0052 - Let the good times roll

We hit the road yesterday. It was a little sad to leave the familiar surroundings of Made in the Shade, Ron is a great guy and we loved the area, but life does have the tendency to bring new adventures and off to Huntsville, AL we went.

Last night we helped welcome one of Mike's buddies home from another deployment. It was good to meet Joe, Liz and their family. I'd heard a lot about them and they were every bit as cool as Mike made them sound. We talked for a few hours, then watched the new Underworld movie on their HUGE television, it was almost like being at a movie theater... awesome. It was kind of a unique film in that it was primarily action with very little dialogue, yet the story was clearly told. Unfortunately we were all a little worn out and didn't make it to the end. Since it was 65 miles back to the RV park we stayed with them, got up early this morning and went to IHOP for breakfast... IHOP gives you too much food, seriously, I didn't even make it halfway through my stack of red velvet pancakes and I was full.

After that we came home and took a nap before our presentation at noon. If you remember, we 'won' a 3-night stay at a members-only RV park. It's very crowded here, and since it's an older park it has smaller spaces and we feel like sardines because it seems like everyone in the south decided to come here this weekend. We don't like crowds... They are starting to build new sites that are bigger and plan to start closing rows and tearing things out to rebuild, so it will get better... that's good to hear. It's on Guntersville Lake, which is huge and absolutely gorgeous, we seem to find ourselves near water everywhere we go - not complaining, mind you... not complaining at all - just an observation. Anyway, Mike and I both decided ahead of time that we were absolutely not interested in the sales pitch, and pretty much went in with that mindset.

The saleslady started to give her spiel, we let her know up front that neither of us had jobs at the moment, and she mentioned workamping... which is doing odd jobs at an RV park in exchange for a free stay, or money. She told us her story and she can relate to where we are in life (and then some), she went through some hard and uncertain times herself... part of it might have been sales pitch, but for the most part she seemed like a pretty genuine person and didn't give us a hard sell. I think, had we gotten one of the other two reps... it would have turned out differently. She also mentioned that they are looking for site managers and things like that, I like that she gave us options to explore, because if Mike ends up doing the tower work, it gives me the opportunity to get out and do something if I want to, and I don't have to worry about how to get to work or sharing a vehicle, and there would be a variety of things to do, not just one thing all the time. And in his downtime, if there is something Mike can do (and wants to), he could do the same.

But the part that sold us was that for about $120/mo, we could spend 21 nights a month 'free' at about 600 different parks all over the US, they're adding sites and upgrading all the time, we would get 30-50% off the rates at several more campsites, we get 50% off hotel rates if we ever needed that (think Westin and the like), 50% off of cruises, and one week's free cabin rental at a 'home park' - plus we can choose five family members to share our benefits with. Not only that, we can sometimes book cruises or hotels for friends as well.  I'm starting to see destination vacations and family reunions in our future. For example, if my parents go through with it and purchase an RV and they want to stay at a campsite with us, we stay free as members, they only pay $6/night. Or we can meet them in Branson and get them a cabin that normally goes for $70/night for $35/night (the cabins here are NICE, we seriously want to build one to live in), or if they stay a week it is even less, Mike's mom is a Branson fan, too. This could be a great way to spend time with people and it's affordable.

After doing the math, we spent about $550 for a month at MitS, and that rate was actually a VERY good deal with our discount - it just adds up over time. Given that we don't know where we'll be at any given time, this could save us a lot of money in the longrun and bring our monthly outlay to something more like $330, so it would cut it in half or more. The other nice thing is that after seven years (or less if we pay more), it's paid off and we only pay $385/yr in membership dues but we keep the same benefits forever (yes, we can sell the membership if we want to). We like being mobile, and even if we get to the point where we seldom use the RV, we still come out ahead because we have all kinds of options, and we can share the savings. Being able to share it with people was a nice surprise.

All in all we surprised ourselves and did a complete 180... but given the fact that we are going to be traveling as much as we are, it tuned out to be a good deal for us. I can see how it wouldn't be for everyone... if you don't travel a lot it would be a waste. Before we knew how many parks are in their network, or found out about all the additional perks, we thought it would be a waste for us too. Sometimes things come your way and throw you for a loop... this time it was a good loop.

After all that, we met my cousin Jason and his family for dinner at Wintzell's Oyster House. It was good to see him, we've been talking a lot lately but I haven't actually seen him in probably five years or so. We were going to try to meet up and go canoeing, but our time here was cut short because...

Tomorrow we are headed for Florida. Mike got a temporary gig helping out a tower install in New Port Richey and it will last for about two weeks. So... that's good. AND it means I get to hang out with my friends Sandy and Renee, because they're about three hours away. They have a sailboat, so Mike is salivating over that, he used to crew racing boats and misses being in the water... I just love me some Sandy (and like being on boats, too). I also want to go to The Wonderful Wizarding World of Harry Potter, but I don't know if it will happen... Sandy has no interest, Mike isn't keen on the idea, and it kind of sucks that we'll be there at the height of tourist season... but I really want to go... the first time I was in Florida (for a launch) it was opening weekend, but it got pushed back a month or two... the second time I was in Florida (for Sandy's wedding), time was short and I couldn't go... so the third time is a charm? We'll see.

Oh, and I leave you with... bricktorian... a modern Victorian house made of brick. You're welcome. :)