2025: Tornadoes, Tariffs, and a Tiffin… and FUN!

We ended the year the same way we started it, except this time we were doing it in a far more luxurious motorhome. Both the beginning and end of 2025 were spent visiting friends and parking on their properties. The weather, unfortunately, had other ideas: it was too cool in March to be truly comfortable, and too cold in November to pretend the season wasn’t over. Our final stop stretched an extra day because we found ourselves camped in the first snowfall of the year. Mike ended up on a ladder, chipping away at the snow and ice that had built up above the slide outs before they would retract, something we never would have dealt with in the design of our old motorhome. Now we’re home near Toronto, the new coach has been winterized, and all that’s left to do is wait for 2026 so we can fire it up again and escape this cold.

2025 was less of the biking and touring holiday we expected and more of an epic saga, complete with mechanical villains, bureaucratic dragons, storm gods and the ultimate prize: our new Tiffin.

Part 1: The Jinxed Journey South – When Our RV Declared War

We crossed the border into the U.S. in March with a mission: shake off the Canadian winter by cycling along the Natchez Trace Parkway. But from the start, the world seemed to have other plans. A feeling of guilt hung over us, fueled by the threat of U.S. tariffs and our own order for a new American-made motorhome. The best we could do was order from a Canadian dealer with a tariff cancellation clause in the contract.

Our faithful Georgetown RV, our companion of eleven years, seemed to know it was being traded in and decided to retaliate. It began subtly, a set of dead house batteries that left our fridge silent and the RV interior felt like an icebox. Then, after being trapped for three nights by a deadly storm in a Cabela’s parking lot, we faced the nightmare of every RVer: a black water tank that wouldn’t empty. The horror of imagining where a week’s worth of sewage had gone if it wasn’t in the tank or on the ground is something I won’t soon forget.

Our visit to Camping World for a fix was a lesson in despair. They quoted over $2,000 in labour just to *look* and up to $15,000 for a replacement, warning it could take months. To add insult to injury, their mechanics, while testing the system, managed to flood our bedroom with fresh water, leaving us with a sopping wet carpet for days. Just as we were facing financial horrors, Mike, my ever-resourceful husband, had a eureka moment. With a homemade back-flushing method, he miraculously cleared the blockage. We had narrowly avoided a $15,000 USD disaster.

No sooner had we cheered that victory than our slide-outs refused to extend at our campground. For the first time in 12 years, we slept with them tucked in. Mike, at six feet tall, spent the night kicking cabinets and dreading his nocturnal crawls over me. The culprit was a dead motor that powered the hydraulic system. A new one, ordered for $1,200, initially failed to work until Mike finally realized he’d installed it upside down.

Unusual walks along the Natchez Trace

We did manage to bike sections of the Natchez Trace, and it was as beautiful and peaceful as promised. After battling relentless rain and realizing that 1,500 km of out-and-back riding the same scenic path was not for us, we decided to head towards the Ozarks of Arkansas. Still, the “jinx” followed us, forcing us to wait to get into one campground that was evacuated and then actually get evacuated from the next due to imminent flooding. As soon as we left this second campground and were driving to find safety, the rain came. The wind picked up. You could see water blowing sideways across the road. Then everything changed, the sky turned black, the wind reversed 180°, and it howled. Mike had a hard time controlling the motorhome due to side winds, but we couldn’t stop in the middle of a major road. It was awful. Sheets of rain blasted us from the opposite direction now. After 5–10 minutes of chaos, the wind shifted back, and the sky started to lighten. What we drove through, I have no idea. But it wasn’t nice.

That night, the weather ramped up again. The storm was the worst we’ve ever experienced. The lightning and thunder were off the charts. Thunder shook our RV like a subwoofer cranked way too high. The storm centre stayed right overhead of us for hours before it started to move away. People died in this storm, just like in the one two weeks earlier. This is not good and it is not over. The forecast says the thunderstorms were lined up like freight trains, rolling over Arkansas, Tennessee, and Kentuck which was exactly where we were. We were beginning to wonder if we’d ever catch a break.

