Old Dogs

Our plans to head west today were canceled by predictions of gloom and doom, better known as rain/sleet/ice/snow. Up to 4 inches of snow were predicted in the area we were supposed to travel through today, and having lived through the great ice skating adventure of 2007 we decided to stay put in our current campground for another day. Temperatures tomorrow are supposed to zoom up to 57 degrees, so that should give any accumulations on the roads a chance to melt. So you CAN teach old dogs new tricks.

Denny and I are still acclimating ourselves to the new trailer. Most of the changes are good, but one caused us a great deal of frustration yesterday. Our new rig has hydraulic front leveling jacks as opposed to the electric jacks on our previous two trailers. I'm used to having about two feet of jack extension to work with in raising our trailer up high enough to hitch up to Black Beauty, so yesterday when I raised the jacks and they stopped about 3 inches short of being high enough to slide the truck into position I freaked. The jacks would go down, but stopped after extending about 14 inches. Not good. I immediately put in a call to the RV dealer service department, speaking to the manager who did some trouble shooting with fuses until we got it through his head that the jacks would go down and then back up, but only to a certain point. That's when he explained that we only had about 14 inches of extension available on the hydraulic part of the jacks. Crap! Do we haul out the hydraulic jack we use to change tires, meaning we'd also have to unload the air compressor to make it work? Denny decided to try to back the truck up and see if the angle of the downhill slope would allow the hitch to slide up the receiver and lock in. As he backed up I could see the receiver turning so far downward that I was sure the whole thing would jackknife and bind up so that we'd never get either hitched or unhitched, but thanks to the new Trailair hitch and some guardian angels, the receiver angled back up and the kingpin settled into place and we were hitched up. Lesson learned; no steeply sloped campsites for us, since the jacks don't extend anywhere near as far as what we're used to. It seems as though we are doomed to be stressed out for the month of December so I'm really looking forward to January and a new year.

Thus today we are snug in our new home while it sleets outside. Patches is curled up in the recliner, smart enough to know that today isn't a good day for walks. I've managed to make a few campground reservations today for the coming weeks and now it's time to go through a couple of cupboards in an effort to clear the clutter and arrange things in a more logical manner. Or maybe I'll just make a couple of mugs of hot chocolate for Denny and I and then sit and read a book. That would work too.

Our Christmas Present to Ourselves

This is the interior of The Beast. It's wet, cold and muddy outside so pictures of the exterior will have to wait.

Patches waiting to be taken out for a walk. The mirrored doors hide the controls for the lights and slides as well as a couple of coat hooks.
The dining/living room area.

Our TV watching spot.

A too dark photo of the desk area. I still have to work at connecting AV cables for the TV satellite sound and hook up the Wii.

The kitchen with the appliance garage/cabinet that went through five different proposed configurations before I finally caved in and met the manufacturer half way. But still not happy.

Water in the door refrigerator--if they could have made it with an ice dispenser Denny and I would have been in seventh heaven as we're ice water fiends.

The hallway houses a huge closet/cupboard area. I'm getting my exercise going up and down the steps to get food items for meal preparations.

The bathroom, obviously.

The hoity-toity glass vanity bowl.

The fixtures in the shower match the sink; brushed nickle, very modern.

Yep, it's a bedroom. I've already removed the original stiff-as-cardboard and poorly fitted bedspread and bought a new comforter. More warmth, more eye appeal. This is another area I fought over; our decor package is called Indigo. Do you see any Indigo in this room? Yeah, me either. Seems the manufacturer now makes every bedroom chocolate no matter what color package of the four offered that you choose. WTF?

Behind the louvered doors is hidden the stacking washer and dryer.

Glass paneled door to the hallway. The other door leads into the bathroom.

Darb's Christmas Present to Us

Ups and Downs

Denny and I arrived in Elkhart, Indiana on Tuesday to look over our new fifth wheel. I'll just say that when I walked around inside it after arriving Tuesday afternoon I cried. Unfortunately, they weren't happy tears. There had been many unannounced changes made between the 2010 model Denny and I looked at and the 2011 model that we ordered sight unseen. And they weren't changes for the better. It's a long and ugly story and I'm not up to telling it right now. I was so upset that I didn't even get pictures of what was wrong with the trailer to show you, all I'll have eventually is the rig finished more the way I wanted it. But right now, we're in transit to Texas and what with all the fixes the service techs had to do Denny and I were still transferring our stuff out of the old trailer and putting it in the new one at 11 o'clock at night on Friday night so we could get out of Elkhart early Saturday morning. That meant that we just piled and crammed stuff in any cabinet and nook and cranny we could find and I'll have to rearrange once we settle in Texas for a few days. So no pictures while this place looks like a hurricane just hit it.

There was an inch of snow on the ground and more coming when we pulled out of the service building Saturday morning and the truck slipped and slid pulling out onto the street. Fortunately all the main roads were just wet and none of the bridges were icy so we made it to Terre Haute for the first night where we hooked up to the campground's wi-fi to make contact with the world for the first time in 4 days. We had been so busy dealing with service guys, our RV dealer, insurance people, bank people, et al that for once we didn't miss not having access to TV or wi-fi (we were parked inside the RV dealer's service building while the guys took care of all the changes that I insisted upon) The service techs had to finish getting the rig ready for us (prepped) since the trailer had come off the assembly line two days later than planned and we almost beat the trailer to the RV dealer. We were all working on top of each other as the workers fixed and installed things while Denny and I were trying to carry our belongings in, so the guys never even had the opportunity to clean up the rig as is standard procedure; that's something I'll be doing once we're settled for a couple of days. I didn't ask them to finish their prep work because that would have meant hanging around in the cold and snow for three more days and we just weren't prepared to do that and us making the service techs make the unexpected changes threw off their scheduled work on other people's RVs. Everyone involved was pretty short-tempered at any given time over the four days we were there.

Emotionally, it's not been a good week. I have had to tell Denny (and myself) to take a deep breath several times to keep from blowing. In the season of brotherly love, I've wanted to tear the heads off several people and smile as I'm doing it. But tonight I'm sitting here with a cup of hot tea while the tiny table top Christmas tree twinkles merrily beside me and I'm finally beginning to relax and appreciate the features of the new trailer. I know it will be a while before the trailer becomes "ours" as Denny and I have several small modifications and additions to make/install to make the rig more livable and user friendly. It's what we've done with the four other RVs we've owned and so we'll do it with this, our final RV. In a few days, I'll post pictures, starting with one of Black Beauty and the Beast.

And we'll be fine.