2021-06-19: The 2000 American Coach Eagle 40EDF Our New To Us RV Home On Wheels

Well the long awaited day has finally arrived. No longer do we have to squeeze everything into our little Jeep when traveling between jobsite to jobsite. No longer having to buy an air mattress here, a TV there, dishes at another rental only to have to leave them behind because there's no room in the Jeep to take it with us. This morning I took a look at, test drove, and agreed to purchase a 2000 American Eagle 40EDF diesel motorhome from Sullivan RV in Decatur, Indiana.

Over the last year or so, I spent many hours on the internet looking at RV's for sale across the country. I narrowed it down to the American Coach brand of diesel pushers. Compared to the majority of my co-workers with big trucks and 5th wheels, I like the motorhome better. Plus I want to keep the Jeep instead of a huge truck. And the biggest RV trailer the Jeep can pull is only 14 feet long! Not much room for full-timing.

If you scroll all the way down to the bottom of my original blogs archived posts from 7-18-2005, you'll see where I purchased my first gas motorhome brand new. It was nearly $90,000 at that time. When I got rid of it three years later it was only worth $35,000. A tremendous loss!

This time around I wanted to be smart about it. Yes it is 21 years old. The original sticker price back in the year 2000 was $279,000. I bought it for $42,000, letting previous owners take the depreciation this time. After looking at many RV's over the past year this one was about in the middle for the 1998-2004 years. I saw pristine coaches going for as high as $65k to trashed ones down in the $15k-$20k range. This one fit perfectly within the budget that had been saved for the last 6 months. And it's paid for in cash! No payments to worry about.

Now we have a full kitchen with gas stove, convection oven/microwave, and refrigerator with ice maker. One of the advantages I like with having a motorhome instead of a pull behind trailer, is the access to fridge while driving. Well while I'm driving Candy can get something from the fridge, pantry, or even cook something. We don't have to pull over somewhere. Especially in bad weather.

There are two sofa's with both folding out into beds. They also have lots of storage underneath.

Having our own bathroom, and like the kitchen, the convenience of being able to use it on travel days versus having to walk into a hot trailer.

No more air mattresses, hard mattresses, or worn out mattresses. We did take that 21 year old comforter and pillow cases and put them in the storage compartment under the bed. Then added a pillow top for the mattress and new linens and comforter.

No more dirty filthy laundromats. While a stackable would be a little better, still having the washer/dryer combo means Candy no longer has to clean the washers before using the washers.

And finally the two comfy captains chairs up front. Not that I want to anymore, but if I needed to drive 600-700 miles a day it would be a very comfortable seat to do so.

This was a consignment sale, so the dealer is now gonna do a deep cleaning, check everything out, and make a few repairs. That's gonna be done through this week. The one thing I would have done differently is gotten an RV inspector to go through it as well. 

But in the meantime, Candy, her grand-daughter, and I are going on a geocaching road trip to Connecticut and back in the GeoJeep. We'll be back next week to take delivery and begin another chapter in our adventures.

To follow along on our travels and keep up with my latest blogs, you may do so here of course by clicking the "Follow" button to the right. And there's also my main website at AwayWeGo.US for the complete index of my traveling adventures going back to 2005. But also by using one or more of your favorite of these social media platforms: Facebook, MeWe, Gab, Reddit, Twitter, GETTR, Instagram, and TruthSocial. These all link directly to my profiles. Again, please feel free to comment and / or share.

2021-06-18: Summer Road Trip to Buy Our "New-to-Us" Home and Geocaching Through Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana

So here we are on this Day 3 of our 5300+ mile summer road trip from West Texas to Indiana to Connecticut, back to Indiana to Florida and ending in NE Texas. The main reason for this roadtrip is to look at and hopefully purchase our "new-to-us" home-on-wheels. Along the way, we'll be picking up as many new geocaching counties as we can and seeing some of the sites along the way. So hop on board the GeoJeep and let's go see what we can find.

