Lazy Days....and New Friends

A Vintage General Motors motorhome from the 1970's

Traveling in a motorhome and staying in campgrounds brings the opportunity to make friends.   We met our good friends Larry and Lainie from VT (soon to be Beaufort, SC) in James Island Campground near Charleston, SC, for example.   And here is a photo of our newest  friends, Deb and Steve Bohl of Racine, Wisconsin.  We met Steve and Deb in early November last year at Precision Painting in Bremen, Indiana.   Like us, they were there for some work on their Envoy motorhome.....also a Travel Supreme like ours.   After an initial meeting at PP's office, unbeknownst to us we ended up in the same restaurant for lunch so we joined up for some eats and, as it turns out, some good laughs.   During lunch we told Deb and Steve about Lazy Days campground near Tampa and we agreed we would try to meet up there this month.  And sure enough.....we met up again the day after we arrived.  We went to lunch a couple of times, walked our dogs (Ali and Buddy) and visited each other's motorhomes to compare notes....but above all we shared many laughs once again.  These guys are great!!  We had lunch with them on our departure day and discovered that Steve was also born in February of 1947.  Talk about small worlds....I should add he is 8 days older than I am!!

Lazy Days is the largest RV dealer in the United States.  With operations near Tampa and in Tucson, they sell some 300 units a month routinely.  Add to the revenue they generate from well over 100 service bays (and while we were there anyone calling in for service was told the soonest date they could have was 3 weeks out!) and you have quite an operation.   And the campground has 299 sites...all paved back-ins.  When we arrived the campground was only about 25% full....but that quickly changed as the week went on.   When we left it seems they were more likely 80% full.  Many rver's were there for the Tampa RV show the next week....the 2nd largest such trade show in the country.  Others were there (like us and Steve and Deb), passing through to new destinations.  And still others were there for rallys....rallys occur (usually) when campers with like RVs decide to meet up and just have a good time comparing notes and making plans that have to do with their common campers.   One of the rallys at Lazy Days while we were there involved vintage GM campers....motorhomes produced by General Motors between the years 1972 and 1978.   These were typically either 23 feet or 26 feet in length.   These are classic motorhomes....and here are a few that were there last week:

These are classic units....and their owners are usually rather 'fanatical' about taking these 40+ year old campers and bringing them back to life....tuning up their motors, retrofitting their interiors and oftentimes repainting the exteriors and jazzing them up.  This one below gets my vote for "best in show" at the campground:

What a beauty!

 

And from these vintage 'busses' we see the newer designs coming out these days...with sharp angles and flowing designs like this...



Many will like this....but I don't.  To me the front end looks more like an old locomotive's "cow catcher" than anything else.   And last, but certainly not least, here is the top of the line motorcoach that was at the campground last week....

These are Prevost busses.   The basic bus is manufactured in Canada and then specialty custom designers work with the owners to customize the interiors as well as the paint jobs.   When new, these busses normally sell at a minimum for $1.5 million.  So, if you have "Prevost on your mind" you best save your pennies or go buy a lottery ticket.   Well, enough ramblings for this blog....we wanted to introduce Steve and Deb and give a "taste" of motorhomes from vintage to new to super deluxe.   See you next time when we report from 32625.