Towhee the Trailer has been sold!

Saturday, January 27, 2018

She’s gone.

Yes, the Rockwood MiniLite has been sold and she’s gone.  She now lives in her new home northeast of Seattle, just a few miles away.

After ordering a brand new 2018 trailer from Escape (ETI), I advertised the Rockwood MiniLite for sale on CraigsList and chose a price that I hoped would be irresistible.  The trailer sold quickly for almost full price, and it sold to a really nice guy.

The buyer of the trailer is a descendant of the same Scottish clan that I am descended from … our last names are almost identical.  I’d say that’s “keeping it in the family”.  🙂  The buyer joked that since we are “cousins” that I should simply give him the trailer for free.  I countered his suggestion with the idea that, since we are “cousins”, that he should make me his sole heir and, come to think of it, he should put my name on all of his bank accounts.  We had a good laugh.

The trailer’s first outing with her new owner was a cross-country trip to South Dakota.  Now that’s adventurous!

This fellow (and his wife) purchased the trailer especially for that trip.  But they also wanted a clean, used trailer to try out for a year or so to see if RV camping was for them … much the same reason I purchased that trailer.  I hope these folks find that RV-ing is just the ticket.

I have continued to pay rent on the storage space (that empty one in the photo above) so I have a place to store the brand new 2018 Escape trailer when I bring her home in June.  The new trailer is only about a foot longer than the Rockwood was, so the new trailer will still fit nicely in that storage space.

A word about the new Escape trailer.

Speaking of the new Escape trailer, Escape trailers are called “molded fiberglass” trailers (or “moulded fiberglass” in Canada) as opposed to “stick-built” trailers. “Stick-built” trailers have the interior frames built first usually (interior framing for the walls and the ceiling), then the exterior wall and roof panels are attached, all of which leaves square seams around the outer edges, all of which can (and do) leak causing a myriad of problems that the owner likely never knows about until a catastrophic failure from rotten wooden structural components occurs or illness in the humans from mold/mildew pops up.  The chance of either of these problems happening in a molded fiberglass trailer (where those exterior seams do not exist) is miniscule.

Here’s a recent video below from Escape Trailer Industries (ETI) showing how Escape trailers are built.  The video is about 15 minutes long.

If you have watched any of the “stick-built” trailer manufacturers’ videos, then you can compare and will see how impressive ETI is with their cleanliness, adherence to employee safety laws, and the craftsmanship and attention to detail.  ETI cares about their product, their employees, and their customers.

Jayco, for instance, (one of THE most popular RV trailer brands) has a video online wherein all manner of OSHA safety standards are violated, but Jayco is so proud of the working conditions and the “standards” used in the shop and the “quality” of the build that they put the video online!

Are there other manufacturers out there as good as ETI?  You bet.  Just do your homework before you put your money down.

There are several manufacturers who build molded fiberglass RVs, or that used to build them.  For a full list of such manufacturers, check out FiberglassRV.  And, of course, for more information about Escape trailers, check out their website, or the Escape Owners’ Forum.  Airstream is another brand of a “molded” (aluminum) RV trailer that doesn’t have those right-angle seams that leak.

But … back to the Rockwood MiniLite that I just sold …

That nice 20-foot Rockwood MiniLite may be gone but she certainly is appreciated for having taken me on a year’s worth of grand adventures.  Little Towhee and I are now looking forward to our brand new 2018 21-foot Escape.  Little Towhee will go up to Chilliwack, B.C., with me to bring the new trailer home this June.  In fact, Little Towhee is already in the truck and ready to go!  Hope she doesn’t leave without me!