The day came when we had to say goodbye to our wonderful home on wheels, Yurtle. This Airstream has been our home, shelter, and refuge, and it is why we became wanderers. It felt bittersweet to say goodbye. We learned so much about ourselves, about traveling, camping, what we need to be comfortable, and what we thought we needed but did not. We altered her, decorated her, and loved her as a person would their home. It was a year well spent in Yurtle, and I will be forever grateful that she was our first rig, our first home on wheels, and our catalyst to a new life.
We made it to Florida and it was time to start moving our stuff out of Yurtle in preparation to move into the new one that we were so eagerly waiting to be delivered. We had to uninstall our Starlink without damaging the roof, which Aaron did brilliantly. It was exactly like moving out of a house, just on a smaller scale.
We spoke with our salesman and was told everything was on time for delivery, and our new home would be there in about a week. So we really got moving packing up everything so we would be ready to hookup to our new home on wheels as soon as it arrived. We called again the day before it was to be delivered, and no one knew when it was actually supposed to arrive. We knew a horrific tornado hit Ohio very close to where Airstream manufactures all of their trailers, and, understandably, there may be a delay on delivery. The only issue we had was that the dealership in Jacksonville was not following up on our order, did not bother to get any updates from Airstream, and was not very concerned about our new camper order at all.
Aaron and I took it upon ourselves to get directly in touch with Airstream to see what was going on with our new trailer. The man we spoke to was very kind, researched our order and informed us that it would be 3 weeks to another month before we would receive it. Honestly, we would have been completely fine with that, if anyone from the dealership had cared enough to find this out for us and kept us updated on the delays. If we had known, we would not have disassembled Yurtle, and emptied her out until the actual delivery date.
We found a Trade Wind in Tampa with everything we had ordered except the composting toilet. We then did some research and found that we could order the toilet and install it ourselves. So, we had the deposit we had put down transferred to the Tampa dealership and picked up our new camper three days later!
It was exciting and sad to see Yurtle sitting there after our last unhooking. The service guy hitched up our new trailer, put the two side by side, and we moved the few items we had brought with us into our new house on wheels. We waved goodbye to Yurtle and took Murphy’s Law for our first night in our new home.
It had already been a long day. We were not up to driving 3 to 4 hours back to our home base, and we just wanted to play with our new toy. So, we spent our first night in Murphy’s Law at a Cracker Barrel. It was great! We got to know the new trailer, and it got to know us a little as well. Murphy (our dog and the camper’s namesake) was unsure about his new home, but he settled in well.
The blue pins represent last year’s travels, and the white pins will be this year’s travels. I can not wait to see where the white pins will land this year!
Next week, I will delve into why we traded our previous Airstream for this new Trade Wind.
Wandering Cindi 