Just checking in...

        It sure is quiet around here.  I find myself talking to the cat (its better than talking to myself, I guess!).  Paul flew to Texas a few days ago, and it wasn't the most pleasant day for him.  In fact he was pretty exhausted by the time he got to  El Paso.  His original flight was supposed to leave Indianapolis at 2:40 pm, but we got a phone call from American Airlines, saying it was canceled due to bad storms along the flight path.
         On our way to Indy, we stopped to test drive an F450, which is one of the trucks we are considering buying to pull our "new" home (no decision yet). Our daughter Jess came with us to Indy because she and I were going to do some wedding errands after we dropped Paul off at the airport.  Well, lucky Paul got to do all the wedding shopping with us since he didn't have to be at the airport until 4:15. We registered for tuxes for the groomsmen, checked out the new bridesmaid colors  and  started buying the supplies to make the centerpieces for the tables.
After multiple delays, Paul finally got to El Paso at 11:30 pm, which is 1:30 am EDT.  A long day for him.
   I am tired too, but its because it's hard to sleep at night when there are tornado watches and warnings. Its so spooky to see all the killer tornados there have been.  I feel so badly for the people who have been affected.  Tornados are particularly scary when you live in a trailer.  It's one of the few times that I don't like that my home has wheels, and therefore, nothing anchoring it to the ground.  Last night I had the weather radio on all night, and kept the TV on the weather station, with the sound off.  I had a bag packed and the cat's carrier by the door.  We were under a Warning briefly, but I could see by the radar that the storm had actually passed our town by the time the warning came out.  I did wake up to an incredible wind at about 3 am, but thankfully it didn't last long. 
    After spending yesterday getting caught up on paperwork...well, not totally caught up, but at least I made some great inroads....today was spent doing errands all day.  I didn't buy much, but I was getting ideas for decorations and such for the reception.  Plus, I always seem to need food! I am not sure how I managed to fit more into this tiny little refrigerator, but I did.  I stopped by to see my daughter at work for a few minutes because that's a perk of being here!!  I love that I can see her on a regular basis, if only for a few minutes. 
      I am really hoping that the weather forecast for tomorrow is accurate, because I am looking forward to going for a long bike ride. It's supposed to be really nice out, although pretty windy.  At this point, I'll suffer through the wind.  I need to get outside for a bit!

And now, the rest of the story...

So, here's whats been happening behind the scenes for the last few weeks:
      Paul and I decided about a month or so ago that we are enjoying this lifestyle enough to invest in a new trailer. When we bought our Everest, it was our first 5th wheel. I think we did a pretty good job picking it out, given our options in the state of Michigan, but there are definately things we would have done differently had we known more.  So for the last few weeks, we have been touring the factories of the brands of 5th wheels that we are interested in this time around.  We went to Kansas to tour the NuWa factory, looking at a HitchHiker Champagne, and from there went to Howe IN to tour the DRV factory, looking at a Mobile Suites.  It was after that visit that we went to Keystone to get our trailer fixed.  We left it with them and went to go take a tour of the Carriage factory to look at Carri-lites (of course we didn't tell Keystone that!). After that tour, Keystone told us they would be replacing our trailer for us, but by then we had already narrowed down our choices and gone about 85% down the pathway towards purchasing a Mobile Suites. We had quotes, trade in values for our Everest, and  a list of modifications we wanted to make on a new unit.
   We spent an afternoon looking at Keystone products to pick a replacement, and briefly debated trying to work out a deal where we hand over the brand new trailer to a dealer as a trade in for a new Mobile Suite, but that was trying to get too much done in a very short time frame, so we abandoned that idea pretty quickly.
    Thursday and Friday were spent moving in to our new Keystone Alpine and on Friday morning, after switching our G series tires over to the Alpine,  Keystone hauled the Everest away.  We have no idea what they'll do with it, nor does the customer service rep we've been dealing with.   We checked out all the systems on the Alpine and had a few things looked at before everyone left for the holiday weekend.
   We thought we were all set to get on the road to Muncie, but we were wrong. If it's not one thing, its another, as they say.  5 miles after leaving Goshen with the trailer, the "water in fuel" light came on in the truck.  Luckily Paul knows a lot about trucks. We drove back to the Keystone "campground",  and he drained the water out of the fuel tank through a valve underneath the truck.  We drove around the block a few times, the light came back on,  and he drained it again.  We went back to the station where we bought the diesel, and they of course insisted that no one has had any issues with their fuel.  In all, he drained the water about 7 times and we came close to having to have the tank totally drained and the fuel replaced, but we kept going further and further without the light coming on, and eventually he got all the water out.  It was a frustrating day but at least there was no lasting damage to the truck.
     Once we finally got to Muncie on Saturday, we took a deep breath and got settled in.  The Alpine is a nice trailer, definately bigger and nicer than our Everest!  Is it what we want though? Not really.  I could list all the things we don't like about it, like that the refrigerator is about half the size of the one we had before,  and it lacks the cabinet space we need to be comfortable. There are many reasons, actually, that we have decided to move forward with the purchase of a Mobile Suite.  We are able to customize a Mobile Suite to a great extent and make it a more personal home.  I also loved the HitchHiker, but there are other reasons why we don't think it's the best choice for us.
    Today we spent some time figuring out what options we want, and finalizing what customizations we'll ask for.  We did take a 2nd tour of the factory last week to speak to a rep about some of the things we want to do.  We're hoping to put it out to bid next week and have another new trailer in a couple of months.
   Because of the heaviness of the Mobile Suite, we're going to have to purchase a new truck.  That's not a hardship for Paul- he test drove the 2011 F350 and has had stars in his eyes ever since.  We may end up with an F450 this time though, since it has a better turning radius.  We are going for a test drive on Tuesday morning, before Paul flies out to spend a week or so with his mom.  He can order the truck from anywhere, so he'll probably place the order while in Texas.  For the trailer, we'll get our final quotes, then make a decision when he gets back from Texas.
     As if we don't have enough going on, we have also decided to start the process of changing our domicile to Texas.  We got our new address last Monday and we'll start switching vehicle registrations as we go along.  Paul will hopefully get his Texas driver's license while he is visiting his mom.
  While Paul is gone, Jess and I will try to get a few more things done for the wedding. Since we got here, we've already had Jess and David over for dinner, and tonight Jess came over by herself.  I could get used to that!
Meantime, here are some pictures of our new home (there are more on the right hand side of the page under "our home")!  It's really quite nice!

