5th Wheel Shopping

The purchase of our 5th wheel was quite an ordeal. Unlike the purchase of our Ford diesel, where we pulled into the dealer and was already turned on and ready for my husband to test drive it. Ok, maybe I'm over exaggerating a bit to much. The purchase itself was not an "ordeal" let me correct myself it was more of a longer process if you will. One of the reasons why I think my husband went along with the "master plan" was due to the fact that it meant he got a truck. He use to have one and we ended up having to sell it (I will talk more about that later).
We purchased the truck first, which my husband Beto was all about. Constantly looking trucks up, sending me links, wanting to go take a look at them. Needless to say he was in control of the truck purchase. After we purchased our truck I was gung ho about finding a 5th wheel. I'm not going to lie it became a bit of an obsession. If anyone knows me I become easily obsessed with something I'm "into", my mother and sister also suffer from this syndrome. I feel like it needs a name, "the fixated frenzy". We become extremely fixated on that one ideal, we research it and then research it again. We want to learn everything there is to know about it, and become an expert. Granted at times this can be a down fall, and you will never fully know all that there is to know about it. Eventually you have to just dive head in and figure out as you go. One of my teachers called it analysis paralysis. I though that was a fitting term as well. With the help of google just a click away it is just to easy. I know we can't be the only ones out there with this "syndrome", someone else must be able to relate.
I looked into all different trailers, but I was drawn to the 5th wheel for multiple reasons which I will go into in a future post. I was torn weather to purchase a new or older model 5th wheel. We had already established the "must haves" for our rig, which was a rear kitchen setup, separate bathroom quarters, and a washer dryer preferred. We came across a dealer that would buy up the trade in trailers from the big dealers. These trailers were priced very well compared to other prices we had looked at. However due to our financial past the bank simply would not approve a loan amount that large. At the time we were pretty bummed about it, but thinking back to that moment I'm now relieved that we ended up purchasing a rig a bit older and for less money. One sure can get carried away in the glam of it all, but at the end of the day I wanted a rig that was structurally sound and functioned well. Our goal is to be debt free and have that sense of freedom. By having purchased a newer 5th wheel would have just put us into more debt, which is the total opposite of our goals at the moment. Instead we opted to purchase an older model that is in great condition and vamp it up.

I searched high and low, again let's be real it consumed me. I tease my husband, Beto that he had no part in the trailer searching due to the fact that he already got his truck and was happy as a clam with it and was just thoroughly enjoying it. You got to give them a hard time sometimes :) After the excitement of our truck purchase settled we set out to find "the one", and boy let me tell you it is hard to find a well taken camper in our area that isn't gonna cost you.  For myself it was a roller coaster of emotions I would get super excited and then be let down by different rigs that we looked at, but I remained positive because I knew eventually the right one would pop up. Having the patience paid off, and we stumbled across our little gem.