Florida to Alaska and Back

So after spending a couple of months now looking through Craigslist ads, and visiting two older RVs for a look-see, I'm thinking I might bite the bullet and go with a Cruise America resale, specifically the Thor Majestic 19g. I've known about he Cruise America resales for a while - I ran into them early in my motor home research - but I've only recent;y begun to seriously consider them. I'd written them off earlier for two main reasons: Price - these unit run anywhere from $26,000 to almost $30,000. That's considerably more than the max $15,000 I was looking to spend on a used one. Miles - these things come with a stack of miles, anywhere from 130,000 on up.  These two factors had me eliminating Cruise America as a potential source. But I've begun to change my mind. For one thing, I did a bit or research, and although I can find plenty of people cautioning against buying a Cruise America resale for the very reasons I listed above, non of these nay-

We've had our eyes out for a good motor home for months. I want a small one,20 feet or less, and those seem to be few and far between. And when they do crop up, they tend to go pretty quickly. I've had several that I've called on that are already gone in the few hours since the ad was posted and I made my call. So when this one cropped up on Friday, I called the guy and made an appointment to go see it Saturday. Although the ad doesn't say, it's a 1989 Chevy Escaper, 20 feet long. I called again Saturday morning just to make sure, and it was still available, so my son and I drove up to have a look at it. It was about an hour away. We had a good chance to crawl all over it - the RV was in a consignment lot, and no one came running when we pulled up. I gave my son the camera and told him to give us a tour. The tires are on 16.5 inch rims. A guy in the know on RV's told me these are the expensive tires because only two companies make 16.5 in tires.

My son is 17. Today was his last day of high school as a junior. One year to go - how fast did that go? For a while, probably the last few years, he's been very interested in Alaska. I think his interest started after we took a week-long trip to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, when he was 13. We'd moved to Florida when he was 6 months old, and it was the first time he'd been out of the state. It was a week of white water rafting, horseback riding, bike tours, kayaking and more. He really seemed enamored with the mountains and streams. He enjoyed the much cooler weather. In Florida, he spends most of the year complaining about how hot it is. Definitely not a beach kid.... I'm partial to hills and mountains and rivers and forests myself. I grew up in Southern Maryland, which was still very rural 40 years ago. From age 8 until I left for college, I spent a good deal of time roaming the woods behind my house. I could disappear for a day, so far back that the sounds of civiliza