Okay, first of all, I have to say…don’t do it this way.  We were planning on purchasing an RV for some time and did some research, but not nearly as much as we should have.  We did, however, decide on a floor plan we liked. We  knew we wanted to have a dinette (to sit at and blog from) and a bed you could walk around, so it was not so hard to make the darn bed. Other than that we did not have any preferences.

So, first of all we looked at class B and C vehicles, around 24 feet, thinking we would have an easy vehicle to drive, it would be gas friendly and we would be able to go where other RVs could not.  Good thoughts, right? Well, okay if you aren’t going to spend a lot of time in it.  While we were shopping, each salesman asked us how we were going to use it.  Our reply was, “We want to go on a road trip around the US for a few months next year.”

“So, you’ll be staying in hotels then?” said the salesman, looking at us like we were dummies.

“No, we want to stay in our RV.”

“Well unless  you want to go to jail for assault on each other you might want to look at a larger option.”

On to the next option.  Now we decide to go to a RV show.  Pomona had one at the end of the summer, so we got up at 5 AM and drove all the way to Pomona to get there when it opened at 10 AM.  No problems, we arrived right on time and began our search, knowing we would not buy one… we were “just looking”.

If you have ever been to an RV show, you know it is gigantic.  After about four hours of looking around, we were thoroughly confused, lost and could not remember what we had seen. No lunch and it was hot.  We had began to think we would like the class C motorhome by now as opposed to a class B.  Finally, we found a sympathetic salesman, who sat us down and asked us, “So what do you want to use the RV for?”  Back to our answer of going around the US in an RV.  Now, we knew we needed one at least 28 feet long and were afraid to have one more than 32 feet long. Then he said, “Since you are going to travel around the country sightseeing, would you like a good view?”  Answer…yes.

“Let’s look at a class A then.” I’m looking at these HUGE vehicles and thinking, no way, they are too big. So, like good little consumers we take a test drive in a very nice Winnebago.  Wow, you can see everything.  It was marvelous. Okay, now we could see the advantage of the class A motorhomes.

We proceeded to begin looking around for the floor plan we knew we wanted and wandered into a very fancy looking area of Tiffin Motorhomes. Once we saw those, we hesitantly asked the price.   Not too, too bad. Maybe we will take a test drive.  Test drive over and sold!  We were sold and I, usually being the cautious one, was completely out of control and said, “I’ll buy that.”  My husband is kicking me and saying we weren’t ready. Thank goodness for him or we would have left with it.  It is now 7:30 PM and we are thirsty, tired and hungry.  We take off for home and stop along the way for dinner, at which time I inform my husband that that was the one I wanted.  2015 Tiffin Allegro Open Road 31SA. Decision made.  Now, all we had to do was negotiate.  We called the salesman and told him we were interested.  He gave us a price and we negotiated back.  “We don’t want to buy unless we get a substantial reduction in the price.” Three hours later we owned a new motorhome.  Yes!

We still did not realize that we really had lucked out, and had chosen a great RV with a good warranty, and it was just what we needed for our upcoming trip next spring.  Talk about being lucky even though we did not have a clue!