1/20/07 Tampa RV Show

Today we went to the Tampa RV show. We arrived around 10 a.m. and took our time going through some of the high dollar rigs while waiting for Chris and Bonnie. They were to arrive around 11:30 as they were coming from Jacksonville and since they are spending the night they brought their home with them. That saying, "Home is where you park it" certainly does ring true!

Now, we didn't bring our camera with us and we learned a good lesson here. NEVER ever leave home without the camera.

As mentioned earlier we started with the high dollar coaches. I'm talkin' a MILLION plus here! The rigs where you have to take your shoes off before they let you in to see them. The rigs that have butter soft leather upholstery, marble tile in the kitchen, dishwashers, king size beds, drop down from the ceiling plasma TV's and full kitchens that slide out from the storage unit in the basement of the coach for outdoor entertaining. Of course these outdoor kitchens are situated next to the storage unit that houses the "outside" plasma TV. There were quite a few with SOLD signs on them. "What do these people do for a living" is a question we heard alot as we went through them. They are nice and they are beautiful but they are not rigs that Bob and I would be interested in. They are just too fancy for our tastes, not to mention too expensive for our wallets.

We finally got to meet up with Chris and Bonnie around one. They ran into a problem getting into the area where they could park their rig.

As we were walking through the outside portion of the show we saw a TWO STORY rig. Yep, you read that right, TWO STORIES! Upstairs and downstairs. The people who built this rig were giving tours of it but it was closed so the floors could be wiped down and then for their lunch. The lady in charge told us to come back at two and she would see that we were in the next tour for sure. Off we went to check out the rigs that are in our price range if we were in the market,,,,,we're NOT! We got back to the double decker just in time and were escorted to the front of the line by the kind lady. Come to find out this was a "used" unit and for sale. You'll never guess who it belonged to. Go ahead, guess. Give up? Ok, I'll tell ya. This beautiful two story rig belonged to none other than Will Smith, the movie/TV star, the Fresh Prince himself. They took 20 of us at a time. This thing is HUGE! The floors were all marble tile and their was a winding marble staircase going up to the second floor which housed Will and Jada's bedroom. It had a bath and a half no less! Now this is just unheard of in the world of RV's. The wood used in the interior was imported from Italy and had 21 coats of varnish on it. This rig was built on a tractor trailer chassis and the roof was telescopic giving it the ability to raise the roof for the second story. There were 21 of us on the second floor at one time and still room for a few more. Of course the tractor part of the rig was included in the price but not Will's driver. Wondering what this movie star's RV cost? Used? No driver? How about a cool million and a half! Bob asked me if I wanted it but I turned it down, I didn't care for the bedspread color. So why is Will selling this gem? He's had a new one made which includes a recording studio in it! Ah the life of the rich and famous.

We continued on checking out all the latest models of the RV's in our price range and we found that while some of them have nice new features that ours doesn't, we wouldn't trade ours..........yet.

We enjoyed our time with Chris and Bonnie and got the news that their next job may be in St. Petersburg which is only about an hour away from us. We'll get to see them again before our Florida snowbird time is up.