Those words keep ringing through my head. The frequency has decrease from every other minute to only every 5 minutes. It is accompanied by a panic I haven't felt since the last time I read through a class syllabus at the beginning of a college semester, and I would take that again over this.
Yesterday, spurred largely by circumstances and lack of any more time to look, my mother and I bought a 23ft class C Tioga Dodge Sportsman motor home. Sounds exciting doesn't it!?
When I add that it was made in 1977 does that change anything? What I am mostly thinking about at this moment, is getting it to a mechanic so he can tell me what is wrong with it. According to the last owners, not much, just little things here and there. At least, I'm hoping that's the case. I'm praying God's hand was in this. The words from Brennan Manning come to my mind after all these years, "Abba, Father, I belong to you." Trying to trust that all will be okay, and this will be a good rig to live in. That He will, as He always does, continue to care for me.
I have spent enough time looking at CL pics that even though the owner didn't know how long the rig was, I figured it was 23 ft. I was right.
I have so much to learn. I know next to nothing about motor homes. This motor home sits on a dodge chassis and has a 440 mopar, which, from what I've googled, is a good thing.
Everything works. We have spent hundreds of hours on craigslist looking for our new home and lot of the older motor homes from this era don't have working fridges. Until I started researching I had no idea how expensive it was to replace an RV fridge. I think I would rather replace the engine. It doesn't leak, has never leaked. I haven't found any rot, even in the cabover. That is a rare thing.
It has a couch that folds down into a bed and across from that a fold up table and 2 bright orange chairs. Good thing I like orange.
Aren't you jealous of our orange carpet and chairs? I think we can make the chairs work, but I'm pretty sure I'll have to rip the carpet up. Gonna have to consult Youtube about how to do that.
The kitchen is a good setup. The oven looks like it's hardly been used and we even have a classic 80's microwave!
They also left us with the Coleman 4 serving dish set you see to the right of the stove.
The Chateau oven, by Magic Chef (yes, they used to make more than disposable items) looks like it's hardly been used. I should probably find a light bulb to put in there.
The bathroom is in the back and has a small tub and shower.
The hideous gold stuff on the walls of the bathroom? Yeah, gotta find something to cover that. Anyone know where to go to find cute contact paper? I'll cover the stuff in the kitchen area as well.
And yes, the toothbrush holder is getting pried off the wall and going in the garbage. Gross.
Your typical, fold out, RV couch. Also known as my mother's bed, sits next to the kitchen. It looks like there was some woodwork added on between the kitchen and the living area. Somebody built this interesting setup.
There are all kinds of cable and satellite wires. The space with the cable in the above pic, was originally used for a small TV. TV's aren't made like that anymore, and I'm going to need to figure out a way, and a place, to wall mount a flat screen. And, I'll probably need to sell my 39" and buy something smaller. Booo. I have no idea how to figure out which wires I can remove and which need to stay.
The cab of our rig currently looks like this:
There is also a CB in the cab area.
Oh, the yellow bungee cord? Yeah, well, the brake pedal spring needs to be replaced. Hence the reason my first call this morning was to the mechanic. Mom did an awesome job driving it back to Union yesterday. I followed in the SUV, praying the whole way.
We will totally be making new curtains... Darn, now we have to pick out fabric!
My bed will be in the cabover. Which is really large.
As expected, there isn't much clearance, but I'm trying to figure out the best use of space since it will be only me up there.
So, that's it. At least on the inside. I'll take pictures of the roof when I get up there to scrape and clean and snow coat it. At least it came with a bucket of the stuff. Dad said I could bring it to his house and he would help me. Yay!!
If anyone wants to come over and give me a tutorial on how all of this works, I would love you! A lot of the info I can find is all on newer motor homes.
So many things to do!
Cleaning and figuring out how to restore some shine to the outside. At some point I may change the locks on all the compartments on the outside of the rig. New smoke and carbon dioxide detectors. New steps outside. I'm thinking of Painting the inside. It would make a world of difference. Curtains and maybe valances for the windows and my bed area. Ripping out carpet. Lots and lots of cleaining. I need to remove some caulking and add new stuff in many places. I need to put the rearview mirror back up...... So many things!
I plan to document this whole process and I would love to hear your suggestions and advice.
Love to you all!
