Remember all the work that went into restoring the 5th wheel? All that effort was thwarted!
Click HERE for the full pictorial of the project.
Well, the above picture is just the attention getter, our 5th Wheel did not burn up. I just parked ours by this one at the salvage yard. Question: Which one would you buy at the salvage auction?
Our trailer was, however, totaled in a hail storm we had in the beginning of April.
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| Graveyard drop off |
It was sad to give up what we had worked so hard on but the decision came after a family council where we learned some interesting things about the young ones. We have explained before about insurance and how it works and why we need it so the girls had a basic understanding of what was going on. We let them know our options and asked for input.
Option One: Keep the trailer and have the repairs done which would put the trailer out of commission for the entire camping season and cost us a large amount of money which would take away from some things we might want to do throughout the year.
Option Two: Take the insurance money and give up trailer camping all together and go back to tent camping and use the money toward a better truck. (We do not have four regular doors that the girls can open and the back bench seat area is small and cramped on long drives)
Option Three: Take the insurance money and find another 5th wheel and keep the truck we have.
Option Four: Take the insurance money and do some remodeling to the house so each girl could have their own room.
What we found out from the girls as they weighed out the options:
- Neither girl wanted to go back to tent camping! I refer you to the Camping 2011 experience. :-) Click HERE
- Brittney said she would be OK being a little cramped in the truck because we might only drive somewhere for about 3 hours but we might be camping for 3 days. So the little amount of time being cramped was more than made up for in her mind by the amount of time spent camping.
- Both girls said they would rather have a camper than have their own room. This was the most surprising thing they came up with.
- Everyone agreed we should find a new camper
Not wanting less than what we had and thinking we did not want another project, Cherilyn set out to find another great camper at a good deal. She searched a radius of hundreds of miles scouring multiple websites until she found what she thought was a good design at a good price. We had been to local dealers and looked at new and used and found that it was tough to find what we wanted and even tougher to consider financing in order to get into a new 5th wheel. Finally on a Friday morning, Cherilyn found what she thought was something worth looking at. Only problem - it was 4 hours away outside of Little Rock. We made the decision by the time the girls got home from school at 1pm (Fridays are half days) We decided we could drive down and if we purchased the camper we would just find a place to camp and sleep in it that night and come back the next day. We decided to just make it a fun family trip as much as we could. The girls had some movies and their dvd player and we had time to just talk and enjoy the drive. We even grabbed a pizza in one of the towns we traveled through. We arrived after 8pm and we able to look at the camper and after about 40 minutes, decided it wouldn't do. We both had the feeling that it just wasn't right. So we took the girls for an ice cream and got a hotel room for the night.
Days later, Cherilyn found a model that seemed to be better than the one we drove to see and she began looking for a used version. At 10pm on a Thursday evening Cherilyn found a 5th wheel that had only been listed for 3 days and in Missouri, although it was 3 hours away. She called first thing in the morning and found out that someone who looked at it the day before was going to be bringing a check by that day. We missed out. (you really have to be on top of these things because the good ones go quickly) Later that morning another good deal was found only it was even further away, 8 hours away in KY. As we were contemplating whether it would be worth the trip, I decided to look for stock at the dealers in Tulsa, only 2 1/2 hours away. Low and behold, I found the same model that was in KY. The website had a price listed that was good but said to call for best pricing. I called and spoke to someone who gave me the information I was looking for and I gave him an offer. He said he needed to check with his manager and would call me back. Less than an hour later, we had a new 5th wheel. We arranged to pick it up the next week.
What we have ended up with a 2004 Wildcat bunkhouse model - aluminum framing and fiberglass skin
Click HERE for more pics
So, out of the tragedy of losing the 5th wheel we worked so hard on, we have ended up with a better designed model that we are all really happy with. A real blessing for our family.
Sometimes in life we need a paradigm shift. Not all things that seem bad at the moment are actually bad. How we look at things and how we control our attitude make a huge difference in how we deal with our lives. Steven Covey give the following example of having a paradigm shift from his book 7 Habits of Highly Effective People:
I remember a mini-paradigm shift I experienced one morning on a subway in New York. People were sitting quietly - some reading newspapers, some lost in thought, some resting with their eyes closed. It was a calm, peaceful scene.
Then suddenly, a man and his children entered the subway. The children were so loud and rambunctious that instantly the whole climate changed.
The man sat down next to me and closed his eyes, apparently oblivious to the situation. The children were yelling back and forth, throwing things, even grabbing people's papers. It was very disturbing. And yet, the man sitting next to me did nothing.
It was difficult not to feel irritated. I could not believe that he could be so insensitive as to let his children run wild like that and do nothing about it, taking no responsibility at all. It was easy to see that everyone else on the subway felt irritated, too. So finally, with what I felt was unusual patience and restraint, I turned to him and said, "Sir, your children are really disturbing a lot of people. I wonder if you couldn't control them a little more?"
The man lifted his gaze as if to come to a consciousness of the situation for the first time and said softly, "Oh, you're right. I guess I should do something about it. We just came from the hospital where their mother died about an hour ago. I don't know what to think, and I guess they don't know how to handle it either."
Can you imagine what I felt at that moment? My paradigm shifted. Suddenly I saw things differently, and because I saw differently, I thought differently, I felt differently, I behaved differently. My irritation vanished. I didn't have to worry about controlling my attitude or my behavior; my heart was filled with the man's pain. Feelings of sympathy and compassion flowed freely. "Your wife just died? Oh, I'm so sorry! Can you tell me about it? What can I do to help?" Everything changed in an instant.
(Quote found HERE)
Our totaled 5th wheel experience helped teach the girls that sometimes bad things do happen but we often can find blessings beyond those things that are bad just by looking at things differently or by gaining more information before making a judgement call.
