New Motorhome in 2022

After about 20 years of owning a beautiful 30' Airstream Excella 30, things are changing. We have always used the Airstream as a residence. We took it to a park in the spring and left it there until the snow came. It was a perfect RV for this purpose. Big, roomy, very well made and durable, the airstream served as our second home for many years in Sierra City, CA and later in Alturas, CA.

Several things have changed in our lives. First of all our favorite park in Sierra City, CA changed hands and many of the rules changed. Reservations were switched over to a website and there was nobody to talk to. After many years of paying a reasonable monthly rate, the new website did not even mention monthly rent. You could put in a request for a month stay, but the website would quote 30 times the daily rate. That came out to over $1600.00 per month. We tried reaching out to friends who were still staying there monthly, but they were on some sort of special deal and no help getting us somebody to talk to. We decided to try to find another park to put our coach for the season. It seems that COVID and the flood of money sent to everybody in the country caused a huge increase in the sales of RVs. People were able to work from anywhere and their kids could remote learn from anywhere. Many families bought RVs and moved to RV parks to work and ,the kids to learn. The law of supply and demand says park rates go up and less lucrative monthly rentals go away. Long story, short, parks are mostly not accepting long term tenants anymore. They can rent the site for 4 weekends for more revenue than 30 days at the monthly rate. We were at a different place in our recreation need.

We began to look at Class B motorhomes. These are small coaches that are based on van chassis. Most are on Mercedes Sprinter, Dodge ProMaster, and Ford Transit Vans. The advantage of these small agile motorhomes is that you can take them anywhere and they fit in parking spaces. It does not have to look like you are camping or "boon docking". The disadvantage is there is not a lot of room. They have "wet baths" which means the toilet is in the shower and everything in the bathroom gets wet. Many also have "cassette toilets". These are toilets that have what looks like a suitcase under the bowl to store the waste. They have to be emptied often by removing the cassette from the coach, wheeling it over to a dump station and draining it into the sewer. You then use the water hose to wash it out. Once clean, you put in some chemical a little water and put it back in the coach under the bowl. Only a few very high end Class B coaches have actual black water tanks that you dump in the normal RV way. The other issue is getting a large enough bed to sleep. Space is really in short supply in these coaches. It does get better with much longer Class B coaches as they do offer enough bed space.

After this outing, we decided that the rest of the world wants to own an Airstream, why were we not happy? We decided to take the Airstream on a typical RV trip where we towed it to a park and they used the tow vehicle to explore the area. We made a reservation at Manchester KOA in Manchester, CA. Manchester is South of Fort Bragg, CA by about 60 miles. We arrived at the park and set up our Airstream in a nice dirt spot on the North edge of the park. We disconnected our Ford Excursion from the trailer and used it to get around this coastal area. Long story short, it proved a lot of work and energy to tow the heavy, long Airstream on steep, curvy coastal Hwy. 1. After the better part of a week on the coast we hooked back up and headed home. What did we learn? We learned that although we love our Airstream, it can be challenging to move it and set it up. We decided we needed something smaller and more agile for weekend trips. Something we could keep stocked and ready for an impromptu weekend getaway.

We went back to the dealer ship and we began to look at Class C motorhomes. These are built on Van chassis. Most are Ford E-35o and E-450. These coaches are much larger and suprisingly less expensive than Class B vans. I guess the coach work on a class C is less expensive to build than using a complete van. After looking a many Class C coaches, we decided we may have dismissed the Class B too soon. Another trip to the dealership to look at Vans ended up the same way. Too small!

After a disappointing day looking at vans we stumbled on a different type of motorhome. Technically, still a Class C, but smaller and more agile, they are sometimes known as a Class B+. They are based on the chassis from a class B van, but then they build a motorhome body, smaller and narrower than a typical Class C, on the cut-away van chassis. Where a Class C is a full 96' wide, the B+ is only 90" wide. Still fits between the side lines of a typical parking space. They are too long for one space, but you can park them in two spaces end to end very easily with the slide retracted. Oh yea, slides. The Class B+ coaches have slides or sliding rooms. Some have one full side slide out. Some have smaller sides on either side or sometimes in the back. The trick is to find one that will fully function with the slide retracted. You want to be able to sleep, cook, eat, and use the bathroom with the slide retracted in case you have to park in a parking lot and not look like your are camping.

We settled on a Thor Motor Coach unit called a Compass AWD 24KB. This is a new for 2023 floor plan. The Chassis is a Ford 350 HD Transit all wheel drive. The engine is a Ford 3.5L EcoBoost V6. It produces 310 HP and 400 lb. Ft. of torque, It is coupled to a Ford 10 speed automatic transmission. More than adaquate for 25' mini motorhome. The all wheel drive will make winter driving much safer. The floor plan has a driver's side slide behind the cockpit with a two person theatre seating sofa that converts to a bed that is much too short for an adult to sleep. Maybe it could be used for Great Grand Kits someday. There is a table that fits into fixtures in the floor in front of the couch. This is the only part that does not work when the slide is retracted. You can not use the table with the slide in. It works great with the slide out. The bathroom is on the driver's side aft of the slide. It has a set of barn doors that open up into the hall way, extending the bathroom floor space into the hall. This offers a bit of additional space for dressing or towling off after a shower. The Refrigerator, microwave and Sink area are on the passenger side aft of the entry door. The entire rear of the coach is taken up by a full king size bed that extends to Both side walls. There is a removable section that converts the king to twin beds at the lower end of the bed. This allows either of us to just pivot and put our feet on the floor. Otherwise, one would have to scoot all the way to the end of the king bed to stand up. The bed arrangement was the best option we saw. It has proved to be very comfortable to sleep.

We have taken the Compass on several short trips to develop a routine. We are getting the hang of it. More later.