The Tour “Bus”

Every touring band(es) needs a great tour bus. Well, our’s isn’t quite a bus but it’s a great place to put our heads at night.

Our choice was a Grand Design Reflection 287RLTS pull behind.

We looked at every available model back a couple of years (we didn’t want to do a lot of fixing up).

Our requirements were as follows:

  • No more than 2 years old
  • Spacious enough to have an office area for remote work on longer trips
  • Large shower
  • Plenty of storage for longer trips
  • An extra place to sleep one more adult on occasion
  • No more than 34′ total
  • Ability to work both for long trips and boondocking in more remote areas
  • Our 2016 Expedition EL with Tow Package wouldn’t need to be traded in for a better tow vehicle.

Ya, it was a tall order.

I was so excited that we were finally starting to look. Jeff was more trying to ease his way into it. It was a very different approach for us. He’d show me something he thought might work and I’d want to rush out and buy it that minute.

We also didn’t realize that we were looking during what would be one of the busiest RV sales seasons in history.

In fact, we had planned to do a trial run by renting a Cruise America RV first. However, our trip for that was just as everything was shutting down for COVID. We ended up having to cancel it for fear nothing would be open.

So, Jeff kept browsing. We’d sit on the couch each evening catching up on a show or two and he’d have the laptop in his lap scrolling through options.

He finally found a few of these RLTS. He didn’t find them at first because they had already been discontinued by Grand Design and were dealer stock only.

We took a look and found they would be almost perfect for what we wanted/needed. It was a little longer than we had hoped for and a little heavier and a little more money. But it checked all the rest of the boxes!

We made an offer and hit the road to pick up our new toy!

Big Red

Oh, and that issue of the SVU not needing to be traded in. Ya, well, that was our next purchase… The Expedition has plenty of power but does get a bit hot on the hills and squirrely in the wind. So Jeff set out to find the right diesel pick up truck.

And here she is! The 2020 GMC Denali 3/4 ton Duramax