Stella and the Injured Puppy

January 2, 2016

Okay, we got the truck. We got our new South Dakota Driver’s Licenses. Time to pick up our new home and start our adventure! Larry got to pick out the truck’s name so I wanted to christen the 5^th Wheel. Our new travel cards, truck license plate, e-mail and blog were all going to be some version of Lucky Stars so I wanted something celestial. I thought Stella was perfect. Plus… Marlon Brando!

Ringing in the New Year with family was a bittersweet event. I was exciting about the future but wondering how I would make it without my daily hugs from my Grandkids. I knew missing them would be the hardest part of all this! I started EVERY SINGLE MORNING with a big hug from my sweet Delaney! She’s a morning person like me and was usually the first of them up. That last morning hug on January 1^st was difficult. I knew I’d hug her again but not like this. I spent most of the day just looking at all of them and randomly hugging who ever was near.

We had to be up early on the 2^nd so the plan was to get to bed early. What do they say about the best-laid plans? We’d been packing the stuff we had to transfer to the new rig in boxes so we could grab and go. We were still packing at 1 AM. Morning came fast. We were up before the sun, hitched up and said a tearful farewell to our very sleepy kids and Grandkids!

Despite my paranoia that we’d crash and destroy our down payment, the 2-hour drive to the RV Dealership was uneventful. Wish I could’ve said the same for picking up the rig. We had more papers to sign and no one knew where the keys to our new home were. It took a while but we finally got all that taken care of and got a little tour and tutorial of how things work. Along with the keys the sales person handed me an envelope with a $40 gift certificate to their RV store. I went to the little store to browse, the dogs got comfortable on the new couch and Larry started transferring boxes from our old rig to the new one. 

I found out for $40 I could buy a wraparound step cover for 1 and 1/3 of the 4 steps leading up to the rig. We decided to go ahead and buy the other 2 and 2/3 as well. I wanted to install them right away but Larry wanted to get everything in first. Guess who won? Guess who should’ve been more insistant?

We were hoping to finish packing in time to take off for Carson City, NV. We had tentative reservations at The Silver City RV Park there. By 4 PM we were pretty sure we weren’t going to make it. The dealership said they had a spot with full hookups so we could spend the night there for free. We took them up on the offer and continued packing. At 7 PM we ordered a pizza. I started to explain to the guy where I wanted it delivered. He told me they delivered there all the time and knew where it was. I guess we weren’t the first to underestimate our ability to pack up a new RV.

We ate. We packed. We decided enough was enough. It was late, so I decided to take the dogs out for one more potty trip before going to bed. Dachshunds aren’t supposed to go up and down stairs so I try to carry them down. I got Jackson down and turned around to get Jenny. I think she thought I was going to leave her there because she took the steps on her own. She made it to the last step then fell off! I freaked. I thought she’d hurt her back but she recouped quick and started walking to the place I’d been taking them to pee. It was on the trip back that she started limping and I noticed the blood. I picked her up and realized one of her nails was completely gone and another one was a shredded mess. Her poor little paw was all bloody!

The steps of the trailer have little holes in them just big enough for a dog’s claw. I knew I should have insisted that we put the step covers on! I bandaged her up and tried to make her comfortable. I told Larry when we got to Carson City, NV the next day the first thing we were going to do was find a vet!

Meet Christine

November 2015 (Part two) 

Barely awake, I wasn’t completely sure I heard Larry correctly when he crawled into bed and with a shaky voice told me we bought the wrong truck.

“Huh?” I asked.

He said something about the truck pulling the weight of the trailer but the bed wouldn’t support the tongue weight with anything else in the truck. Including me!

I was sure he was just tired and had read something wrong. “It’s 2 AM! We’ll figure it out in the morning.” I told him.

The next morning, fully awake, we went over the numbers together. Even I, with my limited knowledge of trucks and trailers could see, WE BOUGHT THE WRONG TRUCK!!!!

I was sick. “What are we going to do?”

“I’m going down there today with that paper he signed and demand that they take the truck back and find us the right truck!”

Larry went to work. I stayed home and worried. I really didn’t think the “signed guarantee” was worth the paper it was written on. They’d probably take the truck back but we still needed a truck and I figured they’d have us over a barrel. There was no way we’d get a bigger truck for the same money and I was sure our fantastic deal was out the window.