We did have some luck. In one campground we had to move sites as we were staying longer than expected and our current site was already booked. The next day after we moved, we walked past our original site and saw that a very large tree had come down right over top of where our RV had just been parked. I hate to think what would have happened to us if the next RVer, who had not yet arrived, hadn’t booked that precise site.

Once warm weather finally settled in, the year began to unfold the way we had hoped. Long cycling days became the backbone of our travels: predictable in effort, rewarding in scenery, and much improved weather.

Our week on the Razorback Greenway in Arkansas was a highlight: great weather, great trail design, and lots of small towns to stop and visit enroute. Yes, we dealt with a dead car battery one day and a broken RV locker door latch another, but the rides overshadowed the hassles.

Even with minor setbacks, that week reminded us how much we enjoy discovering places at our own pace, especially on two wheels.

Our route continued through the Midwest and the South, hitting a mix of new places and familiar territory. St. Louis stood out more than expected, Louisville surprised us with its charm, and Carlyle Lake offered exactly the kind of quiet we appreciate.

It wasn’t all quiet, our drive to Louisville was terrifying as the wind howled through our front window. Mike and I were worried sick that we were going to lose the entire window as we drove down the highway. We pulled into a rest stop where Mike climbed onto the roof (despite not being a fan of heights) and tried to seal the window with packing tape. You could actually see through the large gaps between the window and the RV where the windscreen sealant had failed. Mike’s patching didn’t help and the screeching and howling continued for four hours. We couldn’t even talk to each other over the noise. Trying to find a repair shop that would work on our RV was a major effort but, within the week, we had a brand new window on the RV that we would only own for a few months more.

Next we visited Branson with its over-the-top entertainment. In contrast was the peaceful lakeside campground we stayed at. Chaos or not, we saw one or more shows/concerts every day for 14 days and loved it. We had missed this due to language problems during our eight years in Europe.

We thoroughly enjoyed our visits to Cincinnati and St. Louis. We are planning to go back to Dayton to spend more time in their great National Museum of the US Air Force.

If you think our RV drama this year was enough, our bikes decided to join the fun. We had multiple flat tires. Once,10 miles from the car, Mike got a flat. We were nowhere near a road. I started pushing Mike’s bike (with the flat) to the nearest access point almost two miles away in 32° C weather (90°F) while Mike was riding my bike back for the car. Mike had only ridden two miles when he found himself with a second flat tire, now stranded eight miles from our car 😢! Our jinx continues.

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Part 2: The Great RV Caper – A Saga of Tariffs, Tenacity, and Tape

The central drama of our year was, without a doubt, The Great RV Caper. Our brand-new, custom-ordered 2026 Tiffin Phaeton 38BH, a motorhome newly built for us, was abruptly cancelled. The Canadian tariffs we had feared had materialized, slapping a potential $150,000 penalty on our already tremendously expensive purchase. We were back to square one.

But we aren’t quitters. I managed to find a new 2025 Tiffin Phaeton 40IH for sale in Michigan, the larger, more luxurious model I’d actually wanted all along. And so began an absolutely awful bureaucratic journey. The RV now needed to stay fully American with lots of proof while we waited out the tariff storms. We formed a Montana LLC to purchase the RV, secured U.S. insurance (a multi-day ordeal in itself), and arranged long-term storage in New York.

Taking possession of our new Phaeton on Friday the 13th of June should have been an omen. What was supposed to be a joyful beginning turned into a two-month sentence in the dealer’s parking lot. Our list of issues was met with a maddening chorus of “working as designed “ and “cannot duplicate the problem”. Our rear AC unit constantly faulted; it took two months and pressure from Tiffin themselves to get a faulty circuit board replaced. A missing plexiglass panel took four weeks to arrive and was then installed incorrectly. Our new 1200-watt solar system was wired into the system incorrectly with an inadequate controller and a tripped breaker, rendering it useless without our knowledge.

The lowest point came when we finally left the dealer, only to be turned away at the Sarnia border. We had previously driven to the same border in the car to verify that there would be no problem bringing an American RV into Canada to visit friends and family. Different agents from our initial inquiry now stated unequivocally that we could not bring a U.S.-plated vehicle into Canada without officially importing it and paying the full tax including tariffs. We were escorted back to the U.S. under flashing lights, feeling utterly defeated. That night, parked at a Cracker Barrel, our brand-new RV’s batteries died by 4 a.m., killing the fridge. At this point in time we were quite depressed.

