Who needs the Bahamas when you’ve got a behemoth like this?
By Byron Kerman
Photograph by Whitney Curtis
When High Ridge, Mo., residents Stephen and Karen Sachs go on vacation, they go in style. In fact, they go in such over-the-top opulent style, their destination is practically irrelevant—it’s all about the journey.
That’s Journey, as in their big, honkin’, 36-foot, 2006 Winnebago Journey mobile home outfitted with almost every domestic convenience you care to name: A sink with built-in water-filtration. An Italian washer/dryer hidden in a bathroom cabinet. Two TVs, with a satellite dish on the roof, DVD player and surround sound. The kitchenette has a microwave and a refrigerator/freezer, of course, but the oven and three-burner gas range are unexpected—as is the electrically powered sofa/recliner. And the queen-sized Sleep Number Bed. And the five (count ’em) outdoor shade awnings that retract when the roof-mounted wind-speed monitor detects a stiff breeze.
With enough diesel fuel and propane, you’d be set for the Apocalypse. What doesn’t this thing have?
“They can come with a fireplace,” admits Stephen, who, along with his totally mobile ilk, will be spreading the gospel at the St. Louis RV, Vacation & Travel Show at America’s Center, January 10–13.
No fireplace? For shame. For that matter, where’s the pinball machine, hot tub, bidet and missile launcher?
“You’re thinking of an entertainer’s coach,” explains Lonnie Hall, a co-owner of Lemay’s M.B. Thomas Winnebago dealership. “Those start at about $1 million.” (The Sachs’ traveling pleasure palace was a meager $225,000 or so.)
The big question: Why? Why drop so much coin on a vehicle that gets 9 to 10 miles per gallon (and that’s from a monstrous 90-gallon tank)? Why choose a method of vacation transportation that would seem to discourage debarkation from
the vehicle?
“This is mine,” says Sachs. “These are my sheets. I know where they’ve been. It’s not like a hotel, where you just never know. And I don’t know if you’ve ever been in a hotel with noise above you. The only thing above me is the stars.
“Plus,” he adds, “if we want to go out to eat, we can. If we want to cook a gourmet dinner in here, we can. You’re not really ‘roughing it.’”
Would Sachs, who’s also the president of the Gateway Winnies RV club, ever take a vacation trip by—horrors!—airplane?
“Not if I can help it.”
