Yowsa!

Family in St Petersburg Two weeks ago we rented a car to visit the boys at Ryan’s place in St Pete. Ian was driving in from Valdosta for the weekend. We were both looking forward to visiting the boys.

We decided to stop by and visit our sailing friends Dave and Cathy for lunch in Jacksonville, then Joe and Sue in Ft Pierce for dinner, stay the night and drive over to St Pete on Sat. Easy.

008Dave was showing us around the church where they park their RV and do mission work (all kinds of stuff needing doing with a group called Nomads) and casually pointed out a motor home, laughed and said “you could probably get that cheap” or something to that effect. We looked inside and Shelly said “don’t touch anything”.

The RV had been sitting there for 5 years under the trees, the interior was pretty bad – moldy, dirty, smelly etc. Half the 8 tires were flat, and the body was a lovely shade of green and black to match the trees it sat under. No thanks.

Lunch was nice, and we got on down the road toward Ft Pierce, but I was still thinking about that RV. I did some research and found that a 33′ Airstream motor home was called a Land Yacht by the manufacturer and was known as top of the line for its time in 1990. I also found one for sale in Texas for $5700. Land Yacht? Hmmm.

I sent Dave a text and told him that and that it probably wasn’t worth $2- 3,000 and forgot about it.

We had a great night with Joe and Sue reminiscing about Bahamas sailing days over Guiness and fish n chips in an Irish pub.

On the way across the Okeefenoke we stopped at an RV place to check out 5th wheel rvs, and actually found one we liked. Right about then we get a text from Dave that the Pastor at the church would sell the Land Yacht for $3000. Oops.

That sure started a conversation while driving the rest of the way!

016Aside from the $106 towing fee from parking in the Publix lot my so smart son directed us to, we had a great time attending a beer and bacon festival, walking through the (opinion withheld here) women’s march route, and then a super nice Italian meal out on the street downtown late at night.

In the morning we got on the road early (the day of the tornados in Ga) as we wanted to go back and check out the Airstream, and have time to get back to the boat in Brunswick before the storm hit.

In Jacksonville, a closer look at the MH ( motor home ) showed the original quality that might be able to be restored, but two hours of work would not start the motor to see if it ran. We made plans to come back the next day and try again.

021To, cut the story short, we own a Land Yacht and have a contract on Yume. We have everything pretty much packed on the boat, and have spent 4 hard days commuting from Brunswick to Jacksonville getting the Land Yacht ready to drive.

The plan is to go to Ian’s house in Valdosta for some serious repair work, then take it to Beaufort SC in March to get ready for the golf fundraiser in May. Then who knows?

020I have agreed to help the new owners of Yume (if all goes well with the survey!) sail her back towards Maryland sometime in the next four months so they can learn from my vast experience how to properly behave when running aground and in storms. πŸ˜‰

Life sure is a funny thing isn’t it? We are sad to be leaving our sailing home but excited to see why lies ahead on the road.

 

Maybe we will see you there? How long is your driveway and does your homeowners association let you park nice motor homes overnight there? πŸ˜‰