Things are looking rough right now.  We have had our Prowler camper for over two months now, and were working on it on a very slow pace.  The reason being, was that we didn't outright own it yet. 

Story:  We found the camper through a relative.  He got us in touch with the "owner" and we made a promisary note with him to cover the cost of the sale.  At the time, my severence pay had not arrived yet, and he said he had to look for the title.  SO... a month goes by.  We do necessary cleanup to prowler and make our renovation plans.  The prowler needed a new ceiling in the front bedroom area, and the bathroom.  I didn't want to even start that until the day of sale had been complete.  Promisary note or not. 

So... i get my severence, call the guy and tell him we have to meet to transfer title.  He'd let us move it to our property to do the renovations in the meantime.  We get his cell phone answering machine for over a week and he never returns any of our calls.  Different stories are being told to us from my wife's family that his dad is sick, that his uncle died... all kinds of stuff.  FINALLY, he returns the call.  Apologizes that he didn't get back to us and says that all the things we heard were true.  Okay, whatever.  So we go pick him up and take him to the title place.  He says he has to apply for a duplicate title, he can't find it.  We get there, they do a search, and there's no record of the thing in his name.  EVER. 

He acts like a jerk to the lady, telling her that they did the transfer right in this office and starts cursing her out.  We had an old plate from inside the cabinets of the prowler and she does a search.  It's still registered in the name of the guy that our guy "supposedly" bought it from.  So then, we spend about three hours trying to contact this guy.  He finally shows up and applies for the duplicate title.  No big deal.  The lady tells them that they must have only gotten a promisary note notarized there, and that there's NO WAY that the title ever changed hands. 

So he applies for the new title and signs a note we wrote up, guaranteeing the transfer of title to us.  We write a new promisary with original guy and everyone signs everything right in front of the lady at the title place.  She said it was legal.  Not really worried about being dicked, but boy has this EVER set us back. 

THEN... we have the prowler in my mother-in-law's yard.  Her landlord was never happy about it, but gave us time.  Well, it's been about two months now, so he says he got complaints about it and said we HAD to move it.  Now, i haven't done any of the main work on it.  It needs all new tires.  He gave us one day.  I had to go buy the ball and electrical harness for my van and we just pumped the tires full and hoped they'd last until we got it to our storage bin area, which you can also store vehicles at. 

Did this all last night.  What a joy.    Turns out that the back lights are also in need of great repair.  They flicker on each bounce.  Still have to get all the tires and get the brakes checked.  They seemed fine though. 

The positive of it, was that my van handled the trailer well.  It was my first time driving with a trailer hooked up and I did well also.    The biggest problem though, is that we're running low on funds now and there's little time left before the winter hits here.  So i'm actually considering leaving the camper in storage for the winter, and just rubber-tramping with the van for awhile in the south.  Not sure yet.  We could return in a few months and continue the work on the camper then, and have it fully ready by summer.  I dunno. 

Thanks for reading.  I needed to vent.