February 2, 2006 - Our First Motorhome

Gary and I have been planning for several years to do some traveling in a motorhome. One of the advantages of this kind of travel is that we can take our dogs along.

With that in mind, we asked good friends of ours, Dave and Christine, who own an RV dealership to keep an eye out for a good used unit with the features we were looking for.  It took about two years since we first started discussing it, but our "ship" has finally come in.

 

We are now the proud owners of a 33 foot Windsport motor home.  It's  exactly what we were looking for.  It has a 14 foot living room slide-out which adds lots of living area when you are parked.

I like the colour scheme and Gary seems happy with all the mechanical aspects.  He's already been out to buy a complete set of tools to carry in the new rig.  I guess I shouldn't make fun of him though . . . I have already picked up dishes, pots, pans, linens and even a few small appliances.

It's pretty exciting for both of us.

We will probably have a few short trips, short in both duration and distance, until we become familiar with motor home travel.  Our first long trip will be to the Fort Wilderness Campground at Walt Disney World (where else?) in April 2006.


March 31, 2010 - Our Second Motorhome

We have enjoyed our first four years of RVing so much that we have recently started to talk about some longer trips we would like to take over the next ten years.  We pretty soon decided that our 1999 unit, which has served us well these last four years, would not last us ten more years.

I made up a list of things we needed and wanted in our next rig and we let our dealer friends, Dave and Christine, know we were in the market.  Within a week we were in their lot looking at a trade in that had just arrived.

Wow . . . what a beauty!

Within two days the deal was struck!

It's a 2007 Windsport Model 35B.  It's built on a Ford truck chassis, just like our last one.  The engine is a V10 and it only has 13,000 kilometers (8,000 miles) on the odometer.

It's three feet longer than our first unit and there are three slide-outs which greatly expand the living area.  It's just loaded up with extra features like a convection oven, central vacuum and a computer work station.  It's even "roughed in" for a washer and dryer and a satellite dish if we decide we need to add them.  I just love it and can't wait to get on the road.

Two slides make for a large living area

The bedroom has a slide too

The mirror behind the bedroom computer station opens to reveal a window

Our next scheduled trip is April 21st when we leave for a week on Florida's Gulf Coast and a few days at Walt Disney World.

Gosh, can I wait that long or will we have to take a test run locally?

Decisions . . . decisions!     


August 2011 - We've added a sign to the back window of the Motor Home to "personalize" it a bit!  It's one of those perforated signs like on a bus window.  We can see out but it provides a good picture on the outside!

So if you see us on the highway - give a honk and a wave!


All good things come to an end . . .

After a dozen years and almost 90,000 miles we managed to complete our RVing "bucket-list".  We had a great run, we really enjoyed travelling with the dogs, but there were no more "big trips" in our plans.  We talked for months and months about selling the rig . . . but we were both sort of reluctant to make the final committment.   Then in May 2017 we mentioned to some fellow Disney fans that we were thinking of selling.  Their eyes lit up immediately . . . within two weeks they drove away in their new rig.

 

We both had misty eyes as they drove away.  It's always tough to close a chapter in your life!


 

Motor Home Trips

(click on the blue link below to see more details of these trips)

February 11 - 19, 2006 Nashville, TN 1,760 miles
April 23 - May 11, 2006 EPCOT Flower & Garden Festival, Walt Disney World, Orlando, FL 2,955 miles
August 16 - 31, 2006 Prince Edward Island 3,652 miles
November 25 - December 17, 2006 MouseFest, Walt Disney World, Orlando, FL 2,724 miles
March 30 - April 10, 2007 Nashville, TN 2,084 miles
July 13 - 24, 2007 MagicMeets, Harrisburg, Hershey & Lancaster, PA and Washington, DC 2,454 miles
October 7 - 13, 2007 Autumn colours in Vermont & New Hampshire 1,207 miles
November 25 - December 16, 2007 MouseFest, Walt Disney World, Orlando, FL 2,908 miles
April 9 - May 3, 2008 Washington Cherry Blossom Fest., Hilton Head NC, FL Keys & EPCOT Flower & Garden 3,660 miles
July 18 - 27, 2008 MagicMeets, Harrisburg, Lake Placid, NY

