More of this and that...

The old blogger has been down with a cold this week.  No zip, so I haven't done much.  Today, however, I feel a lot better... and the USB outlets arrived.  I couldn't let that pass by. So, I installed one. It turns out that the box I wanted to install the outlet in was not deep enough to accommodate the new outlet. Consequently, it was necessary to replace the box, which required taking the door off one of the closets to get to it.

Isn't it funny how a little project can turn into a major hassle? After a bit of effort and some concern about being in the cabover while the camper is off the truck, I managed to get the job done.  When I came in the house, I realized that I was wringing wet! It is hot in that garage!

Tomorrow, I will install the remaining two USB outlets.  They should be easier, because I know the boxes are deep enough, and one of them is near the floor, which means it will be cooler and more accessible.

I must confess that, even though I wasn't feeling very well, I installed the new TV/DVD combo that arrived on Wednesday. It was a 10 minute job, and I am very pleased with the result.  I can plug an FM repeater in the headphone jack and send the sound to our stereo system, giving us virtual surround sound.  Jill was impressed!

We have a post-Labor Day outing planned, so we will be able to try out all of our little tweaks to Topper. We are excited. Stay tuned. 

A little of this and a little of that

Never one to let well enough alone, I decided that Topper needed some more places to plug things in.  So, yesterday and today, I added four outlets. I have ordered some special 120 VAC outlets that also have USB ports for charging various electronic devices.  Most notably, these will be used for charging our two iPhones, Jill's iPad, and her iPod. 

Oddly, the manufacturer didn't put an outlet in the dinette area.  So, one of the new outlets is situated under the dinette table, so we can plug in laptops, etc. I also added an outlet (one of the ones with USB output will go there, when it arrives) to Jill's side of the bed, where there was no outlet before.  I also added an outlet for the TV that we have ordered.  It should be here tomorrow.

My activity got Jill inspired, and she took down the hideous wallpaper border that was peeling off the wall above our bed.  It looks so much nicer without that mess. I mounted a paper towel rack in the galley, as well as a spice rack. So, little by little, we are personalizing Topper.  We have a few more little odds and ends that we want to do this week. 

Next week, we hope to make our annual September getaway. Last year's outing was cut short, because our motor home was in the shop, but we sold her last weekend, and now we have Topper.  Topper is ready to go, even if we don't get all the little projects done that we have on our list.

So, stand by for further reports. Until then, happy trails to you (with apologies to Roy Rogers and Dale Evans.)

The Maiden Voyage of Topper

Having driven Topper home from the dealership, I quickly realized that the pickup was going to need some rear axle spring assistance. I had great luck with AirLift spring helpers on the front of our motor home, so I got online and found the proper match for our pickup and ordered a set of AirLift 5000 air bags.

It took me most of a day to install the air bags, because I don't own a lift or even jackstands. I spent several hours rolling around under the unraised truck on a creeper. This is not as easy as you might think for a 67 year old man. In the end, however, it was well worth it. The air bags lifted the rear end of the truck back to a normal, level ride.

Jill had emptied everything out of the motor home in order to get it cleaned up and ready for sale. We piled it all on a table in the garage. When the airbags were installed and we had tested the ride in the new configuration, we sorted through the pile on the table. Obviously, some things had to go. You can't fit a 31 foot motorhome worth of stuff into a 10 foot camper!

Once the decisions had been made about must-haves and wanna-haves, Jill did a magnificent job of stowing things aboard Topper. Best of all, she reported that we (meaning she) would be fine with what we had kept. All the necessities of life were accounted for. We began looking for an opportunity to go camping. We can legally call it that now, since we will be doing it in a “camper.”

I found a website for Linn County parks, and the more I read, the more intriguing the parks sounded. I chose to make a reservation for two nights at River Bend County Park. Although we had had three vehicles listed on Craigslist for sale, God smiled on us and gave us buyers for two of them the very night before we were scheduled to take Topper out for a trial run. Hallelujah!

We took off from home yesterday afternoon. I was a little bit nervous, a lot excited, and anxious to see how everything went. To my delight, the truck performed very well. The water temperature stayed steady at about 200 degrees no matter what terrain we encountered. The transmission temperature varied between about 175 and 190, depending on how much shifting was going on. Interestingly, it seemed to heat up at slower speeds, as in going through towns, probably because the changes in speed and acceleration required more shifting. Suffice to say, I was very pleased with the overall performance of the truck.

We arrived at our campsite about 3:30 PM. It is gorgeous. We are nestled in among a stand of Douglas fir trees. Our site is level with a nice big concrete patio and a fire pit. There is water and electricity, and plenty of privacy. We took the dogs for a hike along the South Santiam river, which gives the park its name. The river is low, so the water is crystal clear, and there are some beautiful swimming holes and fishing holes. 

