When I last blogged, back in August, we were trying to figure out how to get RoVer’s safety recall repaired. Ultimately, Ford ended up paying to tow RoVer to Mishawaka, Indiana (not far from the University of Notre Dame). On Friday, September 16^th, they found a towing company in Watertown, NY (about 150 miles North of Rochester) willing to make the journey, and RoVer was on her way. It’s quite a process to tow something as large as a 25’ motorhome and they had to remove the drivetrain for the 520-mile journey. RoVer arrived at the Ford dealership very early on Saturday morning (and thanks to an Apple AirTag, we knew exactly where she was!). On Tuesday afternoon, Mark got a phone call that RoVer was repaired and the recall was resolved. Mark was told that it took about 20 minutes. Hmmm. And from what the tow truck driver said, the tow job cost Ford about $10,000. As one of my friends said, it would have been cheaper to fly the service guy to Rochester to do the work! Fortunately, the dealership in Indiana was fine with “storing” RoVer for a month.

On October 20^th, we were reunited with RoVer…it was day three of our journey from Rochester to Chicago for our big move, and after spending the night at a nearby hotel, we picked RoVer up, hooked the Buick to the back of her, and I got behind the wheel for the two hour journey to our new home near Chicago. Meanwhile, Mark was driving a 20’ U-Haul containing most of our belongings (the rest of them were in a U-Pack ReloCube that left Rochester a few days earlier). As Mark liked to say, for those few days in October, we were homeless, jobless, and all of our belongings were in metal boxes.

During all of this turmoil and stress related to getting RoVer repaired, Mark and I made a decision…while glamping was absolutely still our plan for future travel, a motorhome was no longer the right vehicle for us. We had a bunch of reasons, including:

• We learned through all of this that getting this motorhome repaired is really quite the challenge…what if something were to happen while we’re in a remote area near a national park and it breaks down…just finding someone to tow it is nearly impossible, much less someone who can fix it!
• Now that we tow a car everywhere we go, Mark came to the very wise conclusion that we really don’t need “a motorized vehicle towing another motorized vehicle”.
• Over time, we’ve come to realize how few safety features the motorhome has. Other than being such a large vehicle, and having one airbag, there’s really not much else to keep us safe on the road when you compare it to the safety features in most every vehicle.

Once we came to this conclusion, the first priority was to get RoVer repaired so the recall would be closed out and we could trade her in, and then we needed to find our new glamping vehicle. After much research and a trip to an RV show in Syracuse NY in September, we found the perfect travel trailer!

So, once we arrived in Chicago, Mark found a dealer that had this perfect travel trailer in stock, about 75 miles south of our new place (of course, the two dealers within 15 minutes of us don’t carry the brand we wanted…ugh!). In early November, we took a break from unpacking and made the journey to Pontiac RV, “The largest Illinois RV dealer”. After seeing the trailer again, we decided it was definitely the one we wanted, and we made a deal to trade RoVer for a brand new 2023 Grand Design Imagine XLS 23LDE (oh, and a check for the difference, since travel trailers are considerably less expensive than motorhomes!).

There’s a bunch of reasons why we love this layout so much, including…

• the kitchen is larger and has LOTS more storage
• there’s a booth for us to eat in plus two reclining chairs – much more comfortable (and they have heat/massage functions!)
• the bathroom is larger and the shower is actually large enough for an adult human!

There was just one small detail…we didn’t own a vehicle that could tow a travel trailer.

Fast forward four days, and we found ourselves at a Ford dealer buying a 2019 Ford F-150 pickup truck. Mark was using the internet to his benefit, checking used truck inventory throughout Chicagoland, and this dealer had several trucks that fit his requirements. We traded in our adorable little purple Buick (the one we bought 15 months ago so we could tow it behind RoVer) for a massive white pickup truck. And, what’s really interesting is that in Illinois, you can leave with the new vehicle that same day. They do all the DMV stuff electronically, and as long as you have insurance on the car you’re trading in, you have 30 days to get insurance for the new vehicle. We’ve never seen anything like that in NY, where you would typically go back the next day or a few days later to complete the transaction. I guess this gets rid of the potential for ‘buyer’s remorse’!

So, within 18 days of our arrival in Illinois, we traded in a car and a motorhome and bought a truck and a travel trailer. We’re not sure how sane that was, but it all worked out great. One amazing benefit…we didn’t have to bother getting the Buick and motorhome registered/titled in IL!

We officially picked up the trailer last week, and it’s happily winterized and in storage about 25 minutes from our townhouse.

Mark is adjusting to driving such a huge vehicle (parking lots are still a bit of a challenge!), and I’ve returned to driving our Subaru Forester. The trailer itself is 23’ long, so inside living space is just about the same as RoVer, and the layout and use of space is amazing. Overall, the truck & trailer together measure about five feet longer than RoVer & the Buick together.

On the drive back from the RV dealer, we were very happy to notice the difference in the comfort of the ride. The truck isn’t nearly as noisy and bouncy as RoVer was, and when 18-wheelers go by, the whole thing doesn’t sway like RoVer did. Not to mention the heated seats, navigation, blind spot detection, airbags, and all the other safety features!

We don’t regret our decision to buy the motorhome; we enjoyed traveling in RoVer for almost two years and made some amazing memories. But, long term, we know that a travel trailer will be much better for us and will work perfectly for how we travel.

As for our first journey, it will be sometime in the Spring (hopefully early April), likely to a location within a few hours. We’re thinking Springfield, IL for all things Abraham Lincoln. We don’t want our first trip in the new digs to be too far away; in the winter, we’d have to head pretty far south to find camping-friendly weather. So, we’ll spend the next few months enjoying our new townhouse and time with family, knowing that more adventures are just around the corner!

Oh, and the question you’re all asking yourselves…what will we name our new travel trailer?

Well, we thought about

RoVer 2

or

RoVer Two

and we settled on….

“RoVer Too”