Travels with Sammi: February 17, 2013 (Sammi's big brother)

The wife and I have been keeping our eyes open for a reasonably priced RV so we can move up from the in bed truck camper to something larger. We finally found one we thought we could afford and tackle to fix up to be our own.

By today's standards it's pretty old. A 1993 Road Master on a Ford E350 chassis. So far I think we picked it up for a song. $5000 was the asking price but we got it for $3500. Can you believe 1993 was twenty years ago? Wow! That was yesterday.

She had a few issues but she runs real nice. 65,000 mile on the chassis, Mechanically she has a warped brake rotor, needed an oil change and a little Freon (or whatever the new stuff is) in the air conditioner and new tires.

Cosmetically some paint, some polishing and some love. The living area (cabin) had some pretty extensive plumbing problems, an exploded water heater, a few connections that showered the thing when you added water pressure and a few screws tightened. I decided when I grow up (which won't ever happen) I want to be a plumber.

(My experiences with this thing have given me a new respect for that profession.)

The wife (Rosebud) and I have spent just about every free weekend working on it since we purchased it.

Thank God my son-in-law Jered is real good at paint and mechanics, and fabrication and restoration and the like and thank God his parents, Jeff & Peg are gracious enough to let us store it on their property. We live in the mountains with a couple acres but nothing flat enough to park her on.

At any rate someone lived in her for a few years so she was well used and needed some love but all-in-all not in too bad of shape. Our budget was upwards of $10,000 so we had some wiggle room to get her on the road. So far we have maybe a total of $5000 into her. Maybe $5500.

We started with a good cleaning and some paint.

The Kitchen beforehand: