Buying our Travel Trailer

Leaving Seattle, saying goodbye to old and new friends, we had a distinctly odd journey. Backing up a little, our first RV purchase had fell through—we’d planned on picking it up before our Bellingham house closed, but didn’t quite see eye-to-eye with the dealer. It was an experience where we thought that we might be on some sort of reality show that was being filmed, freaking out unsuspecting couples then popping out at the end to tell you it’s all a joke. (Spoiler, it wasn’t.)

We’d arrived to pick up our new RV, and got a bit of moaning and sighing when we asked to check out the roof. There were air bubbles in the sealant, which the dealer told us wasn’t a big deal, but we wanted it fixed (as you could pop them off with your finger and it left a hole in the roof). They didn’t think we needed to fuss about this. We also couldn’t communicate our questions on sway bars properly. (These are the bars that attach to the hitch and, as you may guess, keep the trailer from swaying back and forth.) You can go without, or buy one, or even two. When you are first picking the travel trailer you can tow they have log books and website look-ups that list the maximum towing capacity for your vehicle; we’d asked if they have similar guidelines that match up tow capacity, trailer weight, and sway bar guidelines. (It seems like math to us, and we didn’t want to have to little or too much.) I guess this made us the most uptight people they’d ever come across, and we were shown the door. Cue panic, as we are now starting a RV journey without a RV.

We did a bit of online research, and came across a dealer in Oregon, though, that had a few styles of travel trailer that we thought would work for us. From Seattle, then, we crossed our fingers and headed down to Aloha, Oregon. (Decidedly not tropical, by the way.) Our first request to get a ladder to look on the roof was met with a hearty, “Absolutely!” and our hearts melted a little. From there, we got the price, and did the raised eyebrow look at each other. Could this be true, a better RV than what we’d first picked out, for less? Much less? We don’t have to negotiate down to the price we want to pay, and it comes with everything extra we want? (Two batteries, tv, sani-flush—all included.) Everything from there on out went just as easy, and I can see why Curtis Trailer has such a good reputation.

Of course I said "Ain't she a beaut, Clark?" at this point.

Logistically, though, this meant that we left our Seattle house on Tuesday morning, about an hour before it closed, and had our truck and minivan packed with everything we’d planned on taking on our journey. When I say packed, I mean this in both a loose and literal sense—things were just jammed into both cars with apparent abandon, and little room to spare. Our kids looked mortified, because we did sort of look like crazy people driving down the road. There were some serious moments of doubt for us, too, as we drive down I-5, hoping that this RV purchase goes smoothly and we can hitch up and go. We pulled into Curtis that afternoon, and it was, as they say, easy as pie. An hour or so later we’re hitched up, just in time to hit traffic leaving Portland. Yay! I’ll speak for Kevin here, and say that rush hour traffic, followed by a few hairy mountain passes is a great way to break in your first day of pulling a 29-ft. travel trailer. When we pulled into Grants Pass that night it took a few hours for the blood to return to his knuckles.