Well we didn't quite make it out of Missouri yesterday. We stayed the night in the town of Sikeston in Scott County. We were going to have dinner at the famous Lambert's, where they throw the fresh rolls out to you. But we weren't up for the long lines and over an hour wait! So we came back this morning to grab the geocache (GC2JC3X) for the county and take some photos.

Driving east on US-60, we crossed over into Mississippi County. We stopped for a quick geocache (GC4KW34) in Bertrand for the county and kept moving.

Further down the road I spotted this roadside historical marker and had to stop for a photo. "Rev. Owen Whitfield with the support of local landowner, Mr. Thad Snow, and 1500 black and white sharecroppers camped here in harsh January weather several days in 1939 to protest the plight of Boot Heel sharecroppers. The event received national attention. Owen and Zella Whitfield met with Pres. Roosevelt and ultimately received his support for the cause. This community has dedicated January 10 as Thad Snow - Owen Whitfield Day."

My next three geocaches were all in one corner of a park. There was a virtual geocache (GC710E) and two earthcaches (GC1A369, GC1A36F). Fort Defiance State Park is right at the corner of Missouri, Illinois, and Kentucky as well as the confluence of the Mississippi River and the Ohio River. It is also the lowest elevation point in Illinois.

On November 14, 1803, Lewis and Clark landed here with their Corps of Discovery party. Commissioned by President Thomas Jefferson to explore and survey the recently purchased Louisiana Territory, their six days here was one of the longest stops made by the expedition. Their stay allowed Captain Meriwether Lewis to teach Captain William Clark how to navigate using a compass and a sextant. Because the 3rd Principal Meridian begins at the mouth of the Ohio River, astronomical observations at this point were crucial.

Above: nearly 175 million tons of goods are shipped via the Mighty Mississippi River each year. Below: Candy and her grand-daughter down at the southernmost point of Illinois and the convergence of the two rivers. The Ohio River is entering from the left. The Mississippi River enters from the right-rear and continues down to the far right.

Our last stop for today was just a few miles away in a town called Cache, Illinois (GCR01C). I can't find out much info on the community of Cache, IL other than it was laid out in January 1904. Found a newspaper article in April 1927 suggesting the town was flooded out. Then a few decades later the Cache River was rerouted to empty into the Mississippi River instead of the Ohio River. Whatever happened to the town, this bridge isn't singing anymore.

While researching the town for this blog, I came across some articles for a cemetery called "Seven Mile Graveyard" located between Cache and Cairo. The Find-A-Grave website had 7 memorials listed, but no photos. I came across another 8 newspaper articles of people that were buried there and added those memorials. Then I came across a more recent article of the cemeteries demise:

Excerpt from the Southern Illinoisan, April 30, 1999:

"The cemetery was incorporated in 1853. In 1878, many people who died in a yellow fever epidemic were buried there. By 1921, the cemetery was overgrown and unkempt. In 1955, the land was purchased and the cemetery was bulldozed and turned into a pasture, a piece of history turned to dust and memory."

So sad. Perhaps one day someone can further research local records and discover the location of the cemetery. Maybe even more names of those long forgotten souls can be discovered and added to the Find-A-Grave website. And if just one descendent can make that genealogical connection, even better!

Well we still had about 430 miles of driving to get to Decatur, Indiana by tonight. So the rest of my planned geocaches had to be bypassed. That's NOT something I like doing either. Tomorrow morning we go check out our potential new-to-us home-on-wheels!

To follow along on our travels and keep up with my latest blogs, you may do so here of course by clicking the "Follow" button to the right. And there's also my main website at AwayWeGo.US for the complete index of my traveling adventures going back to 2005. But also by using one or more of your favorite of these social media platforms: Facebook, MeWe, Gab, Reddit, Twitter, GETTR, Instagram, and TruthSocial. These all link directly to my profiles. Again, please feel free to comment and / or share.