The dogs were pretty confused about why we are staying in this little-bitty, foreign house, instead of that spacious motor home. But as the afternoon and evening progressed, they began to settle in. At bedtime, Lulu was pretty concerned about being way up in the air on the cab-over bed. Eventually, she settled down and we all got a good night's sleep. 

As people our ages will do, we each had occasion to get up in the night to use the bathroom. On my visit, I noted that upon flushing, a little water came out from under the toilet and ran down the floor into the shower drain. I hadn't worn my glasses, so I couldn't tell for sure what was going on. I made a mental note that the toilet would need to be repaired and went back to bed.

In the morning, we got up and had coffee. I walked the dogs, and then Jill used the bathroom again. She let out an exclamation, “The black tank is full!” Why had that not occurred to me? I instantly went to the dark place, thinking a repair was called for. I guess wearing my glasses would have helped.

Jill stowed everything, and we put the dogs in the backseat of the truck. Off we went to the dump station. At least at this time of the morning, there is no competition to get to the dump! Upon dumping, I noticed that the contents of the black tank were mostly clear, blue-green fluid. “Aha,” I thought, “the dealership must have filled the tank with cleaner/disinfectant and forgotten to empty it before delivery.” I was relieved that the rest of the camping trip would not have to be spent doing toilet repair!

So, now the sun is out. We have had breakfast. The dogs are snoozing on the sofa between us. I am writing this post, and Jill is writing letters to her brother and our daughter. The day is full of promise. Let's see, I think another walk along the river is in order. Perhaps, I will start that new novel Jill brought home for me. Life is good. Topper is going to be a great addition to the family. 

 My beautiful bride as we sat down for our first meal in Topper. 

Notice the lovely tableware we chose! We were concerned about 

Conserving water.  Topper's holding tanks are smaller than Sadie's.

Little Foxes

Song of Solomon 2:15 - "Catch the foxes for us, the little foxes that spoil the vineyards, for our vineyards are in blossom."  In God's most poetic and beautiful book about marriage, He tells us to "catch the little foxes,"  the little irritating things in life that get us off track and distract our focus from the task at hand, i.e., building a loving relationship of service to our spouses.

Now, far be it from me to suggest that Topper and our pickup are anything like a marriage partner. On the other hand, there are always some "little foxes," when you buy a used vehicle.  When we purchased our used pickup, we knew that the power mirror switch was faulty. It would drive the mirrors in three of the four necessary directions to properly align them.  Unsatisfactory! A little fox.

This little fox was easily caught.  An order to Amazon for a new switch module. Two days for shipping. Five minutes to pop out the old switch and plug in the new one. Voila! The mirrors work. Now on to the task at hand: the transition from four vehicles to two = downsizing and simplifying our lives.

The Adventure Begins

Written July 18, 2013

Today begins a new chapter in our RVing life and a new blog. Last winter, we made a trip in Sadie, our 1988 Hawkins Motor Coach, to Casey's RV park in Westfir, OR. While we were there, we talked about our dream of criss-crossing the good ol' US of A in an RV. I mentioned that, if we had a class B motor home (basically a converted van) we could easily drive wherever we wanted to go, Jill would be able to drive, and fuel costs would be more in line with our budget.

More to the point, we have been talking for some time about downsizing and simplifying our lives. We are retired, empty-nesters, and yet we license and insure 4 vehicles! That is outrageous. Nevertheless, we have felt we can't get along without a daily driver for Jill, a daily driver for me that doubles as our towed car when we travel in Sadie, a pickup for all the hauling we are called on to do to keep up our home and help the kids with their projects, and of course, our beloved Sadie.

That started a sequence of events that has led us to today's developments. First, we stopped at Guaranty RV in Junction City, on the way home from that trip. We looked at a number of class B and class B+ motor homes. Jill fell in love with a 23' Chinook B+. I must admit, I was drawn to it as well. For weeks, nay months, Jill looked online for similar coaches. She found numerous brands and models, any one of which might have filled the bill, except that none was in our price range. As I thought about this dilemma, it occurred to me that a B+ motor home would require us to tow a car behind, just as we have to do with Sadie, if we want to do all the exploring we like to do. That kind of blows our simplification plan.

In June, we circumnavigated the Olympic Peninsula in Sadie. We had a marvelous time. Along the way we encountered some ladies who call themselves “Sisters on the Fly.” They are a bunch of ladies who own small, restored, vintage travel trailers. They have an annual outing for women only. They take their travel trailers, leave husbands, kids and dogs at home and get away for a weekend. We were told they had to turn away ladies from a 100 space RV park!

