After something like 80K miles of travel in three different motor homes over 12 years it had to happen, Tuesday Arlyene and I said goodbye to Norv Orbus, our beloved Tiffin Allegro Bus. The sad truth was that we were simply no longer using it enough to justify keeping it. My coronary bypass in July of 2019 pretty much took care of that summer. COVID has taken care of this summer. We started to think about downsizing to something a bit smaller that we would use less often. Smaller does not necessarily mean cheaper in the RV world however and so downsizing was also a bit hard to justify based on cost.
After exploring options to sell on consignment or trade in on something smaller I decided to try and sell it myself on the internet using something similar to Auto Trader, only for RV's. I listed Norv for sale back in February. About a month ago a couple from Ohio contacted me and that started a lot of back and forth and a video tour which culminated in them driving here in a rental car, arriving last Sunday. Al and Ruth are already experienced RVer's with a 5th Wheel so we did not need to teach them how to be campers and Al had experience driving large trucks. So after a full day of Norv Orbus boot camp they were ready to set out on their own after a test drive. We did that Tuesday morning driving 15 miles south of our house on I-15 to a truck stop where we topped off the fuel and said our goodbye's. We followed them back north on the freeway, waived one last time at Norv and watched him drive away.
I have been surprised by my reaction to our separation. I thought saying goodbye to Denita, (our last sailboat) was difficult but did not expect that same reaction to Norv. In some ways watching Norv drive away was just as hard. We know we made the right decision but we feel the loss. Norv was our full time home for seven years and cast a big shadow here at our house and that shadow is now more than half way back to Ohio. Ruth and Al will clearly love the coach, whatever they call it, and Al will take good care of it. That helps some. The burden of being responsible for all that machinery and keeping it in good shape while not really using it has been lifted off my shoulders and perhaps that is what I am feeling the most.
When we closed the boating chapter of our lives we had the excitement of moving on to the RV lifestyle and that was a new adventure. This kind of feels like the adventure is over and I don't like that feeling. Of course, in these COVID-19 days most of the places we would want to go are closed or too risky for our age group. These seem to be mostly stay-at-home days now and we are thankful to have a nice home to stay in. Still, we are looking around and planning our next adventure. We don't know what that will be or when it will be but I am sure it will be a good one when it comes.
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| Norv, Al and Ruth leaving the truck stop on their new adventure. |
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| Our last view of Norv, headed for Ohio. Maybe he will come back for a visit some day. |
So it also seems time for a new look to the blog and a new header. Before I do that I want to save the one that we have used for all the time we have had the motorhomes.
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