It’s been a month since I bought my RV, and you’d think I’d have spent that time packing and shopping in readiness for D-Day, but a lot else has been going on.  I decided last fall to have some renovations done around my house and hired the Eldon of contractors (think Murphy Brown).  He took 13 months to finish my sister’s house last year (original timeline: 3 months), and will have taken four months to finish what I would have thought would take 3 weeks at my place.  Don’t get me wrong: I knew going in that I was paying for quality workmanship, not decent time management. And, it’s looking pretty good so far.  But it means he’s commandeered my basement, my living room, my bedroom, and my garage – his is a peripatetic approach to task management: why finish one room at a time, when one can keep things interesting by doing several different tasks each day?  The only room unscathed is my guest bedroom.  But I can’t use that as a muster point for all things RVing – my nephew is staying with me for a four-month internship on Bay Street.  It’s bad enough for the poor guy that each Sunday, when he arrives at my house, another small portion of his bedroom floor, or the closet, or his dresser, has been taken over by my laundry, or stacks of books, or rolled up carpet.  I can’t also start piling ground tarps, and lawn chairs, and flashlights on top of his bed.

So, instead of packing, I make lists.  As with my previous adventure, I am using Trello and One Note to track To Dos, Questions, To Pack, To Buy, etc.. lists.  And I swear, I have bookmarked at least 30 different YouTube videos on RVing.  But those are their own topic.

I’m picking up my motorhome the last week of May, and I need to map out an itinerary.  Heidi’s, up in Oro-Medonte, halfway between Barrie & Orillia, has a unique offer:  with the purchase of one of their motorhomes, the buyer gets two free nights at their attached campground.  How brilliant is that?  I just know that they are going to cover everything I need to know the morning I pick up the rig, and within 20 minutes of my having driven off the lot, I’ll have forgotten 90% of it.  But this way, I’m just next door, and can go trotting into the service team with 15 questions that all start with, ‘Remind me how I  . . . . .’  Excellent.

After 2 days up there, I’ve decided to head southwest.  I was so impressed by Essex County when I took the train to Windsor last year, and I’ve never been to Point Pelee, so why not spend a week or so tooling around Southwestern Ontario: close to major urban centres, but different from what I’ve seen before.

Tariffs, schmariffs.  If you want an RV, buy an RV! 

How is He-Who-Should-Not-Be-Allowed impacting my life now?  I went RV shopping (round 2) yesterday.  When I asked, ‘What sort of depreciation for re-sale should I expect?’, I didn’t get the answer I was anticipating.  Instead, I got two new pieces of information, one of which could be in my favour, and one of which has me a tad freaked out.

First off: more than one dealership has indicated that due to the tariffs being levied by the twit, there is a very good chance that used RVs will be much in demand over the next several years and, if I maintain my rig well, I could see a better than normal re-sale price.  Well, I’m not really thrilled about benefitting from petulant nationalism (feels like profiteering somehow), but hey – whatevs – I’ll take it.

But, today, Wednesday March 19^th 2025, we are only days away from another round of tariffs.  And the salespeople are all warning me that that means motorhomes currently sitting in the dealers’ lots are going to jump in price.  Immediately.  Granted, this could be a tactic to hurry a sale, but do I really want to gamble with that?  Here’s the problem with this: those of you who have been following me for a while know that (a) I hate shopping; and (b) I take a looong time to make a decision.  But if I want to avoid a sudden across-the-board price hike, I have to decide.  Now.  Crap.

Years ago an RV salesman gave me a piece of advice I thought was pretty sound: list your top 10 requirements for the motorhome of your dreams, and if you find something that meets at least seven of those ten, buy it. Seems sensible.

I’ve done a fair amount of online research into such areas as floor plans, manufacturer reputation, solo-traveller choices, and features and options. From there I crafted the list you see here, asked a friend if she wanted to come shopping, then headed off to my first dealership.

Almost immediately I got veered off track at the dealership. I knew I wanted what was known as a Class C, but the minute I saw those cute, perfectly fitted-out, compact, obscenely expensive Class B vans, I wanted one. Oh dear. I don’t know why they are so much more expensive than the larger truck-style RVs, but they are. And I love them. And then we saw something callled a Class B+ which was equally cool. And even more expensive, dammit.

The salesman reminded me of why I was there, and re-directed me to the Class Cs (what a spoilsport). But somehow, even tho we ended up with the Make and Model I was investigating, we weren’t looking at the right size. I was definite in wanting a small motorhome. But he happened to have a used 27′ Sunseeker for an excellent price – too big, but very tempting. Dammit again. Then we saw a 24′ Redhawk that my friend really liked, but I wasnt crazy about the layout. But the price was good. Double dammit. See, this is why I hate shopping. Decisions, too many damned decisions.

So, being my mother’s daughter, I did the only thing I could do: I went home. I took his business card and went home to (a) sleep on it; and (b) have a glass of wine. (Sorry, (b) was supposed to say: keep shopping elsewhere. Oops.)

