How We Met 'Loretta'

When we bought a house in North Austin in 2010, we bought the first house we saw. But not after seeing about 15 others. The more we looked, the more we realized the house on Dorset Drive was the right one. The same thing happened with Loretta, the RV we just bought.

Loretta is a 2010 Coachman Freelander 21QB who's in wonderful health and ready to have some adventures.

When we decided to sell everything to travel full time in an RV, we started looking online to get an idea of what we'd like and what we could afford. We searched Craigslist, RV Trader, and RVT.com. Later, I learned of a great great search tool called SearchTempest that lets you search Craigslist, eBay, and Amazon nationwide in one search. We also visited and called dealerships to see what they had to offer and even attended an RV Expo. We figured out our budget and eventually decided we wanted a Class C RV, even though we went back and forth between it and the smaller Class B.

Power: 6-liter, V8 Chevy Vortec engine lets Loretta fly when needed.

About a week before we closed the sale of our house, Denise spotted Loretta in a Craigslist ad, but we didn't know her name yet. She was being advertised in several cities but lived near College Station, home of Texas A&M.

Her price and length caught our eye. Once we saw how clean she was kept and that she had a rear bed, we knew we wanted to see her. After signing the paper work that sealed the deal on our house sale, we drove to Bryan, just outside of College Station, where Loretta was being stored.

We met George, who'd been caring for Loretta for the past year. He and his wife Kelly made several trips, including time at the beach, the Great Texas Balloon Race, and a winery tour through the Midwest. After some unexpected life changes, they decided to find Loretta a new home.

George gave us a tour of Loretta and explained to us some of the upgrades he recently made, including a brand new roof air conditioner, new Michelin tires all around, a state-of-the-art GPS navigation system, tire pressure sensors, and an air lift kit. Inside, Loretta looked great. All the cabinets, fixtures, and furniture was in good shape. The dinette is a bit odd shaped, but the protruding ends make a for a larger bed when guests visit. She has modest storage, but there's enough room to fit all the essentials and a few extras. Outside, she looked a little rough. While everything appeared to be sound, Loretta hadn't had a bath in quite some time.

Then we took her on the road.

The bed over the cab and dinette conversion means we can host guests.

Loretta is powered by a 6.0 Chevy Vortec engine that has a lot of power and is considered among the most reliable of the gasoline engines. It's likely we'll only get about 8 mpg, so I don't plan to tear up the highway, but if I need to get out of a sticky situation, Loretta will pick up and go! George drove for a few miles and coached Denise on how to monitor the tire sensors. It's important to keep the tire pressure and temperature within the proper range or we'll have big problems. Then I took the wheel. It was a little scary. The wind does push noticeably and the ride is bouncy. It also takes longer to speed up or slow down that I expected. It's not too much unlike driving a big U-Haul, except that it's not just your possessions you're hauling -- it's your whole house, and I didn't own this one yet.

We thanked George for showing us around and drove back to Austin. We talked about everything we liked, which was a lot, and what we didn't like, which wasn't much. My last day of work was a couple of days away, so we had some time to think things over.

That's when I got caught up with another RV I knew I couldn't afford. After putting money down on a 2009 Thor Chateau Citation 24SA at a dealership, I realized it was a mistake. It's that situation when you're just blinded by sexy appearances and all that it could be. You don't care the cost, you'll do anything to make it work.

I came to my senses and hoped Loretta was still available. She really was everything we needed, and most of what we wanted. What if it was too late? What if someone else was driving her? Their hands all over her steering wheel, laying in her bed. Worse yet, what if they didn't even really love her?

Loretta has a rear bed, full fridge, and a 3-burner stove.

It was a relief to learn Loretta was still waiting. After a brief negotiation, we made a date to meet again. That's when I learned she's called Loretta, named after the line in the Beatles song, "Get Back." I interpret the song to mean Loretta should get back on the road, where she belongs.

Driving an hour and a half to see her was full of hope and excitement, and a little bit of anxiety. George had cleaned Loretta up and Denise couldn't help but say out loud "Wow, she looks cuter than I remember." We had scheduled to take Loretta to a brief inspection to make sure her health checked out -- it did. There was a small crack in one of the joints where a vent meets the roof, but Tim the RV guy patched it up. George gave us an orientation on how everything works, then we headed over to meet his wife Kelly to pay for Loretta.

All of a sudden, Loretta became a part of our family.

I drove Loretta back to Austin while Denise followed in the NV200 with Kimbo. When we fueled up, Kimbo joined me in Loretta.Kimbo made himself at home right between to driver and passenger seat and fell asleep.

The drive home was scary. Nothing scary happened, it was all in my head. Well, I did make one mistake -- I wanted to pull into a rest area, but didn't realize it was on the opposite side of the road. I misjudged how fast the car in the next lane was coming and I cut the driver off. Oops. Loretta handled beautifully, following my lead without protest and easily braking in the short exit lane. Denise wasn't too happy to have to make that unexpected exit. Double oops. After that, I was overly cautious.

I had been pushing Loretta to just under 70 mph, but Denise suggested I slow it down a bit to save on gas. All the way back, I kept Loretta to just under 60 mph. Loretta rides smooth and buoyant. She rattles a lot on rough patches and when we arrived home, a noticed a drawer and cabinet door had opened. That's going to take some getting used to. I still haven't backed her up. Loretta has a back-up camera, so that should make it easier, but we're going to have to practice.

Our first decoration, into the sunset with Kimbo.

We're now setting about the task of learning everything we can about Loretta's operation and systems. There are about a dozen manuals that cover most of her components. There's also the things we'll only be able to learn by doing, like how to set up Loretta for boondocking and how to pack all our belongings inside.

For now, we're making Loretta our own. We've added a memory foam mattress topper to the rear bed, bought new bins to organize our stuff, and started to add a few small decorations. There's still so much to learn and do before we hit the road. We're considering to add solar panels, leveling jacks, and a trailer to pull our van behind us. All of those will be future blog posts if and when we make it happen.

Once it's time to travel, we'll first visit family to say our goodbyes and get some experience driving and setting up Loretta while we're still close to support. Then we'll hit the open road, bound for a 15-week summer job in Yellowstone National Park followed by a visit to Washington state where we'll see more friends and family and tour the Olympic National Forest. I'm sure we'll  make many detours as we see where the day takes us.

Along the way, we'll live our dream and make Loretta our home.