want to go weekending, but also to take some of our expanding tribe of grandkids with us in the summer so it would be the base camp mothership, and bring extra tents if necessary for sleeping. (Wife had her kids very young, when I arrived they were teens, so we're rather young grandparents.) Anyway, for a few years I'd been looking for the "perfect" towable, but it's been dawning that a DD that can tow anything decent is gonna drink a fortune in gas on a day to day basis. Having a tow vehicle, solely for towing does not make sense due to high insurance costs, however, I discovered that small motorhomes, Class Bs, small Cs, etc appear to be MUCH cheaper on insurance, purely because they are dedicated RVs, that you're not going to daily drive. Thus the Class B and B+ and small C type vans began to make a helluva lot of sense. Can't get much more "ready to go".
I'd consider myself "handy" I do all my own vehicle maintenance and repairs, even major repairs, pretty self reliant in that respect. I wouldn't say I hate "these danged newfangled computers" on vehicles, just that the diagnostic stuff is inordinately expensive in the first 10 years or so of the vehicles life, and troubleshooting info is scarce, so for that and emissions testing reasons, I'm hoping to find something '97 or older. I'm kind of undecided whether I want to do my own conversion or not. Undoubtedly there will be work to do on an older RV anyway, and I am sort of hoping to work toward a fully "dry campable" "boondockable" setup with reasonable mod cons, so we can try camping on govt land. (Most campsites in the immediate locale run at $40 a night!!) I have a notion that I might wanna specifically aim for even older than 90s units though, more like 70s or 80s, because I have alternative fuel ideas that are far easier to implement on carbed motors.
Other things I'm interested in are computers, electronics, astronomy, innovating and gadgeteering, I'd call it inventing , but mostly it's cheaper ways for me to achieve some end, not necessarily a marketable one
I try to live frugally, and never buy new where used will do, in some instances it's not a case of not affording something, it's a case of being more self reliant, less wasteful (retasking someone elses junk) or just because I want to know how. I suppose also I have a decreasing degree of trust in "professionals" of all fields, and also in new products being better than older ones. I think the final straw for that was going through a coffee pot every 6 months for a couple of years, all of which were unfixable trash, I deliberately sought out a clean 80s vintage one, we've been using it 6 or 7 years... Call it also the "do more with less" approach. So when I get the "But why?? they only cost $150" type of responses, I'll be all
roblem:
:thumbdown: :eh:
My username, for those wondering, is an anti-hero, Flashman, from the novels of George McDonald Fraser, a cad and a coward, who somehow comes out ahead, call it inverse snobbery in username selection
So that's me, hi to all,
Flashman
