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Writer's pictureeaglesnestgrows

Caregiver Respite: The start of the Lucy Loo Adventures

Caregiving for family can often consume many hours of time over a period of time. It's done out of love and to ensure other's needs are met. Which is why giving care to others can often leave a family caregiver in need of their own respite care. My need for a caregiver's respite surfaced after a weekend getaway with family and friends at a recreation association which offered a range of outdoor activities! After one glorious weekend I was more relaxed and rested than I'd been in years since a loved one had gotten sick. Which is why two weeks later I had found a lot for sale just around the corner from my family and friends. I placed an offer and started shopping for an RV. This was the beginning of the adventures of Lucy Loo!


Purchasing my property was by far easier than coordinating and negotiating with family members to cover care shifts so I could start regularly going away on the weekends. Once all the details were in place I was able to focus on my own self care, and social connections.


As I shopped for RV's I read articles, peppered other RV'ers with questions. Made a mental list of what to watch out for like: soft spots, water damage, and made notes of what I loved in other's floor plans. I then started shopping used RV's on Facebook marketplace. It opened my eyes to how unprepared I was to compare RV's and the different types of RV classifications.


The shopping process helped me to discover the exterior and interior features I wanted. Since my family is a central aspect of my life having enough sleeping areas for my immediate family was a driving feature in the RV I chose. Having my own bedroom with a door was what sold me on my Keystone Springdale 260BH.


I had toured other RV's which were for sale by owner before I went to the dealership to "look" at their inventory. I was given a tour of 3 RV's: a Coleman, a Jayco, and a Keystone. I fell in love with the decor and features of the Keystone. I paid the deposit before heading home and scheduled a date for orientation and to pick it up.


My purchasing tipping point in the tour was when the salesman hooked me into buying from the dealership instead of buying from an owner, by telling me all of their used RV's had been inspected, serviced and had ensured their plumbing, electrical, and seals were checked and in good order. (I would later learn this was the first lie.)


The day of orientation arrived and I was excited! My son-in-love went with me to pick my RV up. While there he asked questions about the servicing of the water heater, and the tire treads. Here I was believing I'd done my homework to ask about the black tank and grey tank size, etc only to learn I'd not even touched the surface! Meanwhile the orientation of the exterior was going wonderful until I saw the outdoor shower. When touring and selecting my RV the outdoor shower had been a silver shower head and cord. This one was a cheap plastic. Not exactly a make it or break it but a noticeable difference. Then we stepped inside and I realized this RV had many similarities to the RV I had toured and put a deposit on but it wasn't the same RV. After I questioned the noticeable differences the orientator went and got the salesman. The salesman tried to gaslight me telling me he had shown me so many I must have confused them (lie #2). The fact was he had only shown me three distinctively different travel trailers so I knew he was full of it! My son-in-love and I talked about the differences and how it was mostly cosmetic or so we thought. My son-in-love and I both gave this swapped RV a quick look to see if there were soft spots or visible major issues. Which is how I found water under the kitchen sink and the salesman, who had gaslighted me, told me it was from the cleaning preparation and not from a water leak. At the time the explanation was plausible as a rag was still laying near the water puddle but mentally I noted it. (It was lie #3).


The orientator was charismatic and good. I thought he was giving me soft sale pitches so I'd return and buy more from his dealership. He told me how when I was ready to do upgrades I should consider a porcelain toilet instead of the style that was in the RV. He also encouraged me to upgrade the electric tounge Jack in the future.


It should have clued me in that his "soft sales" were professional attempts to warn me and not sales attempts when items he encouraged me to replace started to go bad. It started with the electrical jack working perfectly while at the dealership. However by the time it was towed and parked, the electrical jack had given up the ghost and wouldn't work for us. We had to hand crank it.


Despite it all, it was a wonderful day when family and friends joined us on my property to guide and help us park the RV on my property. If they hadn't of been there to help set up I would probably still be fishing for a signal to stream a YouTube video just to learn how to level and stabilize an RV. Well my property's electricity was supposed to have been turned on the day I had closed on my property but I didn't check it until we arrived with the RV. For whatever reason it had not been turned on. I called the outage in and was told they would send someone out but it would be 8 or more hours depending on the cause before the power was restored. My kids were tired and it looked like we'd need to get a hotel room for the night. That is when my best friend and her husband offered my daughter, son-in-love and both grandbabies to be guests in their second RV. My kids jumped to accept as they were exhausted so as the sun began to set my kiddos went to bed. I stayed up socializing with family & friends. Then around 10pm I returned to my property to see if the utilities had ben turned on and they were on! I went back to get my kids but all of them were sound asleep.


I spent my first night all alone in my new to me RV. It was wonderful! The next morning my family joined me and my dream of sharing quality family time camping became my reality! After my kids went home, my family and friends encouraged me to select a nickname for my property. The one I selected isn't the nickname which my property gets fondly referred to as.


Nope, nada, that selected nickname was overridden! Why you ask? Well, I was alone and I couldn't get comfortable in my bed as the mattress is rock hard so I moved to the sofa which converts into a futon. It is much more comfortable. In the wee hours of the morning I awoke to see a pool of water in the middle of the kitchen floor. I sat up and noticed this pool of water was all the way down the middle of the hallway and was coming from the bathroom. I got up and turn on the lights and discovered it was NOT water! It was watery sewage which was leaking from the base of the toilet to roll straight down the center of the hallway floor.


I threw paper towels down, located the disinfectant which was still packed in a tote, snapped a photo of the mess, and started disinfecting! As soon as it was a decent hour I texted my best friend. The verbal puns started flying via text and it was laughable. Help soon arrived to assess what was occurring....and it turned into a comedy show much like a Lucille Ball skit. Which is how my property got it's nickname of Lucy Loo after a laughable, shitty newbie Rv experience!


Keep in mind the toilet the orientator had encouraged me to replace in the future went bad on the first camping trip. Turned out that toilet model's reserve has a tendency to leak at the base and changing the flange is typically a temporary short term fix. Which is why it was replaced by their sister dealership's mobile RV tech with a different toilet model. The mobile RV tech also fixed the stripped outdoor shower knobs which leaked, and the two leaks under the kitchen sink. (I was able to fix the indoor shower leak with plumbers tape!)


Despite all the midadventures with Lucy Loo, the laughter, socializing & memories created with family & friends has been the caregiver's respite I didn't even realize I needed.



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