    
      ;

No, I didn't forget.....

....that  I have a blog to write. 
Here is our situation:  Paul and I made our way back to the Keystone factory to get our trailer looked at for the 4th time because of a frame flexing issue.  Paul has been upset because he can see things shifting and warping.
We showed the shop manager some of what we could see happening inside, and he had someone from the company that built the frame there to look at it when they pulled the frontcap off the trailer. The bottom line is, they agreed with Paul that there is a serious issue with the trailer. There are welds that are broken, the floor is bowed, the outriggers that hold up the floor are bent, and the walls are separating.  Although it can be fixed, they have offered to help us get a brand new 2012 5th wheel.  They don't make the same model we have, so we are actually getting a slightly bigger one.
So, although it's been an extremely stressful week, we are very happy that the company is willing to help us to the extent that they are.
We should have the new trailer by the end of next week, so I'll post more then.

Tornado Alley (4-7-11)

     The last few days we've been traveling through "Tornado Alley".  We started in Louisiana, drove through part of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and we are now in Missouri.  We stopped for an extra night in Oklahoma because the weather forecast called for potential thunderstorms and high winds, with the possibility of a tornado thrown in there.  We decided it wasn't worth getting on the road.  We were at a Core of Engineers campground at Lake Eufaula, which was a very peaceful place to stay for a night or two.  From there we drove through Kansas and we are now in Lake of the Ozarks State Park for a couple of days.  Our ultimate goal is to get to Indiana by next week, where we'll spend about a month hanging out with our daughter. Many of the campgrounds aren't even open yet, which reminded me that its still pretty early in the year, and we are definately heading north.
   We've been doing a lot of driving,  and we were ready for some down time, so we haven't done anything too exciting.  We did drive through Paris TX to check out the "great pie" they have there, but it turned out Paul remembered the name of the town wrong, so there was no great pie.  Oh well.
Tomorrow we are going on a 9 mile hike. I am really looking forward to getting  some exercise.

One final day in New Orleans (04-01-11)

        Our last day in New Orleans the weather finally played a role in our plans.  It was cool and drizzly but we knew in advance that it would be that way so we had saved the museum for last.  Last but not least, as they say.  It was a World War II museum that displayed a chronological timeline of the war in a way that was interesting and kept my attention. In fact, we ran out of time and didn't see all the exhibits.  We started by watching the movie to get an overview, and it was awesome.  More than a movie actually, it was a "4-D" experience that started with a spotlight on an old fashioned console radio (like the one we had when we were kids) and the broadcast of a football game.  Then, of course, came the interruption announcing that Pearl Harbor had been attacked. It was mesmerizing.
     I got a better understanding of the absolute enormity of this war and it's impact on everyone. I had heard stories from my parents, but they were both teenagers at the time, so they had a young persons perspective. 
I knew that Japan obviously played a key role in the war but I learned more details about how what they did as a country "pushed" the U.S. into reacting the way it did, both at the beginning of the war and at the end. In 1945 the Japanese people had made clear by their actions that they were all willing to fight to the death to protect their country and their emperor.  They had both sustained  and inflicted incredible losses to that point and American casualties were likely to be in the millions if we proceeded with the planned land invasion.  So, we dropped the atomic bomb instead.  Whether it was right or wrong, it did end the war that had already cost the lives of over 50 million people.
   We couldn't leave New Orleans without a trip down Frenchmen Street.  Unlike the Bourbon Street music venues that loudly compete for your attention, Frenchmen Street is full of smaller jazz clubs quietly inviting you in for a listen. We obliged and listened to Saxophonist Jerry Jumonville and the Jump City Band at La Maison before heading to dinner at the Praline Connection. There were also many street performers here, creating a casual, fun atmosphere.
    So, now we have left New Orleans and headed across Texas towards Oklahoma.  We have about 2 weeks to get to Muncie IN and we've decided to do it by way of OK and Kansas.