Well okay, the title is a bit facetious. It should be called RV hell. My husband and I finally decided to jump into the RV pool, but we forgot the goggles, the flippers, the nose-plugs, even our swimsuits. We bought a used ‘79 Pace Arrow from ebay (never buy a vehicle off ebay). The pictures were decent, the ad read as super-clean, runs like a dream, drive this baby home, just had a new transmission installed, etc, only some slight wear and tear on the furniture, the bunks look like new! Well, for three grand, we were sold. But it was in Wisconsin. Now as a Texas girl, I have never been south of Iowa. We figured we could load everyone into our smaller vehicle (something that would be easy to tow behind the RV) and make the trip up to Wisconsin. Imagine 3 kids in the back of a Chevy Tracker for 2 days. Okay, now put one of them in a car seat. Now you get the picture. We had 3 cramped kids in the back of the Tracker trying not to kill one another while 2 cramped adults (my husband is 6′3″ while I’m 5′9″) are in the front trying to keep each other awake. Getting to Wisconsin wasn’t too tough, just had to bypass farm after farm. We stayed in a real nice hotel but then couldn’t sleep. I don’t know if it was the excitement about the RV or the coffee. We ended up just lugging ourselves out of bed around 4 to get back on the road. We’ll just get an early start. Well, with all the potty breaks, fueling, and fast-food pit stops, we finally pulled into the drive where our new RV-ing lifestyle awaited us.
Needless to say, I was a bit dismayed. I expected it to not be very pretty, and honestly, we should have just walked away once we saw the cracks in the outside of the siding. But, my husband is confident in his abilities to fix whatever is wrong with the 27 foot beast. It starts, a plus, it drives, even better, and we are soon cruising down the highway ready to find our first truckstop for the night. The plan is to find civilization and rent a car dolly to tow the Tracker. That way, we can take turns driving, let the kids, do some homework and have as many potty breaks as they need. As we settle everyone into their perspective bunk for the night, all toasty in sleeping bags with no power, because for some reason the interior batteries aren’t working, life seems okay. Then my youngest son has an asthma attack after about 3 hours of sleep. No problem we have his inhaler. It is probably just because it’s a change in the weather. After no sleep the night before, I slept like a log, and we rolled out of bunks around 11 in the morning. Okay, so we are going to have a late start this morning, we’ll still make it home on time, we are actually ahead of schedule. We had a nice leisurely breakfast and then started her up again. Then, she died. My husband tried again, and again, and again. Finally on about the fifth time she started and actually moved forward a few feet without dying. We pulled into the gas station to fill her up and crossed our fingers that we would get her on the road with no problems deciding that if she continued to do this we would not be able to tow anything let alone the Tracker. So I dutifully followed this big RV noting that she leans a little to the right. That can be fixed can’t it? The kids are all belted up in the RV doing homework or coloring while I’m playing Nickleback as loud as it will go. Then after about an hour, the RV starts slowing down on the highway trying to get up each hill. We are starting to creep at 45 miles an hour. I keep recalling in my head that the minimum for this highway is 40. Finally he stops at a gas station. Something seems to be wrong with the engine. He tries to tweak it a little and then we are off again. Then we pull into another gas station about 20 minutes later. He tweaks again. Do we have any zip ties? We are off again, then 30 minutes later, we pull into another gas station. This is how it was until we finally broke down at a Casino RV stop called Terrible near Mason City, Iowa. Well, at least it was an RV park. We buy about $500 dollars worth of tools and auto parts, batteries, flashlights, etc at the Wal-mart a mile further and my husband sets to work. I tried my luck in the casino. I won $100 dollars. He changed out all 3 batteries, tried to fix the exhaust, the carburetor was a little iffy, but we finally got it going again that morning. About an hour down the road it starts to slow down again. And that was the way it was until we were almost to Kansas City. Every 30-45 minutes we would break down. We stop at another Wal-mart next to a Hotel and check in. My youngest son can’t spend more than three hours in the thing without having an asthma attack. My husband changed out all 8 spark plugs and rerouted the fuel line because of vapor lock, he also tightened the exhaust and found a bolt that was broken off in it. At this point I wanted to desperately take the lemon back to the guy in Wisconsin for grossly over exaggerating the state of the vehicle. My husband is still confident he can fix it, although just a little tired of having to do so on the fly. A normally 2 day trip turned into a 4 day trip just to get home.
Once home, we realized all the upholstery/carpeting would have to go due to my son’s allergies, and that all the wood would have to be replaced because of water damage. Hmmmm….just doesn’t seem worth it in the long run.