It’s Been a Busy Few Weeks

A lot has been going on and I haven’t had a chance to update my blog.

First of all, my Mom has been in the hospital…twice.  She’s home now and hopefully will stay away from the hospital.  It’s not a fun place.

She had been having the same old problem that she had been complaining about for months.  When we were here last winter we tried to get it resolved.  She felt it was her heart but two different cardiologists told her that her heart was fine.  It got to the point where they didn’t appear to believe her.

She finally went to see a favorite doctor of hers that she thought had retired.  He’s a wonderful doctor, very caring and listens to his patients.  Imagine that!   He consulted with her cardiologist and they put her into the hospital to monitor her.  Her blood pressure was low, like 99/50 with a heart rate around 50.   She still has these spells where she has discomfort in her chest and it makes her feel very very weak.   They finally (reluctantly) decided to do a heart cath and discovered that she had a 95 -99% blockage in one artery.  Yes, I guess there was something wrong with her heart.  They placed a stint in the artery right away and released her 24 hours after the procedure. 

As soon as she got home, she started having her “spells” and very low blood pressures.  This time 90/33 and a few even lower.  Back to the hospital for a few more days.  They continue to say her heart is fine and these spells are some kind of gastric issue.   So we still don’t know what is  causing these spells, but we think the extremely low blood pressure problem has resolved.  They are now treating her for stomach issues.  I don’t have much faith in doctors after so many of them telling her she was fine when she obviously had a major artery blockage.   Her internist,  Dr Cichon is a wonderful man and great doctor.  We feel sure he will get to the bottom of this.

Anyway….between hospital visits, we have made a few trips to Lazy Days looking at rv’s.  Lazy Days is the largest rv dealer in the world and is a great place to buy.  All the rv’s are open and you are welcome to inspect them.  There is a guy on a golf cart that rides around giving you cold bottles of water.  They now have a Doggy and Kitty Daycare on premises so that you can shop even if you have a pet!  They make it real  easy to buy!

We also went to Bates Rv and Longview Rv which are other local rv dealers.   I really don’t know how either of those places stay in business.  They turned us off in about 5 minutes.  Back to Lazy Days where they know how to treat customers!

We looked at a lovely 2004 Beaver Monterey with 4 slides.  It was pretty nice inside and drove very well.  It was beautiful inside, had  beautiful hard wood cabinets and tons of storage inside and outside.

We had a hard time locating the information on the carrying capacity weights,  so we asked Lazy Days to have it weighed.  It came back that we’d have a whole 671 pounds of CCC (cargo carrying capacity).     We immediately ruled that one out.  We had talked to the previous owners on this coach and they told us they had taken that motorhome to Alaska three times.  When we asked them how much carrying capacity they had, they didn't know but thought it was a lot because “the coach was so heavy.”  That made us a little nervous!  For those of you who aren’t familiar with rv’s (Merikay), this is an important thing to look for.  You can have all the storage you want, but if you can’t put anything in them other than marshmallows, you have a problem. We couldn’t even have gone on a short vacation and kept our weight under 671 pounds.  The coach chassis is only rated to carry a certain amount of weight.

It’s extremely important everyone understands these figures before you purchase an rv.  If you don’t you  might be like the Beaver owners and drive around in a dangerously overloaded coach. 

 Here is a link from Howard and Linda’s RV Dreams website.  Howard breaks this information down very well.  This is very important information and all rv’s should be weighed regularly as weights change.  One other issue, is each axel (front and rear)  and each tire is designed to carry a certain amount of weight.  Your weight for that particular axel can be correct but  unless you get a four corner weight you may be heavy on one side and over load  the tire.  Could this cause a problem?  Yes if the front left corner is over weight and that causes that tire to blow,  you have a big problem!  You need to know the weight of each axel and air your tires up to match the weight you’re carrying.  Unless you get the four corner weights, you won’t know exactly how much to inflate your tires.  Unfortunately finding somewhere to get a four corner weight is hard.  You can get a  front and rear axel  weight at any Cat Scale.  This link will help you locate one near you.  You can find the four corner weighing at many rv rally’s and Howard and Linda are now offering that service for a reasonable charge.  That’s one thing that we want to have done as soon as possible.

After we ruled out the Beaver, our terrific salesman Keith,  found another one coming in on trade.  It was a 2005 Country Coach Inspire, with 3 slides.  This coach was rated pretty well, and the exterior was gorgeous and like new.  We couldn’t wait to see inside.

We had to wait a few days for the owners to move into their new coach before we could see the interior, but we sure loved the outside.    We were so disappointed when we got inside.  It was okay, but had a lot of issue and was pretty beat up.  It turned out the cargo carrying capacity (stuff you can bring) was only around 2600 pounds.   We loved the exterior of this coach, but couldn’t get past the low CCC and interior issues.  So, back to square one…again.   We were so disappointed because we thought we had found the “one.”

We continued to look online and at a few local dealers and of course kept looking at Lazy Days since they have such a big turnover and “new” trade-ins come in all the time.  They sell between 350 and 500 rv’s a month!

We are now back to Lazy Days,  looking at a Monaco Windsor…and this may  be the one.    More later