The Name of our RV is......

So back in August I posted about our RV and how I wanted to give it a name. We were on our first big trip with it at the time - visiting Bar Harbor, Maine. We received several name suggestions and I was just about to announce the name we had chosen when...... Hurricane Irene happened. The weekend we were to drive back from Maine, Irene hit North Carolina and slowly churned north. We decided to leave Maine as planned and divert our path west into Pennsylvania in an attempt to skirt around the storm.

Well, during our visit in Maine we discovered there was a small leak in the RV and then on the overnight we spent in Pennsylvania as well as a few rest stops we realized that there were more leaks everytime there was a heavy downpour. Well, water leaks in an RV are not good! Generally speaking RV's are made to be light weight which means the walls and floors are mostly fiber board which are easily damaged by water. So on our return trip home Kelly jokingly says, "I thought of a name for our RV - Irene." To which I reply, "Absolutely not."

So we get home and in the weeks after Maine we begin the process of trying to repair the leaks. The first quote we get is outrageous and we have a day or two where we feel like the sky is falling because we bought a lemon of an RV. During this time, I actually start referring to the RV as - you guessed it - Irene.

But then, we find an RV repairman who assures us he can fix the seals and make some adjustments that should take care of the leaks for a fraction of the cost that the dealer's servicemen quoted us initially. Thank God! (Big lesson here: RV dealerships want to sell you new RV's and don not really care to fix your older model RV.)

There doesn't appear to be any water leaking now and we have had several rain storms with driving rain since the repairs were complete. So now we are again looking forward to many more adventures in our RV. Now that we know it's not a lemon after all, we have given it the name that we wanted to give it several months ago - the OUTLANDER.

No one chose that name in my poll, but Kelly and I both thought of the name separately and have agreed it's the right one. We met in college while attending activities in an outdoor recreation club called Outlanders. We weren't the only one's to meet as participants of this club and then get married, but hopefully my friends won't mind our use of the name (you know who you are). After nearly 14 years of marriage, we have rediscovered one of things that brought us together in the beginning.

God willing, we will be enjoying many more traveling family adventures with our Outlander.