We picked our RV!

Friday night, we took our first road trip in our new truck.  We headed west to Elkhart, Indiana to Great Lakes RV Center to see a specific RV in person.  The trip took about 5 hours.

I follow a blog called Newschool Nomads.  They are a family much like ours....a married mom and dad with 2 sons.  (They, however, just welcomed baby #3 into their family last night....we did not). They recently bought a Heartland Gateway 3650 BH (BH stands for BunkHouse).  I watched their video tour of their new RV and loved it.  I knew it would also suit all of our needs and wants as well. You can see their video tour of their new RV here. 

I called the dealership last Monday to ask a few questions about the Gateway that they had on their lot.  Mr. Salesman was really nice and knowledgeable.  I let him know that we were planning to make a trip there to IN to see it in person that coming weekend.

Well, what do you know?  The very next day, someone put a down payment on it.  We decided to go ahead and make the drive to see it, though, before it left the lot to make sure it was the one we wanted.  This dealership is located 3 miles from the Heartland factory where they make the RV that we want.  We would like to actually go tour the factory so we can see firsthand how it is made. All of Elkhart, IN is the RV Capital.  There were RV dealerships and service shops everywhere. There was even an RV and Motorhome Museum. 

We didn't get into Elkhart until 10:30 pm Friday night.  Then we were at the dealership by 10:00 am Saturday morning.  We were there from 10:00 am to 3:30 pm.  Our boys spent their time doing things like this:

Playing games on the DS and i-phone in 'their' bedroom.  

(Their actual bedroom will look like this). 

Pretending they were on a safari and shooting bad animals.  

Watching cartoons on CABLE television!

(We don't have cable at home). 

So we put put a little down payment down so that we can get our very own RV ordered.  They could have us one in 2 days, but we requested it take about 6 weeks to be finished.  (Our house is still not even listed to be rented yet!)  

We are having them install a generator for us.  We like the idea of being self-sufficient.  We can have electric anywhere we are...say...boondocking in a Wal-mart parking lot or in a rest area.  OR if we are in Florida and have to evacuate due to a hurricane, we can rest assured that we will have electricity with us at all times.  (We can fill up our water tanks and have water for a few days too without being hooked up to a line).  

(Boondocking is when you are camping without being hooked up to any commercial campgrounds hook-ups (electric, water, sewer).

We are also having them install the 5th wheel hitch in our truck so we can actually pull the RV!  

We tried out the table to make sure 

we could all eat at the same time.  

We can.  

Henry even got on the roof to check it out.

He's curious to see if there is a way to add extra storage up there.