Rank	Wants
1	<$150k
2	< 25’
3	Twin beds
4	U-Dinette/Sofa
5	Slide
6	N. Amer chassis
7	Solar panels
8	U-Dinette/Sofa
9	Over cab storage
10	Solid bathroom door

I went online and listed all the RV sales centres within a 90 minute radius of my house.  I then opened Google Maps and grouped the stores into three road trips: Niagara Peninsula, Wellington County, and Orillia.  I then mapped these out and saved them to One Note.  Because I’m nuts.

This is how I structure most of my shopping trips, whether it’s groceries at a few different stores, or errands around town, or Christmas presents: I need a map. 

The reason I’m going into this level of detail is really just to show you what a fussbudget I am (my Grandma’s name for me 60+ years ago, and still applies today).

So next week is road trips. Niagara Peninsula first, so if I get too depressed, I can always go to a winery to make myself feel better.

I am such a bad procrastinator (is that a tautology?  Is all procrastination bad?) – I have been talking about buying an RV since last spring. But that involved work.  And effort.  And worst of all, decision making.  (Have I mentioned before how much I hate shopping?  All shopping.  You see, I like having things; I just don’t like getting things.)  So the hunt for a motorhome kept getting pushed back (or, more accurately, pushed aside).

A couple of weeks ago I was reviewing my investments with my financial advisor (who BTW, is all over this idea of RVing across Canada and keeps encouraging me), and after dithering and wavering, I decided to pull a bunch o’ money (the technical term in the investment industry) and set it aside.  Now I have to do something, as I have money just sitting there waiting.

As soon as I hung up from Patrick, I typed Top Class C RVs under 23’ 2025 into my browser. 

Let the shopping begin.

Before I start talking about this new adventure, I should mention something that happened this past Christmas, a sort of ‘wrap-up’ to my Orkney adventure.

Sister #2 gave me the most remarkable birthday present: she had my entire Scotland blog, all 150+ entries, bound into a bee-yoo-tee-full coffee table book.  Unlike my online blog, where I have to scroll backwards from most recent to oldest to re-read my memories, this is my entire adventure, with accompanying pics, laid out in chronological order.

Thank you!

Back in the spring of 2015 LL and I were sitting in my backyard talking about retirement and I mentioned RVing.  Next thing we knew, we were visiting RV Shows, checking out RV sales centres, and even renting RVs for test-run holidays.  Ultimately, the pandemic, retirement dates, my disinclination to visit the United States, and my move to Scotland rearranged who was buying RVs with whom.  Once I started thinking about moving overseas, I advised LL that she shouldn’t put her plans on hold for me, so she and BN bought a beautiful 30’ Class A Entegra, and for two years travelled back and forth across Canada and the US. 

But now it’s my turn.  I was lucky enough to have a job where I was flown all over Canada for the better part of four years.  And as a child, I travelled coast to coast with family and friends.  But I don’t think I’ve ever been more than 30km away from the Trans Canada Highway (or TCH as it’s known on The Rock).  So I’m buying an RV and travelling all across Canada, visiting parts of the country I’ve never seen before.

And this blog is where I will record it.

Well, I need a new car. It was so generous of LL to lend me her car for the time being, but she’s gonna move home at some point. I’ve done my research, and I’ve narrowedit down to a Mini (fingers crossed), a Mazda CX-30, or a Subaru Crosstrek. All three dealerships are within 90 seconds of one another here in London, so off I went. I did invite my nephew to join me, but he had other plans. Fortunately (foreshadowing).

Hit MINI London first. No one was there. Not in the lot, not in the showroom, no one. Finally a guy with his his face firmly in his cellphone drifted up and when he looked at me (no questions, just looked), I said, “I want to buy a car.” ‘Buy’. Not trade-in, not look at, but buy. The sales manager (that’s who this guy was, I found out later), didn’t introduce himself, ask my name, or ask me a single question. He just pointed to each car in the showroom and identified them by name. My favourite moments were when he (a) told me that ‘a three-door car has two doors on the side and one at the back’ (because I had assumed that third door was in the floorboards?), and (b) said, “and there’s a yellow one outside.” I said “I see,” drifted towards the door, and he went back to his cell phone. He was the sales manager! I stood alone in the middle of the parking lot, absolutely baffled and incensed. BTW, never shop MINI London.

Off to Mazda, where the greeting was better (still no exchange of names), but the salesman spent the entire time telling me that every car I was looking at was expensive (what do I look like out in public? a recent escapee from an asylum? a broke gambling addict? I was wearing a nice coat and scarf and drove in in LL’s perfectly lovely Toyota Venza.) And when I asked for a test drive, he looked shocked and said I’d have to book an appointment. ?!? The showroom was full of sales people, but devoid of customers, and yet I needed to make an appointment? By now I was starting to steam.

My experience at Subaru was better, at least he told me his name and gave me a brochure. But by this time I was fit to be tied. Remember, my career was in sales training, coaching, and sales management. Maybe if my background was in nursing, or academia, or road maintenance, I wouldn’t have taken this so badly, but because sales was my livelihood, I was absolutely OTT with anger.

I got in my car (LL’s car) and sat there fuming. Then I remembered that the LandRover dealership, which had always treated me so very very well, was just 2 minutes down the road. Now, to be perfectly clear, I was not going to buy another luxury car, but at least this would end my afternoon on an up note.

Reader, I purchased one.