That encounter got us thinking about perhaps downsizing to a small travel trailer. Jill would be able to drive a pickup as easily as a class B, we would have a smaller RV to maintain, and we could use the pickup to do our exploring. That solved the problem of too many vehicles. The pickup could become my daily driver, since I don't do much daily driving, and it would still be a pickup. Only thing is, I never was really relaxed when pulling a travel trailer; and there is that axle and wheels and wheel bearings.

So, I floated the idea of a truck camper. To say that Jill's reaction was icy would be stretching a point, but she was not, shall we say, enthusiastic. We talked about it, and eventually, she agreed to consider the idea. This week we looked at a used camper/pickup combo for sale at a VERY attractive price. I had never driven such a combo and was anxious for a test drive. I was pleasantly surprised by how easy it was to drive. Jill was underwhelmed by the camper, which was old (23 years old to be exact) and not sparkling clean (he said euphemistically.) Nevertheless, the folks offering the setup were very nice and we considered it a blessing to have made their acquaintance. 19

Now, it would be incorrect to draw the conclusion that Jill was put off by this experience. On the contrary, she wanted to set out next morning and look at more campers. We made a drive to Junction City, the hub of RV sales in the Willamette Valley. We looked at dozens of campers, and oddly enough the one that caught Jill's eye was an older one that needs some cosmetic work. The price was certainly in the right range. Of course, the smallish problem we still had was lack of a suitable pickup to carry the thing. Jill sent an email to the dealership with some questions and was rapidly warming to the idea. I was crunching numbers to see if this project was feasible.

The reply from the dealership was encouraging, so Jill sent another email, and asked about the possibility of a package deal, since this dealership also owns used car lots. Unfortunately, we still have not had a reply. Fortunately, or also unfortunately, depending on your point of view, Jill found another camper on line, about which she said, “If it had air conditioning, this would be my dream camper.” I did a search on the NADA site to get an idea of the value of this unit. I was encouraged. So, guess where we went today! The camper has a perfect floor plan for our RV lifestyle. The dealership was not willing to move much on the price point, however, and I was seeing our pickup budget going down the drain.

Kevin, the salesman, did what he could and eventually made some concessions on the price of the camper and of an add-on AC unit. Then he put us in touch with an auto wholesaler who has done a lot of work for him. According to Kevin, Tim would be able to find us a suitable pickup within our budget. With Jill nearly in tears at the thought of losing this camper, I got Kevin to agree to a contingency deal. He will hold the camper for a few days while we search for a suitable pickup, if we will give him a refundable deposit. We signed on the dotted line.

Once we were back home, I called Tim, who promised to find a vehicle within our parameters and call back later in the day. True to his word, he called about 5 PM and said he had found the truck. It is a 2001 Ford F250 extended cab with a long box, overload springs, towing package and, surprise, a 7.3 liter Power Stroke diesel engine! I used to dream about owning this truck. It is slightly above my desired price point, but it looks like new and is close enough, price-wise. The bad news is that another party has made an offer. The good news for us (and I feel guilty saying this) is that they probably won't qualify for financing. We will find out tomorrow morning at 9:00 AM. If their financing falls through, we will be headed to Gladstone to buy a new (to us) pickup (provided it passes muster.)

So stay tuned for further developments.

July 19^th

OK. Here are the further developments. The other party's financing did go through, so we had to go back to the drawing board. Tim called with another truck about the same as the other one but newer, a 2007. The price was $6000 over budget, and while the price was a bargain for this truck, $6K over budget is still $6K over budget. I asked Tim to continue looking.

In the meantime, I got on Cars.com and started searching. I came across a 2000 Chevy Silverado 2500 that looked good on line. I called the dealership and made an inquiry. I was discouraged, because the salesman (Rick Carpenter) said it had a 6.0L “small block” V8. When I heard “small block,” I was thinking of my old GMC 305 cid. I knew that would not be powerful enough. Then as I thought about it, I realized that a 6.0L engine is bigger than the 5.4L V8 I had in a Ford pickup some time back. I called back and made an appointment to see the truck.

July 20th

We drove to Portland to look at the Silverado. We liked what we saw, and the salesman, (Rick DiVito), said, "Take it for a drive. Take as much time as you like."  I drove away from the dealership and headed for the freeway. I wanted to see how she did on the open road. Acceleration? Check! Highway speed? Check! Comfortable ride? Check! Quiet cabin? Check! 

We got off the freeway and drove up into a hilly area, with which we are familiar. Hill climbing? Check! The truck was solid, steering tight, no rattles, AC works, stereo works (what's with the missing knobs?).   Next it was Jill's turn to drive.  She has experience driving vans of various sizes, but it has been a while. We drove to the local park and ride lot, which was mercifully empty.  

