August 16, 2003

Whew!  It's hot!  Just hit 102 degrees, and the humidity is up there someplace, but I wouldn't know because I'm refusing to go outside!  We're in Nacogdoches, TX, sitting in the parking lot campground of the Foretravel factory.  And yes, we're sitting in our new home.  It's a 1999 40' Foretravel, U320.  I'll be building a special page for it as well as the truck and trailer, and will give all the details regarding our rigs there.

Since the last update, a lot has happened as you may have guessed.  We got to Nacogdoches as predicted, a little after noon, and by closing time had bought the unit they had here.  Dave Zimmer is the salesman and we felt we were treated with respect.  Besides, he took us to lunch and paid for it right off the bat.  Those of you who know us know we love free food, so that was a very good start indeed.  We'd parked the truck and trailer in the parking lot campground, plugged into 50 Amp service and water, with a dump station about 100 yards away.  Near heavenly after the rather tiring trip down here from NH.  Thursday morning had us going over the motorhome, or coach, as it's called by many, with our list of things to fix/change.  We finished up the paperwork in the office, and again were treated with respect and kindness.

Buying big stuff like this is difficult for me, and I tend to stress out over whether we're getting a "good deal" or not, and how all the pressure tactics will affect my thinking and all that.  I worried in naught, yet again.  The interest rate we needed was available, the phone calls between us and our broker went well, the market had kindly taken a bit of an upturn and that was fortunate for us.  Then they took the coach into the "Forestar" facility where the PDI or Pre Delivery Inspection was going to take place.  We'd put together a list of things like a sticky couch drawer, ding in the windshield, and other little things we hoped they'd fix for us.  That evening the coach was available to us and we again went poking around with our list in hand, noting the things we hoped they'd pay some attention to.  During the next day, Friday, we were allowed to go into the coach as they were working on it because we wanted to show Dwayne just what it was we wanted in the way of a computer station and file drawers.  I counted 7 men working at different things on the coach.  What amazed me most, was the fellow with the light bulbs, going around pulling out the ones that were in there and replacing them with new bulbs.  Next to catch my attention was the fellow adjusting the doors hiding the washer/dryer.  The day before I'd noticed they didn't meet in the middle. They were about 1/8" off, but I'd also noted that the hinges were adjustable and someday I'd have a screwdriver in my hand and "fix" the problem.  A problem only for those of us who are compulsive about straight lines and things lining up nice and neat.  The only time it would even be noticed was when I was on the toilet, so it wasn't really very high on my list of things to do--though I'd see it every time . . . you know.  But there somebody was, taking care of it.  I pointed to Barb where the day before there had been the little holes left when somebody took out the nails holding their pictures.  The holes had been so well patched we couldn't find them.  The oil in the generator was being changed, along with the fuel and oil and air filters.  The engine AND transmission had new oil and filters as well.  We began to get the impression we weren't buying a used unit, but rather a new unit with 45,000 miles on it that has a one year or 12,000-mile warrantee on it.  Interesting that we've got that warrantee on the air- conditioners, refer, and everything else that moves on this coach.  Yeah, the cosmetic things like decals aren't warranted, but they replaced all the torn, scratched and dinged ones!  And they buffed out a scratch in the gelcoat on one of the bay doors as well, and none of those things were on our list.  If we sound enthused about this place and these people, it's because we are.  Today is Saturday, and sitting in front of the motorhome is a well-used mini-van that is ours for the weekend.  We used it for several hours yesterday to run errands, and it will be available to us during the week next week if we need it.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.  Since we'd sold the truck to John and Elaine from Woodland, WA, and needed to meet them in Houston on Wednesday, there was a lot that needed to happen between Friday night and Monday.  Things like moving all our stuff out of the trailer and truck, and into the motorhome.  The shop had rebuilt/replaced the AquaHot unit, so we could now start loading the "basement."  The AquaHot unit supplies us with our heat (that we really don't need today!) and hot water.  We love taking nice long hot showers, and now we can without running out of hot water.  It runs on diesel fuel rather than propane, and I think we'll like that when we're boondocking in the desert in the winter.  Chasing down propane is a hassle, and the only things that use propane here are the stove top and the refer when it's turned from electricity to propane.  The coach only has a 17-gallon tank, and when I talked to some other owners about how often they had to fill it, I got answers ranging from once a year to once every two years.  Another worry down the tubes!

