The Rise and Fall of the Motorhome

We had high hopes for our nudist palace on wheels, but truth is, it's just like the old adage: The two best days in your life might be the day you buy your [motorhome/boat/extravagance] and the day you sell your [motorhome/boat/extravagance].

We hadn't even owned it 4 years, but  Between COVID limiting people going anywhere and camping areas and nudist parks being closed, it got used very little. After it's initial summer of fun, it just sat and got older. Oddly, the only three places we ever camped in it were nudist parks! Our first outing was over near Spokane, at Kaniksu Ranch. We followed that up with a visit to Lake Bronson Nudist Park, near Sultan. Our final (though we didn't know it at the time) use of the motorhome was at our closest nudist park, Tiger Mountain Family Nudist Park, over near Issaquah. I just had to have the license plate frame made.

We looked high and low for a motorhome when we found ours, and we considered ourselves lucky to have found one the right size, with good options and good price. Like many folks are, we were overcome by the newness and overlooked things. I was excited by the plethora of good options, so other things got ignored or brushed off as not important during the buy. I made the mistake of brushing off the impact that mold traces would have on Brenda, but the truth is the longer we owned it, the older it got. Everyone knows that motorhomes seem to always seep water here and there no matter how well you tarp them. Traces of blackness around leaky areas never seem to really go away. We bought a custom-sized memory foam mattress that we never even got a chance to use before water dribbled down the wall onto it, leaving a nice water stain on one whole corner. Come to think of it, we never did use that new mattress! So, without a new roof there was little to no chance of Brenda being comfortable in it again. Who wants to breathe mold spores, right? I didn't feel justified in dumping roof money into a 20+ year-old motorhome. There were other things too, like the fabric on the seat cushions was starting to break down from age. I think I had grown to despise it without realizing it. It became nothing but a chore of ownership, and grew more worthless with each passing year of depreciation and degradation. Can you believe I actually found those mushrooms growing out of it one year?

A year or so ago I had a guy stop by out of the blue, asking me if I'd be willing to sell the motorhome. Well, like most people, I have the "right price and we'll see" attitude. We went out and looked it all over, starting it and checking things over. We arrived on a price, and the guy left to get his "money man" or relative that had funds. When he showed up with him they started in on me-attacking from two directions about why this or that should lower the price, etc. Finally, I said, "You know, I don't like where this deal is going. The deal is off. Goodbye" and sent them away. They continued trying as they left, and even contacted me a day or two later. Nope.

Maybe six months later the same thing happens. Out of the blue a gal comes to the door saying her husband wants to ask about the motorhome, motioning over towards the driveway at him sitting in his Suburban. After a bunch of song and dance, we arrive at a pretty cheap price (about half of what I could have sold it to the first guys for a year or so earlier. At this point they left to go get money. That's when I noted the similarities between all these guys--including the previous hagglers six months earlier. They could have been family. All of them were Mediterranean ancestry, all the same accents, all with the same methods of haggling and doing business. When these folks came back, they started in on fresh round of re-haggling, as if the price hadn't already been determined. When they saw I wasn't going to budge, the deal was made. Imagine my surprise--no, OUR surprise--when the same couple showed up a few days later, "Uhh, I hate to bother you, but the motorhome ended up costing us more to get repaired than we thought and we can't afford to pay the bill. We were wondering if you could lend us maybe $500 or so." Are you fucking kidding me? It was all I could keep from saying that, but I firmly sent them packing. I was flabbergasted. They even had their kids acting all lovey towards us, trying to win us over. Even the first guy that sold us the motorhome was from that family. He did all the exact same moves with the re-haggling, along with looking like they were all brothers. I don't want to step on too many ethnic toes here, but I doubt I will never again do business with someone of that group.

The good news though: the motorhome was gone. No more worrying about leaking, freezing, protecting, or storing. That was a pretty expensive motorhome when you count the depreciation and the costs--especially when you only use it three times. Then there's theft.

Oh, I didn't tell you about that?

Yes, we fell victim to the catalytic converter theft craze that swept the nation during the pandemic times. One day I took the garbage out and walked around the motorhome on the way back in, checking on the tarp after we had just had a big windstorm the previous day. The snow was patchy and frozen, with bare spots here and there. My foot caught on the edge of something on the driver's side, about halfway down. I bent down and found a rubber trunk mat-looking thing sticking out of the snow. "Hmm, that wind must have blown this thing from someone else's yard." I was just about to keep walking when something made me stop. "Wait... could it be..." I kneeled down. Sure enough, there was a sizeable gap in the 3" exhaust pipe where our low-mileage, factory catalytic converter used to reside. Sonuvabitch, they got me. Apparently, something spooked them to not get their mat when they left. Brenda is sure it was during a time Wendy was over visiting with Louie. She let the dogs out and they both barked and ran that direction, though none of us thought anything at the time. She was probably right.

 

Well, I bought a section of exhaust pipe nearby and welded it in so it was driveable, and let Bucky's down in Fife put a new one in. Our insurance paid about half of it. At least I got the adjuster gal to throw in some extra $$ for me because I appropriated and welded my own patch in instead of having it towed.

But it was fun. Yes, we kept the license plate frame.