Hello, my name is Mike. I am married to the most beautiful and smart woman in the world, Pat. We have three furbabies, Becki (Toy Poodle), Jazzi (Yorkshire Terrier), and Lexus (Toy Poodle), two offspring, Mike Jr. and Amanda, and one Granddaughter, Jenah Noel. We currently live in south central Kansas but plan to become houseless by the end of 2012. I am retired from the US Military (U.S. Army/U.S. Air Force), and Civil Service (U.S. Air Force, DLA, and DCMA). Combined I have a little over 38 years of service. Pat is an Educator at the local school teaching fourth grade. She will be retiring in 2012 with 30 years of service.
Way back in 1973 my girlfriend, Pat, and I bought a 1969 Chevrolet C10 van. It had a dinette, Coleman Stove, ice box, and a bench seat along the side that converted into a bed. This van would qualify as a class 'B' motorhome today. In November of that year we decided to get married, this picture was taken on our wedding day just before we took off on our honeymoon to Paris. We never got to Paris, didn't like France, and ended up going to Luxemburg, Belgium and then back to Germany. We traveled and camped in this quite a bit over the next year or so seeing a lot of the German coutrysiide and sights. 
Bought a big motorcycle and started touring.
2003, built a trailer to pull behind the motorcycle. Started doing some real touring. Oklahoma, Colorado, South Dakota, Arkansas, North Carolina, Missouri, and all the states in between.
Skip forward to 2005. I started to look at retirement and thought I would see what was out there in the RV world. Information overload. We looked at many many RVs. We would travel to far away places and look at RVs. Finally we settled on a class 'A' motorhome. Gas or Diesel??? I wanted diesel, she didn't want the noise. Out we go looking at class A motorhomes. She wasn't impressed with the gas coaches and so we settled on a diesel.
2006. We start looking on Ebay. Very good resource BTW. We drove to Houston over the Christmas break and visited PPL motorhomes. Again, information overload. We spent the day there looking at what must have been every know brand, size, and shape of diesel motorhome. None met the criteria. Off we go to north Houston, Best Pre-Owned RVs. Great people. They let us walk through just about every diesel motorhome they had. I liked them all she wasn't all that impressed. Back home and Ebay. I retired in September 2007. Still looking, having decided we would be buying after New Years. Found one in Mesa AZ. Drove down in February and looked, nope, not the one. I had hired a guy to do an inspection, well that didn't work out. I asked if he would be willing to drive around and look, he was willing and away we went. Found a 2000 Beaver Contessa and a 2001 Safari Panther 455.
Liked them both. The Beaver was 40' the Safari was 42'. That extra 2' looked a little imposing, I had doubts about getting this beast into some of the campgrounds we hoped camp in. Looked some more, nothing to compare with the two already found. Decided to sleep on it and head home in the morning. Got a call from my inspector, he had Blue Booked both units, both were under Blue Book. O boy. Heading home up near Payson Pat called, I told her about what I had found and asked if I should go back and look some more, I had the dealers email photos home so she said no come on home and we'll talk about it. At home we looked and looked at the pictures, and Ebay, and talked and talked. She didn't like the monkeys on the dining chairs of the Safari so that one was out. We talked some more. She asked which one I liked better. I said the Beaver. The rest is history.
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