I really need to stop underestimating my husband’s negotiating prowess!

Close to the end of the day he called me and asked if I would rather have a black truck with a moon roof or a white truck with the bed liner already in. (One of the pluses of the “wrong” truck was it already had a bed liner) Easy decision: I’m not fond of white vehicles and… ZION! I kept picturing all the beautiful places in Utah and around the country I wanted to go that would look spectacular through my new moon roof! He said I should come down there now because he needed me to sign all the papers again! The truck wasn’t on the lot but it was being delivered from another dealership.

I started to ask what kind of deal he got. He just said quietly, “Really good, come down now.”

I got there just in time to see our shiny new Black Chevy 3500HD Turbo Silverado dually with a moon roof being delivered.

I found out as soon as Larry walked into the dealership a sales person approached him, he showed the guy the figures about tongue weight and the signed guarantee from the sales manager. The guy looked at him and said, “They sold you the wrong truck!”

He knew right then he was going home with the right truck! We didn’t really want a dually. I knew eventually I’d have to drive it and I wasn’t crazy about driving anything that wide but that’s what we were going to need to pull our trailer.

And for some reason the sales person was all excited about our “Black Bow Tie”!

“What’s that?” I asked him.

“The Bow Tie on the truck! It’s black, not gold! Not a lot of trucks out there with a Black Bow tie!” He seemed very impressed.

My I-don’t-know-what-you’re-talking-about face must have translated to him as an I’m-not-impressed face.

“People special order them!” he gushed.

“What is that?” I asked.

“The Bow Tie! The symbol of Chevrolet!”

Finally Larry pointed to the front of the truck where the little Chevy symbol is. “It’s black.”

“Ohhhh, okay.” I understood but still was not impressed.

The salesperson gave up.

On the drive down I remembered that we had left our Mickey Mouse antenna ball on the old truck. I figured I’d retrieve it while we was there. “Do you know if the old truck is still here?” I asked Larry.

“Yeah, I saw it in the parking lot over there. Why?”

I started to head that way saying, “I want the antenna ball.”

“We need to get the paperwork done first,” he insisted.

“Okay, but it better be there when we’re done!”

Thank goodness most of the negotiations were done before I even got there. Pretty much all that was left was talking with the finance guy and signing the papers. Even so it seemed to take a long time. Larry wanted to get everything we could out of them. After several hours we were both tired from our (mostly his) exhausting research from the night before. The last line was signed and we were ready to be on our way when I remembered… the antenna ball!

“We’ll get a new antenna ball!” Larry said.

“Kelly got that for you!”

He looked beat, but I was insistent!

“You said we’d get it when we were done! Where did you see the truck?”

He pointed to a far corner of the parking lot. I headed in that direction.

No 2006 Chevy Silverado in sight!

“They must have taken it already,” he said.

“Wait, there’s cars back there!” I pointed to a fenced area.

“There’s no way to get in there accept through that office,” he complained.

“So I’ll check the office.”

“Sherry, they’re closed! No one is in there! I’ll buy you a new antenna ball!”

“There’s a light on! I’m going to check the door!”

The door opened so I went in and looked around. Most of the lights were off and it was a bit creepy walking around but I was determined! I walked to the back of the building where I figured it opened up to the fenced in yard. Locked! I was pretty sure my search ended here. Disappointed I decided I would just have to call them in the morning to see if anyone knew where the truck was. I left the building and Larry and I walked toward our new truck. It was kind of hard to be too disappointed because… NEW TRUCK!

“Hello! Can I help you with something?” The voice came from behind us.

I turned around and saw a women walking our way.

I told her we were looking for the truck we had traded in the other day because we left an antenna ball on it. She looked at me like she wished she hadn’t bothered. I told her it was a gift from our daughter.

She brightened up, “Well we’re just going to have to find that truck then!”

“Really, it’s okay. We don’t need it.” Larry said.

“Nonsense! Of course you do!”

I looked at her and smiled. “You’re a mom aren’t you?”

“Yes I am and we’re going to find that antenna ball!”

“I’ll wait here,” Larry said.

She took me back into the building. Opened the lock door to the yard and helped me search! I found the truck, retrieved the Mickey and thanked her.

