About this picture
Melissa and I finally broke down and bought a camper. We have been discussing it since we lived in VA. We purchased ourF250 after the transmission died in my Explorer and we were planning on making the move to Washington. Having a stockpile of Zuks I didn't want to take the dead Explorer with me and know more towing was in the future so the F250 was my choice and not a hard sell to Melissa. We got a great deal and anticipated that this truck would be more than we'd ever need. My only hold back was I really wanted a Ford Excursion diesel. Anyway, after moving to Washignton and camping in the mountains next to all our buddies with heaters running, we have been on the look out a bit more. Several times we've gotten close to purchasing something but nothing ever seemed to fit. In Washington you can't double-tow (Tow two trailers at once) so I wanted to factor in bringing the Zuk with us since majority of our camping involves four-wheeling. This limited us to a slide-in truck camper which is costly and cramped. I also found that due to having a short-bed rather than a long-bed our choices were limited. That left a toy-hauler. Toy-haulers are a new form of camper that has a garage in the back for loading your toys. Most are designed for 4-wheelers and dirt bikes. The problem for Melissa was the fact that most had the cargo area and camper area together in one giant room. With her migraine headaches she was worried that the smells from the vehicle would make her headache worse. This year, a buddy of mine was showing me his new camper, thinking it was the one I saw last time I was over, told him I already saw it. Realizing he had already replaced it, I was interested in what he had done with the old one. I was excited to find that it was for sale. We looked at it, but Melissa and I were expecting something newer and nicer but it once again got us talking. The more we looked and the more we talked we started to realized that the camper we wanted and the camper we could afford were not in one package. I agreed and thought we could get an old slide-in camper for my dirty wheeling trips but have a nice roomy camper for all other camping we do. When we found the Springdale Model 282BHSSRWE we both fell in love. It was the floor plan we both wanted. As we were looking at it and dreaming, I realized that I, at 6' tall could fit in the fold down dinette, and in the bunks. We got the price and went home. The next morning we discussed it further. The sales rep had told us that the sale was only good 'til the end of the month which was today. Thinking buying new was crazy, I tried to find similar models that were used to see what kind of depreciate to expect. I was surprised the sales price was similar to the price of models nearly 5 years old. I decided to play a bit hard ball and ask for $3000k off and their best financing, I was shocked when they came down $2200+ and gave us the financing. So, here we are, SPOILED!