So why did I buy this thing?

I'd been wondering whether to write about my Argosy on my general-purpose blog or not, and then I remembered there's a blog here on the forums and thought I'd start here... I may cross-post some entries to my GearheadGeek blog but for now I think I'll keep Airstream things here.

I suppose I ended up here on a similar path to many others on the forums... I have been fascinated with RVs for years, and with Airstreams before I was really fascinated with RVs, so it happened rather naturally. I was an fairly avid reader of these forums for over 4 years before I actually bought a trailer of my own, and at this point I've yet to camp in it! (though I've only owned it for 2 weeks.)

Until a month ago, we didn't know whether we'd be staying here in Fort Worth or moving somewhere else for my partner to do his residency for emergency medicine. I wasn't all excited about the idea of moving in the first place, so I wasn't going to add one more thing to the mix that had to be moved and stored and such, and further narrowed our options for where to live (I don't think we're ready to consider the "full timing" thing at this point, even in a big trailer, with 2 of us and 2 dogs and me working from home, etc. so I didn't treat that option too seriously)

Pretty much the weekend after we found out we don't have to sell the house and shuffle off to Buffalo, I started looking much more seriously at the ads I'd been looking at "just for fun." I looked at a few trailers, and I got really excited about one (before I inspected it) and things seemed to be moving pretty quickly, but I hadn't written any checks.

The first one I got excited about was a '73 Overlander that turned out to be a rather needy trailer... it was interesting and VERY original, down to the upholstery, but it had issues from balky tambours to a vent cover made of wood. Yes, wood... not even one solid piece, but little planks between which one could see daylight. It wanted axles, tires, ALL the weatherstripping, new Vista Views, PEX, a new converter, etc. etc. etc. And it wasn't a bargain to begin with, it was priced like all that work had already been recently done, so I gritted my teeth and moved on.

I checked the AirForums classifieds religiously, and ran an evil program on my smartphone that runs Craigslist searches as often as you tell it to and alerts you when it finds something new. That was what initially found the Argosy for me. In the middle of a workday afternoon I happened to notice the alert light blinking and checked to find an ad without photos describing a trailer with LOTS of work done... too good to be true, JUST posted, same city, I was sure it wasn't what it seemed. I also didn't want to seem like some rabid psycho and call 10 minutes after the seller posted the ad, so I set it aside and called that evening.

It just kept getting scarier... seller seemed like a nice guy, trailer seemed like it might genuinely be as advertised, I seemed to be getting nervous. I made an appointment to see the trailer that Friday afternoon, after someone who'd already talked with the seller was looking at it.

The attached thumbnail is the view that greeted me when I was getting out of the car. It's still standing pretty tall on the axles, and the front wheel was able to drop a lot as the tongue was lifted to level the trailer in the steep driveway. The awning looks great, the trailer looks good for its age and has no big dents or scars. When I say I filled out the trailer inspection checklist from these forums, I mean I scribbled all OVER it and went home (after poking around the trailer for nearly 3 hours) and wrote MORE notes. I talked with my partner for an hour or so, perhaps hoping he'd talk me out of it, but I was hooked.

The seller is an amazingly nice, honest guy who used the Argosy with his family several times a year for 5 years, doing great maintenance and upgrades as he went along. He's made a really great first trailer for me, though of course there's no shortage of things for me to do to make it "mine" and make it better! I'm off, and running, it's too late to second-guess this one.

Attached Thumbnails