There is trouble brewing in RV country

financialpost.com:

Nikki Ferreira had been married to her husband Steve for 20 years. They worked together, raised a daughter and knew one another’s quirks, and what she unequivocally understood about her spouse was that it was next to impossible to talk him out of any idea that got lodged in his brain.

These ideas frequently involved the accumulation of “toys,” including the cruiser yacht Steve purchased for $94,000 in 2014 because he had grown up around boats and felt it was time he had a boat of his own. Then came the purple Dodge Hellcat, a muscle car bought on a whim, even though he wasn’t much of a car guy.

But as intimate as Ferreira was with her husband’s impulses, she still wasn’t prepared for the moment in 2021 when he said they should go look at some trailers.

“Honestly, I didn’t know what he was thinking; my idea of camping was a night at the Hilton,” she said. “I said, ‘Where is the money for an RV going to come from? Our daughter is going to university.’”

Steve answered a legitimate question with what has become a legendary family line: “Well, she is smart enough already.”

And that’s how the Ferreiras, who had never been camping with a recreational vehicle, or camping period, came to own “Smart Enough,” a 42-foot trailer — a.k.a. recreational vehicle — they bought for $89,000. They subsequently upgraded to a 45-footer with two air conditioners and a full shower. The trailer is larger than their first home, and it is currently parked as their summer residence at Shore Acres Park RV Resort on Lake Erie, just outside Port Dover, Ont.

“Some people may roll their eyes and go, ‘That’s not real camping,’” Ferreira said. “At the end of the day, the RV is where you sleep, but the objective is the same: to get out, hike, bike and play