New Toy

Jim says he misses my blog.  All together now, "Awwww that's sweet".  It IS sweet!  When he said that, it made me realize that I miss my blog.  It is time to get back into the blogosphere.  

We bought a new toy since the last time I posted.  My friend Patti at Osage Bluff Quilter and her husband, BT, bought a Casita RV a year or two ago.  We checked it out and thought it was pretty cool.  It is compact and lightweight, making it easy to pull, but still has the comforts we want (toilet/shower, kitchenette/table, bed, and AC/Heat)  Ever since, we've cussed and discussed getting a Casita like theirs.  Conversations took place like "We've been wanting to tour the national park sites - what better way to do it" or "Greg and Alicia have an RV - this would let us do a little camping with them without intruding on their space" or "If we had an RV we could easily take the Demon Dog with us".  The conversations were endless until finally Jim became obsessed with finding us a used Casita.  That task should be easy enough, right?  Wrong!  Every time he found one that fit the bill of what we wanted he'd call, only to find out it had already been snatched up.  He finally spotted one in Indiana.  And it was still available!  We talked to the guy and found that he made a hobby/business in his retirement of buying Casita's, adding his own twist to them, and selling them.  We decided it was worth a jaunt to Indiana to check it out.

This Casita (I think it is a 2009) was originally owned by two ladies who bought it so they could tour Canada.  After several months on the road they returned home only to have one of them take ill and die.  It sat in a hay barn for a couple of years before our buddy Roy (we now fondly call him Roy Boy) brokered it for the lady.  

Thanks to road work and horrendous traffic in East St. Louis, Illinois, we arrived at Roy's much later than we had anticipated.  Since we were pretty certain we were going to buy this little gem, we had even scoped out camp grounds close by so that we didn't have to go far before it got dark.  Roy had that all figured out, though.  After he had showed off his pride and joy and convinced us it should be ours, we told him we needed to get going.  He would have none of that.  He already had us hooked into his electricity so we could spend the night in his back yard.  Now that was unexpected!

Roy was a character.  Some of his gems (selling points?) was that the bathroom was haunted.  Every time he went in there he saw an old man looking at him.  The next morning he asked me if I had spotted the old man during the night.  I told him no, there was an old woman haunting the place now....

He had installed "mood lighting" through the tubes that run around the inside perimeter of the Casita.  He was most proud of these lights.  They are white tube lights strung through the tubes and connected to a dimmer switch.  Roy was adamant that we couldn't check those lights out until he was gone because, "He couldn't be held responsible for what might happen when those "mood lights" came on.  (I'll never tell...)

The selling point for me was the mattress.  My one fear of RV life was having to sleep on back breaking foam mattresses.  When I expressed that concern, Roy conveniently remembered he had a high end custom made for a Casita mattress in his basement.  According to Roy it was valued at $800.  When I saw it, I knew this would make all the difference in the world.  Once we talked Roy into throwing the mattress into the mix, we had a deal.  When we got home the next day there was an email from Roy saying he needed a picture of the two of us for the FBI most wanted list for stealing his mattress.  What a riot.  We have since discovered by going through the paperwork he left with us that the mattress did indeed cost between $800 and $900 when it was bought by the original lady owners.  Yep, Roy Boy had removed the mattress and then put it back in as a bargaining chip.  

 

We have also discovered that Whiskey is an excellent traveling companion.  

Up next is our trip to Arrow Rock State Park.