Luck Of The Irish

Well, we've been here a few weeks now so it's high time we started this blog.

It's been a hectic couple of weeks since we arrived and actually fairly stressful.  No doubt everyone back home is full of sympathy!

We didn't get off to a great start, with our connecting flight from Dublin being delayed by four hours after the plane was deemed unfit to fly.  Bad omen number 1?  Suffice to say that Aer Lingus are about as useful as a bacon sandwich at a Jewish wedding.

Anyway, we made it to Florida in the end.  I'm not sure when it finally sank in, but we definitely spent the first few days alternating between "oh my god we're here!" and "Christ on a bike, what the hell have we done?!".

Basically, our lives since we arrived in Orlando have revolved around eating copious amounts of food and looking for RVs.  I uploaded a screenshot from my GPS logger which shows the ground we've covered.  Might not look like much but we've been back and forth along the same routes multiple times as more coaches appear online for us to look at.

One good thing about all this driving is that I got used to it in a nice small hire car before being unleashed on the roads in an 8-ton death machine.  Although I was disappointed to find out within about 5 minutes of leaving the airport that "No Left Turn" signs don't just apply to the locals.  Apparently driving the wrong way down a one-way street is not the done thing.  Hopefully I'll get used to this country's weird customs eventually.

At one point in our seemingly never-ending search for an RV that was fit for more than being launched off a cliff or blown up on Top Gear, we got stuck in a huge traffic jam and eventually saw that the tailback was caused by an up-turned motorhome on the side of the road surrounded by police and fire trucks.  Bad omen number 2.

We probably looked at about twenty vehicles and came really close to buying on three occasions.  It's a pretty long-winded process and we'll do a separate post about the logistics of buying an RV here as a foreigner because a couple of people asked us about this before we left.

We finally found the perfect coach at a place called Clearwater, on the west coast of Florida near Tampa.  It was pristine inside and out and was in our price range.  An older model than we were looking for but low mileage and in great condition.  It's a Tiffin, which is one of the most well respected names in the RV world.  Here she is:

Looks pretty decent?  I thought so too, until I test drove it and the brakes failed halfway through the test drive, leaving me freewheeling haphazardly down the interstate in an 8 ton shed on wheels.  With a stopping distance of about half a mile and the distinct smell of boiling brake fluid coming through the air conditioning, suddenly this didn't seem like such an attractive prospect.  Bad omen number 3!

At this point we considered the old saying that bad luck comes in threes.  Figuring that we'd made it this far and were still alive, we raised our middle fingers in Fate's general direction and carried on looking.

By now we were running out of options but we stumbled across an advert we hadn't seen before for an Airstream Land Yacht.  Airstream are well known for their stunning travel trailers but their fully motorized coaches like this one retain all the style, while suiting our purpose better.

Unfortunately by the time we arrived to check it out, another couple had already expressed an interest and were literally about to take it for a test drive.  I gave the salesman my number and he said he'd call us when he knew whether they were taking it or not.

Now most people would have probably gone for lunch or done some sightseeing while they waited for the callback.  But we decided that the appropriate behaviour would be to hide around the corner for a while, watch for the RV leaving the dealership and then follow it when it went for a test drive.

We must have looked pretty shady because the police soon came and moved us on from our first hiding place.  Our second spot had no line of sight to the RV, and we almost missed it as it went past in the mirror.  A quick wheelspin and a few dodgy maneuvres though and we caught up.

As unnecessary as these antics sound, seeing how the vehicle drove from the outside did actually give us a unique perspective that you don't get on a test drive.  The other couple ended up loving it and buying it though, so we were back to square one for seemingly the thousandth time.

Fast forward another couple of days of looking and we found another great candidate and eventually signed on the dotted line.  She's a Winnebago Sightseer, 30 feet of pure class on wheels as I'm sure you'll agree:

We drove a pretty hard bargain and managed to get about 35% off the list price, and it ticks all our boxes (including working brakes!) so we're happy.  Sharon has already given her the nickname "Winnie", partially because it's a Winnebago but also in honour of her grandma Winnie who helped to make this trip possible.

So, things learned so far:

1.  Obey the US Highway Code
2.  Brakes are underrated
3.  Sell "RV Wars" idea to Jeremy Clarkson for huge profit.  Or MTV if he doesn't want it.