well, that wasn't the plan!

We thought we had found the one we would own... we had been pre-approved for a loan, we had done our research on what our money could buy for us, and we found the perfect redone, modern Airstream!!

But... we found out, that doesn't really mean anything, until you can see it in your rearview!

The seller of the particular (awesome) Airstream hadn't yet changed over the title in to his name (he bought in 2007!!), and our bank would not go ahead with THAT particular loan without a verification of title being in sellers name. Totally understandable, but a deal-breaker too!! Bummer.

However...

We did get a chance to drive a couple hours from here and see 2 different Airstreams, and make some comparisons and such. The two we looked at were:

A 1970 28' ft Overlander, with a pull out in front and two twins in the middle and a rear bath. This one had been well taken care of, and I think we would have bought in a heart beat, if only it had been the longer model. If only, right?!

and a 1979 31' Sovereign, also with a pull out in front and two twins in the middle and a rear bath. This one had obviously been left sitting for a while, and had some obvious rust in places, and the seller had just redone part of the sub-flooring.

And the difference was big. That two/three feet of interior space is actually noticeable. The 1970 was actually in better condition than the newer one, but on both we would have to do a bit to remodel to fit these four kids of ours. We plan on doing bunkbeds and whatnot... still not sure exactly.

We learned a bit on this trip on what we are looking for and what we could deal with.

*a 30' camper will fit our family a bit better for a long term camping situation.
*the older models have an awful fake wood paneling that would eventually need to be updated.
*making an Airstream "shiny" is a lot of work! (the older one was being shined, but the newer one had been painted "silver". Shiny was definitely better looking!)
*The couches are awful in the '70's!
*The kids LOVE to find the little hidey holes located all over most campers. It was fun to see.

Today we researched some hitches for pulling RV's... still totally confused on that :)

There is a couple more we hope to take a peek at this next week.

We will hope for some planet's aligning to find that "perfect one".