Cheers for Chairs

At long last, we've solved our "chair dilemma".

Hip, hip, hurray!

Of all the things we had to figure out before we set out on our fulltiming journey, our outside seating arrangements gave us the most fits. But, after nearly a year and a half on the road, we've finally landed on the the right combination of places for us and our guests to park our butts.

Back in the days when we were tent campers, we bought two of those canvas bag chairs. They were pretty innovative at the time, actually. They fit into the trunk like a glove and they setup and collapsed with ease. When we bought our first moose, we tossed the trusty chairs in a bay and they served us well on each weekend adventure. However, we did notice that it was a bit more difficult to get our 50-something bodies out of the bucket-like chairs. So, we started shopping for replacements.

With each weekend adventure we'd scan our park with a critical eye on our fellow RVers' chairs. Every club outing became an outdoor seating Q&A session as we quizzed fellow members on the likes and dislikes of their chairs. We spent hours sitting in every chair offered at Camping World, REI and Cabela's. Still, we couldn't decide on our dream chairs.

When we packed our gasser for fulltime travel, weight and space were at a premium. So, we stuck with our trusty bag chairs. One thing that became obvious early in our journey was that two chairs simply wouldn't be enough. With no place for guests to sit, every place we set up looked just a bit unwelcoming. And, every time we invited neighbors over they had to lug their chairs along.

Determined that four would be the magic number, we set out to find the right combination of chairs. We wanted them to be comfortable, versatile and fit easily in available space. After surveying various chair setups at a billion sites, we decided on two recliners and two "regular" chairs. Without room for one recliner, much less two, in our little gasser, we postponed any chair purchases until our big moose came along.

When the big moose rolled into our lives a year ago, we resumed our search for the perfect chairs. Given nearly a year, we suspect most people would find that to be more than enough time to select four chairs. But, not us! We narrowed our search to the perfect recliner and the perfect regular chair. (Perfect for us, anyway.) We made it a discussion item in many campground conversations. Loaded with lots of great advice from fellow RVers, we finally made our decision.

For our "regular" chairs, we chose the X-press Lounger , which we picked up at Camping World in Spartanburg, SC. We spotted these chairs at our Winnebago rally in May and thought they were pretty nifty. They fold up to the size of a laptop and are the easiest things in the world to tote around. The sit quite comfortably, too. They take a bit of practice to get the folding and unfolding just right. But, by the time we met up with our friends in Tennessee, we had it down...pretty much.

The recliner we chose is Cabela's Chaise Lounger. Our friends Mike and Leslie have a pair of these. After spending a goodly amount of time in their chairs when we met them in Idaho this Summer, we decided they were perfect for us. Not exactly sure how these chairs would fit in our storage bays, we picked up one chair on our first stop out of Idaho, in Billings. This one chair got quite a bit of use by us both. So, even though we're not exactly sure where we're going to store it, we went ahead and ordered a second recliner, which we picked up at the Cabela's in Kansas City today.

With our full complement of dream chairs finally on board, we're ready to leave our old blue bag chairs behind as we head south and sit outside!