Meet Artie

Artie has joined our family part-time (we share custody).

As we designed our Life: Phase Next, we planned part of it as land-based (vs. flying hither and yon) so we could spend time re-exploring our beautiful country (Canada) and meandering through many parts of the US that we had yet to experience.

We knew we didn’t want to travel around in anything big but we were ready to pack the tent away for good. When we spied a RoadTrek van conversion some years back, it really appealed, and I snapped a photo for future reference. A few months later in a conversation with my sister, we were surprised to hear that she and her partner had also taken a liking to a RoadTrek, and we laughed about how cool it might be to share one in some fantasy future.

We aren’t quite ready to hang up our wings for long periods, but earlier this year we started looking at used vehicles. Rather, we tried to look at used vehicles but found almost none available. It turns out that this class of recreational vehicle is the fastest growing category and supply often doesn’t meet demand. At least in Western Canada, waiting lists for new ones are many months long and used are very hard to come by. We explored other small-vehicle options but kept coming back to the RoadTrek CS Adventurous as the right fit for all of us. The lack of used inventory (and exorbitant prices of new) made us wonder if we would have to significantly modify our criteria.

And then we found Artie advertised online. He was hanging out in a big RV lot at Cactus RV in Medicine Hat, Alberta, and continued to show as available for several months. We couldn’t understand why he stayed on the market for so long. We asked the dealer, who thought it might be because of their somewhat remote location (about 3 hours from Calgary). Another factor could be that the dealer didn’t normally sell RoadTreks (this one was a trade-in), so none of the sales staff were familiar with the vehicle. For sellers of medium to gargantuan trailers and motorhomes it can be hard to figure out why anyone would want to pay so much to have so little space.

We went back and forth with the dealer by phone and e-mail with loads of questions (and our salesperson worked hard to research and find all the answers for us) before we finally decided to take the drive to Medicine Hat one August Saturday to check this fellow out in person. After spending a couple of hours going over every feature in detail and discussing the pros and cons by phone and text with our co-purchasers, we decided to make an offer. It was soundly rejected. Since we weren’t anxious to buy yet, we told ourselves (as we drove the 3 hours back to Calgary) that we would keep looking, hoping to own something by the following spring.

Several weeks later, the dealer called us with a new reduced price, one that seemed fair for all. Once we had sorted funds and figured out when we could make the adoption final, we drove to Medicine Hat once again, this time to bring our new family member back to Calgary, and then onto Vancouver.

Welcome to the family, Artie! Fun times ahead.

Artie’s Bio

• 2015 RoadTrek CS Adventurous built on a 2014 Mercedes-Benz Sprinter 3500 chassis
• 3^rd passenger seat that makes into a single bed (we call this grandson Alex’s seat and bed); optional armoire replaces 3^rd passenger seat
• Alde in-floor heating system, air conditioning
• Solar panels

If you are interested in the details, see the 2015 RoadTrek CS Adventurous brochure.