Thankful Thursday: A Dream Realized continued…

When Munchkin was quite young and we were living in North Carolina, we rented a small travel trailer to take a nice camping trip.  We’d always done tent camping up to this point, so it was a new adventure for us.  The summer temps (and humidity) in the South weren’t something that we used to, and we quickly learned that tent camping was okay only during certain months.  Otherwise, it was just miserable, and I ended up feeling absolutely horrid after a day camping.

That trip lead to us purchasing our first travel trailer.  We were limited in what we could get due to the size of our current tow vehicle, but we didn’t care.  We learned many lessons with the trailer.  Ones that most first time owners learn at some point.  We had fun looking at different RV shows to see what was available and to plan for the future.

We started making plans to one day own a 5th wheel.  Our goal was to have it prior to D’s retirement from the Marine Corps.  We looked, and we planned.  We knew that there were several steps between us and realizing that dream, but it didn’t stop us from looking, planning, and dreaming.

Fast forward a few years….

When we moved here to Arizona, we quickly realized that we didn’t just want a regular 5th wheel.  We wanted a toy hauler 5th wheel.  (For those not familiar with a toy hauler, it’s basically a trailer that has a ramp on the back.  You can store dirt bikes and what not in the back.)  We were very specific about how we wanted our set up.  We wanted it to have a separate garage in the back.  We didn’t want it to be part of the living space.  We also wanted Munchkin to have a space of her own.

Once again, this was in the future because we didn’t even have a truck to pull a 5th wheel.  We were looking, but we just didn’t see how it was going to work out.  The new trucks were really expensive.  The 5th wheels were really expensive.  We continued to pray, look, plan, and wait.

In June, the wheels started to turn, and things were set in motion.  The last few weeks have been a whirlwind of activity and trips and planning and negotiating.  We were able to trade in my Suburban for a truck – a pretty big truck.  As you saw in the pictures yesterday, I am now the proud owner of a GMC Sierra 2500 HD diesel truck.  The first step in realizing our dream had been completed.  (The Lord’s hand was totally in all of this working out.)

The 5th wheel was still in the future.  The ones that we wanted just weren’t attainable at this point in time, but we had fun looking just the same.  (This is where, once again, we see the Lord’s hand working.)  On Father’s Day, we headed over to a local RV dealer because they had a used 5th wheel that looked like it met our criteria.  It was shortly before closing, so we just checked out the trailer and took some measurements.  Then, they gave us a price quote and a trade-in quote for our old trailer.  It wasn’t quite where we needed it to be on the price/trade-in.

The 5th wheel was in good used condition, but since the price was still not quite right, we were going to walk away.  While we liked the 5th wheel, we knew that we were okay with the trailer we had until everything came together.  We weren’t in a hurry.  It turns out that the dealership was in a hurry to sell the 5th wheel because they wanted to get it out of their inventory.  They sweetened the pot, and we were able to come to an agreement.

Wow!  A truck and a 5th wheel pretty much all at once.  We’re still not exactly sure how it all happened other than the Lord really provided not just for our needs, but also our desires/dreams.  We thought this was something that was going to take a few more years, but the Lord saw a way to make it happen now.  It will make traveling with the dirt bikes much easier.  It will also make moving much easier.

The back of the 5th wheel has a 10 foot garage that is completely sealed off from the rest of the trailer.  It also had tons of storage.  Munchkin has her own loft bed area that has storage and a place for a tv.  We have a nice bedroom with lots of storage.  The kitchen and living area have a good amount of space (and storage).  We feel really blessed.

It was hard letting go of the Suburban and old trailer as we had many good memories.  We know that we’ll have many more memories with the truck and the new trailer.  We’ll be using them for many years to come….  I am so thankful for the Lord providing for us.  There was a good bit of prayer involved throughout this whole process and time after time, we saw the Lord’s hand guiding us and leading the way.