Does anyone have a trailer we can buy?

If I had magic ball in March, I would have looked in it, hoping to see this pandemic only lasting a short time, but instead seeing that I should get in to RV sales as soon as possible. Holy moly – dealerships are having an incredibly difficult time keeping RVs in stock! They are going so fast that it took us FOUR trailers before we found one we could actually bring “home.”

Remember this picture? This photo was taken right after we thought we were putting money on this specific trailer, only to be told it had sold 5 minutes before we were able to close the deal. It is also a photo of two very naive adults who assumed that the trailer they had just put a deposit on would actually be completed on August 6th and ship to the dealer.

Short story – that didn’t happen. We got a call on August 6, assuring us that the trailer was going to be completed, but it just needed a furnace which is important since we are heading north! On August 8, we received another call that the factory was shutting down because parts were scarce and the manufacturer couldn’t complete the units. We were annoyed, but had already found another trailer, a Heritage bunkhouse, that had been “completed” on July 31 and was waiting on transport to Houston. Phew, we were back in business. Until we weren’t. They couldn’t give us a specific time frame the trailer would arrive and I was nervous. I had spent hours mapping out our trip, researching which areas had wifi so we could work and do school, and booking campsites many of which included deposits. To cancel and re-plan the entire ordeal was daunting. I was prepared to do it if I had to, but I was really hoping we could locate a trailer that would allow us to leave when we originally had planned.

We located a Jayco on a lot (it was actually there!) and decided this was our back-up’s back-up. The next day, we were told, for the second time, that the Heritage was just missing a few parts, but no need to worry, that it would be here in time for us to leave on our trip on August 28. We decided to not take that chance and instead bought the Jayco. We FINALLY have a trailer.

Buying a trailer is similar to closing on a house. We did a walk-through and then signed a ton of paperwork. We hooked the trailer to the truck and headed out in to Houston rush hour traffic to park it at a RV park near our house. As we were driving off the lot, I looked at Jordan and said, “I can’t believe they just let you drive off with this thing attached! How do they know we can pull this?”

When we arrived at the park and begin hooking up, we found this…

Some people might see these setbacks as omens that we shouldn’t take this trip. I’m looking at them as preparation for being on the road for eight weeks. Mishaps will happen and we will have to adapt. Jordan keeps saying, “If it was all smooth-sailing, it wouldn’t be an adventure.” This is true. I also hope that I’m showing my kids that if you really want to do something (y’all, I really wanted to do this!) you are going to have to persevere sometimes to make it happen. Even if it is something like buying an RV in the middle of a pandemic. Now, I’m off to figure out how to get a tired changed in the middle of an RV park.