181bobkat, I think you have made an excellent choice for a first RV. We bought ours a few years after becoming empty nesters, too. After a few nights on the original mattress, though, we added a foam topper, and that help immensely. We used sleeping bags on the mattress and foam because making the bed in the 181 was just too hard. That was one "must" when we were looking for our Foretravel. We found the bathroom to be pretty cramped, but it sure beat going to the campground facilities in the middle of the night in a thunderstorm. I replaced the original stabilizing jacks with scissors jacks for more stability. Several people added them to the front, too.