“Us moms, we know what’s important and we stick together!” She said.

So we got the Christine we needed to pull our new trailer and thanks to a mom whose name I wish I knew we got our lucky Mickey Mouse golf ball antenna ball right where it’s supposed to be!

Time to hit the road! (well almost)

Meet Christine

November 2015 (Part one)

When we got the truck in October we had already picked out the trailer. Larry did quite a bit of research and knew, despite what Giant RV said, that our old 2006 Chevy Silverado 1500 would not do the job. We’d had good luck with our old Chevy so he crunched the numbers and thought a new Silverado 2500 HD would work. Together we drove to the Chevy Dealer in Ventura, CA. The first thing we told them was we just bought a new 5^th wheel and needed something to pull it. We were very clear about the size and weight of the trailer. They agreed that a 2500 should do the job. We looked at a few trucks and decided on one we liked. Now for the fun part: negotiating a price. For Larry it’s a game, a game he’s pretty good at. Me, not so much. They seem to smell fear and they’re always trying to corner me, get me alone.

It took most of the day, with a lot of back and forth but he wore them down and got them to agree to a really great price at really great terms. We were just about to sign the deal when Larry realized we had nothing in writing that guaranteed the truck would actually pull the trailer we had already purchased.

The salesman was sure he’d be able to find a spec sheet and went off in search of one. After quite a long wait he came back with his manager who proceeded to give us his personal guarantee that the truck would pull what we had. He hadn’t asked about our trailer or anything; even I was suspicious of that! Larry asked if they had a brochure we could have. The sales manager assured us we would not need one, that we had his word on it.

Yeah…

No offense to Car salespeople but a piece of paper with the guarantee written on it would have made us feel a lot more comfortable.

I said, “You don’t have brochures? Something with specs listed on it?”

“Here, I’ll show you what we have.” He says.

He took us to an enormous laminated book held together like a giant notebook on a pedestal in the lobby. He flipped through the oversized pages until he found the spec sheet of our model truck. It showed how much weight it would pull, more than the weight of our trailer. I was satisfied.

Larry was not. He wanted to know what the tongue weight or something was. He kept on insisting they provide us with a signed piece of paper guaranteeing the truck would pull our trailer.

I was getting embarrassed at his insistence and a little irritated. It was late and I was tired. I just wanted to take the guys word for it, sign the reams of papers I knew was next and go home with our new truck. Larry wouldn’t budge. He said, “Look if you don’t have anything, then you don’t have anything, but I’m not buying a truck without some kind of guarantee that it will pull the trailer I already bought.”

The salesman, a young guy who had just spent the entire day working on a deal for a vehicle that I’m sure would land him a sizeable commission, could see that commission evaporating before his eyes. He asked if he could talk with the manager privately for a few minutes. They left, we sat there again, joking about how they probably had a camera and were spying on us to watch for our reaction. They came back about 20 minutes later with a sales pamphlet (minus any specs) on the truck. In front of us the sales manager wrote on the pamphlet “I guarantee that this truck will be able to pull a…” he asked what the trailer was and it’s weight and added that to his note. He signed it and handed it to us. I looked at Larry, he looked at me and said, “Works for me!”

We spent a little more time with the finance guy, signed the reams of papers, emptied our stuff out of the old truck and drove home happy in our beautiful new Chevy 2500HD Turbo Silverado. I even liked the smoky blue color!

The truck came with an OnStar trial period so the next day Larry was out setting it up. I went out to see how he was doing. With a big goofy grin he said, “Meet Christine! OnStar wants you to name it so…”

“Of course, Christine.” I laughed.

Anyone unfamiliar with Stephen King’s Christine, I recommend it! So does Larry!

Now to find the right hitch!

That took a bunch more research!

Larry had a lot going on at his job but came home Monday after work and got started.

He worked most of the evening looking up different hitches and weights and everything involved with pulling a trailer that size.

I had kids coming over the next day (I ran a child care out of our home) and was tired. I kissed him goodnight and went to bed around midnight with him still Googeling stuff.

I think it was around 2 in the morning when he came to bed and said, “We bought the wrong truck!”

(to be continued)

Home, Home On Four Wheels!

