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…