1,051 miles

September 30 - October 8, 2008 Nashville, TN 2,030 miles
November 28 - December 19, 2008 MouseFest, Walt Disney World, Orlando, FL 2,848 miles
April 14 - May 7, 2009 Smoky Mountains, Dollywood & EPCOT Flower & Garden Festival 3,346 miles
August 6 - 9, 2009 MagicMeets, Harrisburg, PA 765 miles
October 16 - November 6, 2009 TagOmania, Walt Disney World, Orlando, FL 2,816 miles
April 21 - May 6, 2010 EPCOT Flower & Garden and Gulf Beaches 3,111 miles
July 13 - 27, 2010 Cape Cod & Salem, MA 1,062 miles
October 20 - N+ovember 12, 2010 WDW Halloween Trip 2,893 miles
August 11 - 18, 2011 Towne Family Reunion, Salem, MA 1,061 miles
September 2 - 23, 2011 EPCOT Pin Event 2,849 miles
November 26 - December 18, 2011 WDW Christmas Trip 2,886 miles
February 2 - 23, 2012 WDW February Trip 2,893 miles
July 10 - 13, 2012 Upper Canada Village Trip 185 miles
August 14 - 27, 2012 Coastal Maine Trip 1,460 miles
October 19 - November 9, 2012 WDW Halloween Trip 2,858 miles
February 1 - 17, 2013 WDW February Trip 2,882 miles
September 21 - October 1, 2013 Jersey Shore, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Delaware 950 miles
November 24 - December 18, 2013 WDW Christmas Trip 2,861 miles
February 11 - March 2, 2014 WDW February Trip 2,899 miles
August 2 - 11, 2014 New England Trip 1,088 miles
October 16 - November 9, 2014 WDW Halloween Trip 2,924 miles
February 12 - March 5, 2015 WDW February Trip 2,971 miles
October 17 - November 11, 2015 WDW Halloween Trip 2,841 miles
October 15 - November 10, 2016 WDW Halloween Trip 2,844 miles
April 5 - 16, 2017 Nashville and Memphis 2,433 miles

 

As you probably expected, we just couldn't stay away from Fort Wilderness.

Trips in a rental trailer

(click on the blue link below to see more details of these trips)
March 1 - 23, 2018 EPCOT Flower & Garden Festival, Walt Disney World, Orlando, FL

February 13 - March 6, 2019

EPCOT Flower & Garden Festival, Walt Disney World, Orlando, FL

January 20 - February 15, 2020

EPCOT Festival of the Arts, Walt Disney World, Orlando, FL

 


You just knew it wouldn't last . . . didn't you?

We were both very happy with renting a trailer for those three trips to Disney's Fort Wilderness Resort & Campground.  Even the dogs enjoyed it!  In fact we were so completely satisfied that we reserved the same trailer for trips in February and October of 2021.  Then Covid-19 struck in March 2020 and we were stuck at home in self-imposed isolation to protect ourselves from the virus.  During the first five months of self-imposed isolation our frustration just grew and grew.  We are so accustomed to travelling that it now seems to be etched in our DNA.  In May 2020 we were booked the stay at Disney's Aulani Resort in Hawaii and then cruise around the Hawaiian Islands, making landfall across the Pacific in Vancouver BC.  It was painful when Disney Cruise Line cancelled the cruise.  Just a few months later, in August, we were booked on a European River Cruise, sailing the Rhine from Basel Switzerland to Amsterdam in The Netherlands.  We hoped and hoped, but as the months passed it became obvious that that trip was doomed as well.

 

It was about the same day we would have been returning from Amsterdam when Carol turned to me and said, "I think you should buy another motorhome."  I hadn't really been thinking about it, but it took absolutely no persuasion to convince me.  Within hours we were both online looking for one that would suit us.  Alas, the good friends who owned the dealership where we bought our first two units have retired and closed the business.  We looked at a couple of other local dealerships, walked through several motorhomes about the right size and always came out saying, 'Nope, that one won't do!'  We saw one listed online that looked about right so we drove west for about three hours to have a look.  Yeouch!  There was duct tape holding the veneer on some of the interior cabinetry and every door or hatch for the exterior ''basement' storage area was battered, scratched or dinged.  It was a wasted day!

 

Finally we found exactly the right one, about 10 miles north of home.  It was 6 years old with 35,000 km or 22,000 miles on it.  It had been extremely well cared for and it showed!  Carol fell in love with the interior . . . and all the mechanical aspects worked for me.  We made an offer and by August 6th we had a firm agreement to buy a 2014 Georgetown XL 334QS.  The paperwork was all done very quickly and we took possession on August 19th.  Just a few days later we pulled out in our private little 'Covid-19 bubble' and enjoyed a shakedown voyage in a nearby campground along the St. Lawrence River.  It was wonderful to get away again!  We'll be staying in Canada with the new beast until the border with the USA reopens and we feel that it's safe to return to Disney's Fort Wilderness Resort & Campground.

 

Once our southern neighbours have the virus under better control we hope to avoid some of Canada's cold weather and spend a greater portion of the winter way down south in our new home away from home!


McLaren Campground - The Long Sault, Ontario

The St. Lawrence River

Smuggler's Cove Campground, Prince Edward County, ON

The sunsets over South Bay were stunning every night!


Trips in our third motor home

(click on the blue link below to see more details of these trips)


Motor Home Facts

(last updated June 30, 2015)

 

During our 12 years of motor home travel we logged 143,175 kilometres (88,965 miles) in it.  We used 44,153 litres (12,202 gallons) of gasoline; that's an average of 32.24 litres for each hundred kilometres of travel.  That's equivalent to 8.76 miles per Imperial gallon or 7.29 miles per US gallon.

This is where our motor home travels have taken us!