After returning to the dealer with the RV who, of course, said the batteries were “working as designed”, we contacted Tiffin by phone and together we convinced the dealer that the batteries needed to be replaced. We  seized the chance to upgrade to the lithium iron phosphate batteries we’d wanted from the start. Just as we resigned ourselves to storing our Phaeton permanently in the States, without any visits or travelling in Canada, we discovered a lifeline: Canada had quietly dropped the retaliatory tariffs without even letting the customs officials nor the customs brokers know.

What followed was a final burst of bureaucratic hurdles: importing the vehicle, navigating inspections, and a comical struggle at Service Ontario where they initially suggested we bring nearly $50,000 in cash to pay the provincial taxes. I would like to say here that Border Brokers, the Canadian customs broker from Winnipeg, was excellent and helped at least simplify getting Canadian ownership for our vehicle and importing it into Canada. This included responding to our urgent calls and questions in the middle of a long weekend – thank-you.

Part 3: Redemption on the Road – Rediscovering Canada and the Joy of the Journey

With the transition finally over, we began our true shakedown cruise in September, and the difference was night and day. We visited friends and family, enjoying the simple pleasure of not being stuck in a dealership lot. We became fans of the occasional casino camping, using “free” slot money to pay for our meals. We also removed most of the brand new living room furniture in the RV and replaced it with furniture we already owned that didn’t match as well or look as nice but is much better for my back pain.

Our next leg was exploring some cycling opportunities closer to home. We discovered the PPJ trail in Western Quebec, cycling from lovely Pembroke, Ontario into the charming, and surprisingly English, town of Shawville, Quebec. But without question, the crown jewel was “Le P’tit Train du Nord”. This 200+ km paved rail trail was everything we love: flat, scenic, and dotted with converted train stations serving coffee and food. We spent glorious weeks working our way from Mont-Laurier south, the autumn colours providing a breathtaking backdrop the entire way. An added a bonus was that nearly all our cycle trails that we had been on in the US and in Canada had deer and other animals poking their heads out of the various woods to watch us.

Cycling in Canada was not without incident: Mike took a nasty fall when his handlebar hinge failed and the handlebars completely separated from the bike. This left him with bruised ribs and a sore shoulder for weeks (and still he refused to see a doctor!). But even that couldn’t dampen our spirits. We explored the touristy but fun town of Mont-Tremblant, riding the gondola and racing down the luge track, and eventually followed the trail all the way into the heart of Montreal.

We visited Parc Omega where we stayed in the car on a 12 km loop and saw all sorts of animals native to Canada including: all sorts of deer and caribou and elk, moose, various wolves and foxes, wild goats and many more. In 2,000 acres the animals could choose to be near the cars where they were fed carrots through partially open windows or they could go far away and be on their own. It was great fun. We could have done the loop a second time but it was too close to closing.

We capped the year by trying out “Harvest Hosts” and “Boondockers Welcome,” staying for free or at a very low cost, first on a beautiful farm near Montebello and next at a fascinating water buffalo farm with 800 head of cattle. We ate water buffalo steak for the first time and watched 20 being milked simultaneously.

From there we headed to a friend’s lakefront home. Even with the unexpected snowfall, it was a perfect, peaceful end to a chaotic year. From the terror of vicious, scary storms, evacuations and flooding to the quiet joy of cycling through a peaceful Quebec forest, with many jinxes and problems thrown in the middle, we had run the full gamut.

We wrapped up 2025 the way we began it, parked at a friend’s place, bundled up against unexpectedly cold weather, and waiting for the slides to cooperate. But now we’re heading into winter with a far more capable motorhome, and a clearer plan for the year ahead.

With the coach winterized and sitting quietly until 2026, we’re already looking forward to the moment we can start it up again and head south, chasing warmer weather and new sites. If 2025 was the year of upsets and transition, then 2026 is where the results of all our actions will begin to take shape.

PS Thanks to DeepSeek and ChatGPT for helping me to summarize 2025

Great Year – next 2026!