We spent Friday night until we couldn't see transferring things from one home to the other, and it was a good thing we had all day Saturday and Sunday to do it, because I was beginning to panic.  On Saturday I did panic, and Barb came to the rescue by assuring me we could rent a trailer and haul what wouldn't go into the motorhome back to NH where we could take our time and sort through things, having a garage sale or major Goodwill donation.  We'd have our Jeep again, and could run around finding storage containers to fit the various needs, and I was able to breath deeply again.  But it was a very long weekend nonetheless.  And my tan lines got much more noticeable, too.  We began to pile up our leftover stuff against the outside wall of the laundry room, here in the campground under the shelter, and many of the other owners waiting for service teased us about getting ready for the flea market and things like that.  Great people, and we enjoyed short conversations as we went about our work.  Barb and I differ on our assessment of percentages, but let's just say that the trailer and truck held a lot more stuff than the motorhome ever will.  With a NCC (net cargo capacity) of 5780#, I'm comfortable we'll not be overweight, but we sure did run out of room.  It is so blasted hot here, it's hard to think when you're in it--high 90's, low 100's the whole time, and the high humidity to boot.  Stifling!

Monday morning I left Barb in the customer lounge and the motorhome in the shop, and drove the 400+ miles to Kerrville, TX, to deliver the trailer.  We'd traded it in, and got a bit more for it by delivering it to a dealer in Kerrville.  Spent my last night in the trailer at the dealership up there, and Moby Dick and I then headed for Houston on Tuesday morning.  Found a "$49.00 and up" motel near the airport, and found out what the "...and up" meant.  The motel was at the intersection of Hwy 59 and Beltway 8, and I could clearly hear the traffic on both highways all night, so I was "up" most the night. 

Met John and Elaine (you'll meet them later) and enjoyed breakfast with them at their hotel.  Since John bought my breakfast, I enjoyed it even more!  They seemed as thrilled with the truck as Barb and I had been when we got it, so the parting was bittersweet.  It wasn't as hard to see them drive away as I thought it would be, nor did I feel particularly bad when I saw the Road Abode sitting there in the lot for the last time.  Progress requires change, and change is painful, thus all progress is painful someone once said.  But in this case the pain was minimal, at least for me.

Shortly after John and Elaine started their trip to WA, Barb came to pick me up in a rental car.  Good thing she was driving, as I was so sleep deprived I'd have had trouble staying on the highway.  She'd rented the car in the morning, had some help getting one of the tables from the living room and the secretary's chair from the computer desk in the trailer into the car, dropping them off at the CARE center at Rainbow Park, the Escapees HQ where she also retrieved our mail on her way to get me.  We were able to spend Wed. night in the motorhome again, as it was our only option.  Wonderful mattress, nice and firm, and made even better by the air-conditioners.  The interior was a bit cluttered, but no matter as we had to be out again by 7:30 a.m. so the crew could go back to work getting it ready for us.  We did that for two more days, and on Friday the 9th, a full week after we'd bought the coach, it was finally ready for us.  We drove immediately to Wal-Mart.  Not to spend the night, but to go shopping.  And then we drove the 150 miles to the Lake Tawakoni TNN park.  We'd been there in March, so it wasn't particularly stressful to get there as it was getting dark.  We knew our way around.  Which was good, because the first space we parked in had a bad 30-amp breaker, and it kept tripping with just our single air-conditioner.  We moved immediately to another space, giving me some practice at backing into spaces without hitting any trees.  The next morning, that breaker quit on us about the time a maintenance worker came by and replaced it.  The replacement wasn't any better, so we moved for the third time.  This one seemed to be better.  "Seemed" being the operative word here.  After five days of going out every afternoon and resetting the breaker, we left to come back here to the factory.  Ah, the joy of reliable 50-amp power when it's this hot!  We learned a few things about our new coach and tripping the breaker.  We have two air-conditioners, but only used one, which was good; then we thought, oh yeah, the refer can run on gas, so we switched it to gas, which I'm sure also helped.  We learned later, though, that the AquaHot system uses quite a load and that we probably should have shut that off too.  So, next time we may not have the breaker problem at all.

On Monday the coach will go back into the Forestar service bays and have its carpet replaced with tile (except for the bedroom), a set of file drawers built in, and the computer station installed.  We'll be living in a hotel for the week, so we're liable to get caught up on both this website as well as some reading.  Then it's off to NH to retrieve the Jeep (that had all four brake calipers replaced while we were gone - many thanks to brother-in-law Ray, who has an auto repair business), sort our stuff, and get organized so we can get back to life as we like it.  We'd planned on another (volunteer) SOWER project in northern Maine, but because of the changes, we had to cancel it.  Next SOWER project is planned for December in Florida.