Two more videos of the cabin cruiser ride, fast and slow

Boat ride on San Diego Bay

We had a fun day tooling around San Diego in a 28' cabin cruiser we have for sale on the lot (sea trial to make sure everything works!). It's amazing the variety of sights on the bay - Navy vessels on one side, skyscrapers, yachts in the harbor and, this weekend, tall ships shooting cannons at each other! The Festival of Sail was going on, with tall ship rides, complete with mock battles. People used to cross the ocean in these things!

The "RV Boat"

That's what our kids call it. This 28' Maxum cabin cruiser is for sale on our lot. The owner let us take it out for a sea trial this weekend to make sure all systems are working well. If it doesn't sell, he might consider letting us rent it, like we do with our consignment RV rentals. It sleeps 6 or more (you could cram 3 or 4 kids in the mid cabin and the seats on the deck fold into beds). There is a "wet bath" (toilet and shower in one), stove, fridge, water heater, fresh water tank, etc. With a GPS system and marine radio, it would be a great boat to take to Catalina Island for a weekend. There are also several anchorages around San Diego where you can drop your anchor for the weekend and camp on your boat.

Camping 10 minutes from home!

An RV, a golf cart, a some hot dogs and marshmallows, a couple of kids and grandkids, a 10-minute drive from home - all making for a surprisingly relaxing weekend camping trip. We had just gotten a new engine in the rental fleet's 32' Storm class A RV. We thought we had better try it out because it had been out of commission for a while. We had a couple of visiting grand-daughters, Kimi and Kendra, 4 and 8, who had never camped in an RV before, plus our 3 younger kids, ages 4, 14 and 16.

I don't know why it seems so much more relaxing to stay in an RV, even close to home, and even if you run to work for a couple hours a day. Maybe it's because at home you find so many things that need cleaning and organizing, but in the RV you just relax.

For the first time, we took a golf cart to a campground. This comes in handy at the long, narrow Santee Lakes property, with a water park at the opposite end of the park from the campsites. We are thinking maybe we should offer golf carts to our rental customers too!

Nick drives the big golf cart

(with Mom's help)

New boat department

It started with a couple trade-ins and Dan's attempt two years ago to rent consigned boats the way we do motor homes (the insurance was too expensive, so that did not work out).  We had some boats on the lot and people who spotted them would stop by.  With more and more boat buyers coming to us, we now have a Marine Department manager, Patrick, who sells and services boats.  He will be bringing in more boats to sell over the next few months.

Automotive license is official - and here's the sign!

Nick and Daddy post the required Bureau of Automotive Repair sign in the lobby.  Now we can repair engines in the RV's too! 

A California Bureau of Automotive Repair license!

Government is a funny thing.  Well, not that funny.  If you want to open a dealership to sell vehicles, you take a required course and test, meet with a DMV inspector, the DMV inspector comes to check out your lot, the inspector comes back randomly to check on your record-keeping, signage, etc.  If you want to rent RV's, the law says you just have to make sure renters have valid drivers' licenses and the tires on the vehicles are two years old or less. 

Without a license from the Bureau of Automotive Repair, we were able to work on all RV house systems, body, interior etc.  We knew we would need a BAR license to do oil changes, engine work, brakes, etc. for anything except our own rental fleet.  We finally filled out the paperwork and sent in the check, expecting the process to be as difficult as getting a contractor's license.  Two weeks later, our BAR license came in the mail!  So Rice RV officially services the COMPLETE RV!

Business is booming at the new lot

RV rental season has started again.  Sales and service are way up at the new freeway-facing lot.  Christy is working for us again, managing both the rental and service departments.  We have a number of nice new rental units and the salesmen are working hard to fill the lot with great trailers and motor homes.  What a fun business to be in! 

Nick has his own golf cart at the lot!

Grammy Linda could not pass up this little kids' electric golf cart. We let Nick drive it around the lot when someone is with him. It looks so cute parked alongside the 3 grownup golf carts.

Our first non-RV trip in years!

The Rice family took a few days and went to Big Bear, staying in a rented cabin. We thought about taking trailer to the campground near the ski area but we did not have time to research it and we were worried about all the mud that would get in the trailer. We stayed in a small, very rustic cabin in Green Valley Lake, about 30 minutes before you get to Big Bear, but a wonderful small town with lower rental prices and little traffic. It also puts Lesley closer to the ice rink in Lake Arrowhead, which is her only winter sport. The cabin was about the same price as one of our class C rentals. It had 2 bedrooms and one bathroom. With the sofa bed, you could sleep 7 comfortably or 10 uncomfortably (which we did one night when some friends of Jason and Jeremy's stopped by).

If you want to see photos and videos of our kids (mostly Nick) skiing, sledding, ice skating, etc., you can go to this site. Nick's favorite was sledding with the "snow bike," which has been in the family since Jason was Nick's age.