Zigzag Traveler
The name Zigzag Traveler wasn’t made up just for this blog. There is a real Zigzag Traveler, or Ziggy to her friends. She is a 2017 Phoenix Cruiser model 2552. We have always named our vehicles, weird maybe, so what? We’ve had Martha, Mable and Myrtle recently. But naming our motor home turned out to be harder than we would have thought. After almost a month and still no name, we felt it was time and past time. Inspiration finally arrived and we came up with Zigzag Traveler. Sometime later we decided that might be a good name for this blog as well. All kinda ties together, sort of.
So Ziggy is a Phoenix Cruiser, built on the Ford E-450 chassis, same thing ambulances are built on. Never heard of Phoenix Cruiser? Well we hadn’t either until we started looking for motor homes. We had a comprehensive list of features we wanted. My list was pages long, Carrie’s said: cute and not boxy. OK, cute I get, but the boxy thing was a little harder. Most motor homes of this size have a huge overhang that extends over the cab. Great for extra sleeping space for the kids, but bad for gas mileage, they often leak and they are ‘boxy’. Can’t have boxy. Anyway, Ziggy is what is informally known as a class B+ motor home. If you want to know more about the various ‘classes’ of motor homes check this post on motor home classes. But in short a class C with out the ‘boxy’.
So after going to dealers and RV shows we discarded a lot of brands and started to despair. But I came across Phoenix Cruiser on the web and did some checking. First they are really small, second they have been doing this for 20 plus years and really know their stuff, and third they are factory direct. So if you want to see one, you fly to Elkhart, Indiana and go visit the factory. Which we did, and got to meet the folks there. And I don’t mean just the sales folks like at most places. We meet the guy who does the electrical work, Ed. We met the production foreman, Bobby. We met the guy who does all the A/V and interior installing, Doug. We met the guy who does the plumbing, the welding and the window installs. We met the ladies who do the final fit and finish and cleanup. We met the owner, the sales manager and the office manager. In short we met a great group of folks who just downright love to built quality motor homes.
After meeting all those folks we couldn’t not buy one, so we did. And 4 months later we flew back to Elkhart to pick up Ziggy and drive her home. And that’s another story.