His dealership participated in the large local shows, but was a big enough dealership that he could put on his own smaller shows at mall parking lots, of which he did several times a year, and he was in charge of those. The fun part about the shows he would put on would be that before and after the shows he would need several people to help him out with setup and teardown of all of the things like signs, props, tents, tables and chairs. If someone knew what they were doing he could also use the help setting up the RV’s by extending slides, leveling jacks, and setting up pop-up trailers. He still had a dealership to run so he couldn’t take all of the other employees away either. We set up a win-win arrangement in which several of us from the squadron would volunteer to help him out and he would contribute a nice sum to our MWR fund (Morale, Welfare, Recreation. For things like picnics or Christmas parties). I volunteered as much as possible, getting lots of insight and lots of information as to all of the options and the best way to care for or purchase one. I still kept falling in love with that same Class-A, and just kept hoping it would come down in price or that I could find a used one when the time came as it was still a few years till retirement. I was also trying to figure out how I would be able to buy from my friend if it came down to it, even though I knew I was going to probably be stationed somewhere other than Jacksonville when I was retiring.
I got the word that I was going to be stationed in Virginia Beach for the last two and a half years of my Navy career. By now my family had all decided on the motorhome we wanted to do our retirement trip in and were just hopeful one would be available in our price range when the time came. We owned our house in Jacksonville and knowing we would really only be in Virginia Beach for a little over 2 years before I could be on terminal leave it was obvious it wouldn’t be wise to buy another home in Virginia Beach. This would also allow me to keep our house in Jacksonville and I could rent it out as an investment, so that left us looking at rentals. We knew about where we wanted to live as we had been stationed in Virginia Beach before, but we were becoming more and more frustrated with what our money could get us on a rental house or even the apartments available. Those of you who have been in the military know that there is sometimes a huge difference in the type or quality of housing available at different duty stations, and even though the housing allowance might be higher in a certain area of the country, it doesn’t always equate to equal type housing in all areas. It was looking like we were going to be moving out of our 2300 square foot house (that was really too large for us but we got a great deal), and now could only afford to rent a 1300sf apartment or town home, without a garage. There could be base housing as an option but there was a waiting list and it wasn’t located near where we wanted to be either.
Frustrated I started thinking about if it would be possible, or even feasible, or practical to live in an RV for those couple of years. The Navy owns three campgrounds in Virginia Beach, and offer sites at a discount if you pay by the month. They have 60 day stay limits but you can move from campground to campground, and they are open year round. There are also a few other campgrounds in the area in a pinch, so the idea had some merit, but that would mean living in an RV for over two years before we even got to start our trip, and my family had never even camped in an RV before. I was leaning towards it as I could see the idea saving us some money, but it would still mean a lot of work. It also meant that we would have to buy an RV, but the one we wanted was nowhere to be found used, so we would have to settle for something else and maybe hope that that was enough, or that what we wanted might be available later.
My wife had also been disappointed with the housing searching that she had been doing so I pitched the idea to her in an off the cuff, this might be interesting idea, and she actually thought about it. As we thought about being camped on the beach, and not having yard work, and possibly saving some money, it became a lead to follow up on, but it would mean having to find and finance an RV at a price we could afford. Hard part was, mama wasn’t going to budge on not getting the RV that we had already picked out. I searched EBay, and RV Trader, and even Craigslist, to show her the other RV’s that I found acceptable price wise, but it became clear to me that the idea of camping for my last two years in the Navy was only going to happen if we got that RV of our dreams, and nothing else. I was able to show her though that if we were going to finance a newer RV that we would need to be ready to live in it for quite a bit longer than the original plan of just a year after retirement. She agreed that if we would get our Dream RV, that she would be fine with that. I still had the apartment option available, but I started to research a little more on insurance and financing a RV and wasn’t sure I could pull it off without a large down payment, of which we hadn’t saved up for yet. Kept running into roadblocks trying to get preapproved without a down payment and especially once the banks found out I wanted to live in it fulltime. I didn’t want to do dealer financing but decided to talk to my sales manager friend and see what he thought.
I tossed him all of the stipulations as far as price and financing and that I understood it was an extreme long shot that probably wouldn’t work, but he asked me to give him a few days to work on it. A couple of days later he let me know that he had found a previous year’s model that hadn’t sold yet and could get it close to my price range but was still working on the financing, and other ways to save me money. A couple of days later he called me up again and said he had lined up a company to finance me but there were strings attached, but he also had a way to get through those strings. I had to buy another RV. "What"? The finance companies liked my credit but would like it even more if I was trading in an RV. "You can’t be serious"? Yep, he had me buy a used, beat up, five hundred dollar trailer that had been a trade in, and register it in my name, then when I used it as a trade in it looked better. Might have been a bit shady of a move but it worked. Even the insurance companies liked knowing that our dream Class-A wasn’t our first RV. ;) So my awesome friend was able to find the RV of our dreams on a lot that was a year old but still brand new, and get the price down to be able to get the payments I wanted, then was able to find me financing, with no down payment, and at an interest rate way better than I was finding. It took a few days for him to figure out, and the process took another month to complete, but we had our dream motorhome.
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