(How all of this started)

In August of 2015 I saw an ad for the upcoming Pomona RV show. It was billed as the biggest RV Show in the country. Or something like that anyway. We were still debating our retirement lifestyle. We weren’t sure if we were going to buy a smaller house somewhere or live in an RV, but we were pretty sure we’d need a new one soon. Our faithful Jazz had given us 10 years of fun times but was starting to show lots of wear. I told Larry about the show and said, “We don’t have to buy anything, but it’ll be nice to see what’s out there.”

Famous last words.

If you check your almanac you’ll find that Pomona, CA was well over 100 degrees that weekend. IN OCTOBER! We were told multiple times, “It’s the hottest it’s ever been at this show!” We know already! Stop saying that!

We dragged ourselves through the heat to every 5^th wheel that looked promising, and they were right. The show was huge! There were miles of RVs. Few of them hooked up to any electrical outlets so… no AC. They were almost as hot inside as out.

We both had certain ideas of what we wanted in a rig. He wanted ALL the ceilings to be at least 6’4”. He’s 6’3” and was tired of ducking all the time. I wanted it to be less than 40’ long. I’d read lots of blogs and heard too many horror stories about trying to get a spot for anything over 35’. I also wanted a TV across from a sitting area. I was surprised at how many RVs have a TV at the way back with a couch off to one side and chairs off to the other. I want to relax when I watch TV not strain my neck! And of course it HAD to have room in the bedroom for my puppies beds!

At first I tried to be polite. I’d walk in, see the TV in the back and think, nope, not this one, but I’d listen to the sales person’s pitch anyway. But as the temperature rose my patients fell. I’d look inside, see where the TV was and just walk out usually with one of them following me saying, “Wait, wait, let me show you what we have!”

We saw a lot of rigs that we liked but they all had one or two things we didn’t. Larry was concerned with some of the technical things, I was looking at the livability. And we were both surprised at the number of rigs that had a nice little decretive archway at the doorway to the bedroom. I could just see him with a permanent bald spot on the top of his head where he’d scrape it. Not to mention the flying F-bombs!

We both appreciated that so many of them came with a residential size refrigerator standard and I loved the idea of a kitchen island. Some of them had a washer/dryer combo and some had stacked washer and dryers. I really thought both were an unnecessary added weight but Larry kept insisting it would be worth it.

We went back to the hotel tired and hot with a lot to think about. One of the first things I did was call my mom. My parents had been full time RVers for 10 years and their 5^th wheel had a stacked washer and dryer. I asked her if it was worth the weight. She told me she LOVED not having to go to a Laundromat! She convinced me. And she was right. I LOVE my washer and dryer! I did say I’d rather have the storage drawer for my pots and pans rather than the little dishwasher some of them had. That turned out to be a great decision because Larry does the dishes anyway!

We ended up spending 3 days at the RV show and buying a Heartland 3270RS Bighorn. We bought the show model with the promise of them adding a generator and washer and dryer to it. We told them right off the bat that we wouldn’t be able to pick it up until early January. The particular unit we bought was the only one that was hooked up to an outlet big enough to run the fan. No AC but a fan. I wasn’t thrilled with the idea of a thousand sweaty bodies sitting in MY chairs to get cool but the show price was great and I thought a little disinfectant wipe would fix that.

A few days later I got a call from someone at the dealership asking why, if we weren’t going to pick it up until January, did we want the show model?

Duh! The price!

He told me they didn’t really want the unit to sit on their lot for 2 ½ months and asked if we got the same price and could deliver it by January 2^nd, would we consider a new unit direct from the factory? He said we could order it in any color we wanted and add any other features we wanted, of course we’d have to pay for anything extra. I thought it sounded like a great idea! No sweaty bodies and Larry had been concerned about adding the generator and washer and dryer aftermarket. I talked to him that night. He was really excited because he wanted dual pane windows and the Yeti package that would make it more cold weather proof. That was something they couldn’t add afterward. It was set. We went with the same color we saw at the show and our new unit was being built just for us.

At the show they kept trying to tell us the 2006 Chevy Silverado 1500 crew cab we had would pull this new trailer. No problem…they said! Larry knew that wasn’t true. He knew we’d need a bigger truck to pull this bigger trailer. But knowing what we were getting would make it easier to pick out the right truck. Or so we thought…