A little background on the Recreational Vehicles (RVs) from our past.

                            

Our first family RV: (probably not what you think)     

Our first Recreational Vehicle (RV) wasn’t for land at all.  As our fist new RV for the family, my wife and I purchased a Bayliner 245 (24’) cabin cruiser (Big heavy boat) in June 2005 with an extended swim platform that doubled as a patio with a grill.   We purchased it and parked it on the street in front of the house, then told the kids it was the neighbors but we had to climb on board to see what it looked like.  They weren’t sure we should be “playing” on someone else’s boat until we told them it was for us.  They went nuts!  One specific neighbor didn't like it as much as our kids. It was 32’ long (with the trailer),12’ high and 7K lbs. of boat parked on the street.  Most neighbors didn't mind but there is always one who has to complain about everyone - Welcome to California.  Unfortunately this one lived directly across the street. We never anticipated leaving it there but we had to wait for a spot to open at the storage facility.  Sure enough they, that neighbor called the cops rather than come over and ask us if it was here to stay.  We ended up storing it offsite 3 days later at a facility a few miles away (Damn HOA CC&Rs). J

Why would you buy that for your first RV? 

Because, a cabin cruiser can do ONE thing no travel trailer, 5^th wheel and motor home (one exception that I’ve seen on TV) can do – Float!  We started with the cabin cruiser when our kids were smaller and our 1^st Labrador was a puppy with the notion that if we were going to go camping we would really want to go to a lake to camp.  If we were going camping AT the lake then we would all want to go in or on the lake so we got a cabin cruiser that let us do everything at once rather than a “land locked” RV like a trailer.  It was the best of both worlds - boating and camping.  We would spend the day running around the lakes or delta seeing amazing sites along with more than a few drunken idiots. When it was time to eat or take a swim break we just pulled up anywhere on shore or dropped the anchor, cooked, ate, tanned, fished, played some games, went for a swim and then slept right there on the boat.  With a bathroom/shower, stove, refrigerator, stereo and a grill we had everything we needed. 

We could even take friend out on the San Francisco Bay, drive up to fancy bay-side restaurants around the bay, tie up and walk up the ramp to lunch while people stared at us (sometimes they have someone to tie up your boat for you, we felt almost famous that way and J).  Then we would drive across the bay to drop the anchor in McCovey cove outside PacBell Park to listen to the announcer on the radio and the live crowd at SF Giants game from the cockpit or deck while having some wine and crackers (Real yuppie stuff).  Afterward we just drove back down the bay to the marina and spent the night on the boat.  It was awesome and something I’m very glad we were fortunate enough to be able to experience. 

If the sun was cooking us, we put up the Bimini top.  If the bugs came out at night we just put up the full screen paneling around the cockpit or hung out around the table down below.  This created great family memories and worked out nice for a year or two.  Then the kids got bigger, the lakes began drying up and the price of gas went close to $4/gallon.  It got so that finding a lake to stay on for the night was harder and harder and purchasing 65 gallons of gas for the boat and another 40+ for the truck made each weekend trip $500+ and more and more difficult.  It got so that we were only using the boat for 4-5 hour trips on the reservoir that is a few miles down the road.  The issue was that the reservoir was only 6 miles long and we were always the biggest boat on the water.  With rules that you could only go counter clockwise (useless picking up a downed person) the boating trips got to be more work than play.  While we still loved the boat, it wasn’t getting used.

Our 2^nd RV:  Komfort 282TS TT

We decided that maybe our original thought we had (before deciding on getting the cabin cruiser) would be more practical.  We have 3 county parks and ocean beaches within 60 miles of our home.  With a TT we could easily leave on Friday after work and come home Sunday afternoon for weekend trips and it was much cheaper than using the boat.  After some research on Make/Models, pricing and other key items we wanted in a trailer we narrowed down our choices.  We weren’t ready for a large 5^th wheel and wanted a TT big enough for the four of us (plus a dog) that could be parked easily at the county parks or at a race track.  In 2007 we bought a new 2006 model (end of the year) Komfort 282 (28’) TT.  We began to use the trailer more and more and finally decided to pass the boat off to another owner, we took the money from the boat and paid off the Komfort trailer.  

Finally, back down to only one RV.