We Did a Thing...

So, we had a plan. Obviously, we like camping, so we've been talking about upgrading our little trailer for some time. The deal was to spend the year doing tons of research, looking at dozens of trailers, and making heavy payments on our trailer and MAYBE upgrade in the fall of 2021. Well... things change.

Whoops...

To tell the story properly, we have to back up a year.

In early 2020—y'know, when all this COVID crap started—I saw this YouTube video about the "Ideal Couples Trailer." The guy walked around this beautiful white trailer and showed off an insane amount of storage, no bunkhouse, king bed, and an outdoor kitchen (with an emphasis on storage). It was everything we wanted in a trailer, so I wrote down the name: Sunset Trail 253RB.

With a quick trip to Google, I found out there was a Sunset Trail dealer just down the road from our house called Sunny's. In March, just before quarantine struck, we went to check it out. It was even better than the video! The front closet was so big I could get inside and shut the door! How many trailers can do that? 

The salesman told us they were dying to make some sales since nobody was camping with all the uncertainty going on. Although they were running some killer deals, we weren't quite ready to pull the trigger and still had a bit to pay off on our trailer. We decided that if we could sell our trailer to pay it off, we'd upgrade. But only then (like responsible adults).

"Responsible"

The whole year, we dreamed about this trailer. We talked about it at every camping trip, watched the videos, and told everyone we'd have a Sunset Trail soon. Unfortunately, we couldn't sell our little Coleman for as much as we needed, so we just kept hoping and waiting for the right time to come.

Okay, fast forward to January 2021. Twenty-odd trips later, we've been dreaming of this trailer for a long time. Since this was the year we were planning to upgrade, we decided to start shopping around. We knew we loved the Sunset Trail, but it's always a good idea to look around and see what else is out there.

On January 9th (a whole nine days into the new year), we had a free weekend and decided to go trailer shopping. Just to look, of course. Our first stop was good ol' Camping World, where we got our Coleman from.

Now, it's never good to badmouth anyone, but we have NEVER had a good experience at Camping World. Like, ever. To install my weight distributing trailer hitch and electronic brake controller for the Coleman—a process that should basically take maaaaybe an hour—it took seven hours! And that's not an exaggeration.

Anyway, I digress. We went to Camping World because they have a large selection of campers and floorplans to look through. There was no way we'd buy from them again; we just wanted to look around. They had a bunch of really nice campers, but there wasn't anything that could compete with the Sunset Trail.

Just for good measure, we decided to head back up 85 and go to Sunny's to look at our dream trailer once more and see what other campers they had. On our way up the road, we saw a new dealership with a "Grand Opening" sign on the roof. They had a bunch of fancy white trailers sitting out front, so we decided to pop in and check them out.

Wouldn't you know it that as we pull into the parking lot, a bright white Sunset Trail comes around the building and heads out into the street. They were a dealer...

We peeked around at a few trailers (to make it as fair as possible) but naturally gravitated toward the back of the lot where the Sunset Trail was parked. It was a brand-new 2021 model, and it looked nice.

As we were looking through it, a salesman came out to talk to us. He was very polite and did the usual sales routine, asking what we were looking for and all that good stuff. We told him our story and that we were interested in upgrading in the fall.

He asked what he could do to get us into this trailer today. There was no way he could give us what we needed, so I told him exactly what it would take: They'd have to completely pay off our old trailer. We'd gotten a few quotes from dealers over the year, and none of them were even close. I was pretty confident nothing was going to happen. The salesman listened to my numbers and said, "Let me see what I can do," before skipping back into the dealership. There was no chance, so Rose and I said we'd wait around to hear the numbers just to humor them.

A few minutes passed and our salesman came back to us with a little sheet of scrap paper. He started going over the numbers saying things like, "This is the price of the new trailer, minus your trade..."

I stopped him and said, "Well, if we can get that number for the trade." I was feeling cocky that he couldn't do it.

He just looked up from the desk and replied, "Oh, I already got the approval. You're good to go."

It was on...

Apparently, this was the dealership's very first weekend open. They were in desperate need to move inventory to show numbers and didn't really care how they did it. They gave us a hefty discount on the new trailer (our dream trailer) and basically threw money at us for our trade. The stars aligned.

Well needless to say, Rose and I spent a good chunk of the afternoon signing papers. Our dream trailer was ours.

The next week, we pulled our old trailer around to the garage to clean out all our stuff. 

The little Coleman gave us plenty of great adventures we'll never forget. Rose's wedding dress hung in the bathroom closet! But although we had lots of fun, I'm sure we'll have even more years of adventures to come. Now, it's time to ride off into the Sunset and see what the future holds. 

Our last picture with the Coleman