Another One Bites the Dust

We love our coach! Years ago, my mother gave me a tiny plate with the following saying on it. "As I was wandering o'er the green, Not knowing where I went, By chance I saw a pleasant scene, The cottage of content."

This little plate hangs on the wall beside my bed and I often think of our motorhome as our "cottage of content". We have everything we need contained in less than 400 square feet. We can go where we want, stay as long as we want and move when we choose. Our expenses are less than half of what we were spending living in our "sticks n bricks" house. What a wonderful way to live!

When the announcement came that Western RV (our manufacturer) had closed it's doors, we were stunned. We knew the economy was slowing, but this was before everything tanked. It was a little nerve racking thinking that we were now an orphan coach without a supplier or support for problems. This hadn't happened very often that a motorhome manufacturer just stopped producing it's product.

And then the economy took it's nosedive. And one after another, the rv industry started folding. National RV, Travel Supreme and Alfa Leisure all shuttered their doors. Other rv companies began closing plants and downsizing their work force. Fleetwood, Coachman, Tiffin, Newmar and Country Coach all face cash crunches and layoffs.

Today, one of the major, major players in the rv industry, Monaco, headquartered in Coburg, Oregon, with manufacturing facilities in Oregon and Indiana, the company that offered a variety of RVs, from entry-level priced towables to custom-made luxury models under the Monaco, Holiday Rambler, Safari, Beaver, McKenzie, and R-Vision brand names, issued termination notices to it's employees.

It's a shame to watch another sector of the ecomony fail. But we, like many others will continue to roll down the highway and live life our way. We'll find all of the treasures that this amazing country has to offer and do it on a budget. Our money will trickle up through the economy. We'll continue to boost the livelihoods of small rv parks, cafes, grocery stores (and big oil companies) instead of greedy mortgage companies, wasteful local governments and stupid politicians. We still pay our fair share of taxes and in some states our unfair share of taxes. But, our "cottage of content" will keep moving and spending and finding joy.