On a nice Saturday in November, 2014 we decided to check out an RV show at Tempe Diablo Stadium. We’d been toying with the idea of selling our Class C and upgrading to a diesel pusher. We knew what we wanted and had honed in on the Tiffin Phaeton. We needed a king bed in the back; Mark had hung his legs off of our current RV’s short queen for far too long. We needed two couches up front that made big enough beds for our boys. So you know, I live in the land of giants, 6’3″ and up. Big beds were a must.
There was one Phaeton in particular he wanted to see. Oh, it was nice, so very nice. It had a king bed, the right couches in the front and he fit in the shower. It even had an outside TV! For years, we would carry out the little 15-inch TV from our RV bedroom to watch games outside. We asked the salesman to pull the slides in and it was roomier than I thought. So far so good. I said to Mark, “You know, you’ve only driven your brother’s rig once. Shouldn’t we test drive it?” The salesman expertly maneuvered it out of the lot, drove down the road a little bit and pulled over for Mark to get behind the wheel. Mark drove through the industrial neighborhood that borders the stadium and got onto I-10 for a couple of miles. It drove like a dream. He liked the handling, the spacious driver’s area, everything about driving it. What did I just do? Why did I open my mouth about a test drive? I’m not the spender in this relationship, I’m the saver. What was I thinking?
The price was more than we wanted to pay. This was a consignment sale so hopefully there might be some wiggle room. They wanted to see our Class C because the market was supposedly hot for them. We went home to think about it; he dreamed while I stressed. We worked the numbers and checked insurance rates. Mark called the salesman to work out a deal. He lives for this. It’s the thrill of the hunt to get something for a great price. Everything is negotiable and he is totally in his element while working a deal. We decided to take ours up to them on Sunday after church to see what we could get for our lovely 2002 Winnebago Minnie that had lovingly taken us cross country, up and down the California coast and to Canada twice. I knew I was going to cry when we sold it. Part of me wasn’t prepared to see it go.
The sermon series at the time was about stewardship. That Sunday’s sermon in a nutshell was this: If you’re saving properly, being a good steward with your money and taking care of your financial needs, then God wants you to enjoy your money. Mark looked at me, squeezed my hand and said, “God is telling us it’s okay to buy the motor home.” I’m sure that’s not what he was telling us to do but the timing was perfect. Maybe it will be alright. A few weeks later, we told our dear pastor about our purchase after that sermon. He laughed and said that was the first time anyone had purchased a motor home after a sermon series on stewardship.
We drove our Winnebago to them and agreed on prices for both. The loan process was actually a breeze, even though I was still stressing about it. The numbers were fine and there was no need for me to worry. We were all set to finish the deal and drive away in our “new to us” Phaeton.
This brings us to today’s title. It was the Tuesday of Thanksgiving week. Our older son was coming home from OU for the holiday. Our younger son was driving down the mountain from NAU. We hadn’t told either of them of our purchase and I was excited to surprise them. As luck would have it, taking delivery of the RV took longer than expected and Jeff jumped an earlier flight. Our window of taking the RV home then driving our car to the airport was closing fast. The sales staff and finance people were moving at a snail’s pace. Tic-toc, let’s get going people. Slam that door, we are out of time. We’ll just pick him up in the RV. Won’t that be a great surprise!
Off to the airport we went. We’ve lived in Arizona almost 20 years and have been to the airport over a 100 times. Never before at 12 1/2 feet tall. Mark said we needed to keep an eye out for height signs since this rig was taller than our Winnebago. My eyes were peeled as we got onto airport property. I missed it and so did he. Oops. We pulled into the right lane of the baggage claim area just like always. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve dropped Mark off and picked him up at that same spot over the years. All of the sudden there was a loud noise at the top of the rig. Uh oh. What was that? Seriously, we’ve owned this less than an hour and we’ve already damaged it. Then the nice little airport security guard walked over to us with his hands up. Let the embarrassment begin. We just knocked three air conditioners into the roadway, great.
He told us we’d only hit the warning sign that hangs down from the ceiling. He called it the idiot sign, touche. The spot where we were was fine, height wise. The raised crosswalks were the problem as the ceiling there was only 12 feet high. Okay, what do we do now was running through my head. Not a problem, he said. They’ll just stop traffic while we back this sucker up and pull out to the lane where the buses go. Yep, we’ll just stop traffic…at the baggage claim entrance two days before Thanksgiving. I could hear the horns honking in my head and the social media posts about the idiot cruising baggage claim in an RV. Then Jeff walked up. There went the big surprise. I took this as my chance to flee. I jumped out, yelled surprise, hugged my boy and walked away from the RV. We walked to the bus stop and waited for Mark to fix our predicament.
Thankfully nobody honked or yelled at him and I didn’t see anyone pointing and laughing. I’m sure people got a good chuckle out of it and our little snafu may have been recounted around the dinner table that night. Even better, there was no damage to anything on our roof. That idiot sign only brushed the satellite dish and ac units. There wasn’t even a scratch up there. Whew, disaster averted. Mark was now safely where we should have been all along and we were homeward bound.
I am happy to report this has been our only height related almost disaster. We had a wonderful weekend with our sons camping in our shiny new to us RV. While surprising Jeff was a bust, we surprised the heck out of our friends and family Wednesday night when we pulled into our camping area. On Sunday, it was time to take Jeff back to the airport. I hate that day. We purposefully dropped him off at baggage claim because we were determined to find that sign. And there it was, tiny as a postage stamp alerting to a 12′ height restriction.