Jill got into the driver's seat and said, "I can't see over the hood."  We checked the seat to see if it had a height adjustment. No such luck. Gingerly, she tried driving around the lot.  "I like the way it drives," she said, "but I can't see."  With heavy hearts we headed back to the lot. 

When we arrived, we told Rick about the things we found that were concerns: about a half dozen minor things on the order of the missing stereo knobs, and one major thing; Jill can't see over the hood. 

"Is that a deal breaker?" Rick said.  I resisted the urge to reply, "No, duh!" He looked at the driver's seat and agreed with us that it was noticeably lower than the passenger seat. "Suppose we got a new seat? Then could we talk about sending you home in the truck today?" He assured us that these seats are readily available used, even with the same upholstery color.  Then Rick said, "Why don't you go have coffee, and I will do some checking with some of my suppliers?" 

We spent a nervous hour at McDonald's (they have free wi-fi, you know).  When I called, Rick said come on back.  He greeted us and said, "I have great news." We don't have to replace the whole seat. The cushion is replaceable. Unfortunately, I can't get it done on the weekend." We agreed that, if the seat were fixed, we would buy the truck. 

Rick Carpenter did up the paperwork for us, and they told us we could pick the truck up on Monday. We did.  We are happy with our purchase, although, like any used vehicle, it has a few little items that will need attention. 

July 22nd

We returned to Portland and found that the seat had been fixed.  In addition to a badly broken-down cushion, the seat frame had a broken brace that had to be rewelded.  Jill climbed into the driver's seat and said, "Much better. I can see over the hood." 

I drove the truck home. Jill followed in the Mazda. We stopped to put some gas in the new acquisition. While I was at the pump, I got a text message. "You look great in that truck."  I texted back, "Call me some time." The reply? "You betcha! What a hunk!"  Well, I was sold! 

July 23rd

We delivered the new-to-us pickup to Highway Trailer Sales to be rigged to carry our new-to-us Adventurer 100 WBS camper. While we were on the lot, we went aboard the camper again, which you have no doubt figured out, we have dubbed Topper.  We liked it even more than when we first saw it. About the time we got thoroughly lost in our dreaming, a couple of technicians came along to figure out what was needed to put the camper and truck together. 

We bid Topper a fond farewell, knowing that we would be back tomorrow to pick her up and take her home. 

The day was not over yet. Along with the excitement of putting together the truck and camper package, we are embroiled in selling our old '96 F150, our '08 Nissan Versa, and our '88 Hawkins Motor Coach. Several things happened in the afternoon after we returned home. 

First, we got news from our dear daughter-in-law that she knew someone who might be interested in the Versa. That came as I was nearing completion of a serious detailing of said car. Next, we had several inquiries about the F150.  Long story short, we sold it!  Then we got another message from Katie, that our son Patrick's college roommate is looking for a reasonably priced motor home. Seems he and his wife and small daughter are feeling cramped living in a truck camper, while they are camp hosting. 

I didn't sleep much that night. My head  was spinning.

July 24th.

After a session with the dog trainer and our Lulu, I got a call saying that the new chairs for the sanctuary at our church had arrived, and help was needed to unload them. I spent about an hour and a half doing that. Then I came home and helped my darling bride with some household chores.

As soon as that was complete, we headed for the dealership. It turns out they were a little behind, so we wandered around the lot looking at RVs. At last, we were summoned to sign papers and have a walk through.  What a learning curve.  Who knew that a truck camper must be put on and taken off the truck? I'm glad we have RV experience, or we might have simply shrivelled up on the spot. 

At last, we headed home. I was pleased that the camper didn't seem especially top-heavy, I did notice, though, that the tail of the pickup was squatting a bit. I believe some airbags will remedy that problem. 

It was a long day. We tucked ourselves in and promptly fell asleep.  Today was no different, busyness-wise.  Jill had grocery shopping to do for our annual family beach trip tomorrow.  I needed to visit my Mom and help her with grocery shopping and a few other little items.

When we both arrived home, we whipped the house into shape; I mowed the lawn, and then I went out and moved the camper closer to the house. I plugged in the cord and tried out the AC.  It did fine on a 15A circuit.  The coach, which wasn't stiffling inside, despite the 89 degree temperature outside, quickly cooled off. 

Our kids, due to arrive from San Diego for the beach trip, were delayed, so Jill and I went out and sat in the camper.  We mentally stored things away and pictured ourselves parked by some lovely stream or lake. This we did in the comfort of our new air conditioner.  I think we are going to like this camper!

Oops! The kids and grandkids are here; gotta go, but stick around. The best is yet to come.