Day Forty Four: Tucson AZ....21/11/08

After four hours on the road, we're now in a town called Tucson (silent c') in Arizona. We're one state away from the east coast and we're only half way through the trip!! Mind you, we still have a lot of plans we need to fulfill over the next six weeks, so it's not like we're just going to be sitting on a beach in California for a month or so. As tempting as that is, we still have a lot of mileage to put up. Today was really just another travel day. The RV park we're staying in is like The Ritz of RV parks. It's part of a fancy country club, and there is orange trees and lime trees surrounding the RV. They have a few swimming pools, hot tubs, fitness centre, bar, restaurant... the works. The crowd that run the place also sell RVs. These are no ordinary RVs. We've seen these things in every park we've been to, and have often wondered what they were like inside. This evening, for one hour only, they parked about 15 of these things side by side with the doors open, allowing average Joe's like us to freely explore them. Now the RV we rented is a Class A', which is marketed as a luxury RV. It's more than comfortable for the 4 of us, but when that one hour was finished, we were really sickened returning to our so called luxury vehicle. The best way I can describe these things, is if you picture a big coach, like the new Bus Eireann buses. Now imagine that when the bus is parked up, you step in the door, press a few buttons, and the sides slide out to create more room inside. Now take out all the seats, put a few leather couches in there, a few leather recliners and a 52 inch flat screen TV. You have a fully operating kitchen with granite worktops and terracotta tiles on the floor. Move down the bus, and on the left you open a door to reveal luxury toilet number one. Open the door to the right and you'll find your washer and dryer. Move further down again, and you come to the master bedroom, with king size bed, wooden floors and a modest 32 inch TV. Finally, at the very back is the generously sized en suite. We were even in one that had an electric fire in the living room, patio doors and a slide out balcony. The balcony had a 32inch TV attached to the guard rail!! Sure why not... These things are fit for royalty, and there is one in the site next to me right now with some old couple sleeping in it. It's no wonder so many retired folk over here sell their houses to buy one of these things. They're probably far better than their homes... Mind you, the price tags we saw ranged from $200,000, right up to a cool $600,000, which would be just outside of our budget. You might be able to tell by now, I'm slightly bitter, and quite a bit jealous writing this post. Our RV is luxury?! It's made of bloody plywood and plastic!! And God knows we're going to need some amount of wood glue before we hand the keys back. We wouldn't need wood glue for granite work tops and tiled floors... Rant, Rant, Rant....blaaah!!!