A new truck becomes "Ours"

Lack of consistent internet has caused this post to be delayed by one day:




 

After waiting (im)patiently at Keystone State Park to pick up our new F450, the transaction is finally complete! Once the title to our old truck was forwarded to the dealer, we met with them and finalized the sale. Luckily there were no glitches and no hold-ups. The salesman thought it was pretty cool that he didn’t have to go over any of the truck’s systems with Paul, since Paul pretty much knew more than he did. This truck has so many more features than I even knew, it’s amazing. It can be programmed so that it knows

 how many miles and hours it tows our 5th wheel, and we can program multiple trailers into the memory bank. I will no longer have to write down our “towing miles” to have a record of it.



the hitch goes in last



Of course, the navigation system was one of the main things we wanted and it is user friendly enough that I had our destination programmed within seconds. It does have all kinds of added features that we will have to learn over time. One thing it doesn’t seem to have is the ability to add custom Points Of Interest, which is disappointing because I would have liked to program in Low Clearance bridges across the country.

 
 

With the Sirius Radio, we have instant weather, a 5 day weather forecast, and a weather map, all of which we can access with a push of a button or a voice command. We can also find the nearest and/or cheapest diesel fuel in the area, a very nice perk. I don’t know if we’ll keep all that ability once our complimentary subscription is up, but for now we’ll enjoy it.

Once we got back to the campsite, it took us (mostly Paul) about 5 hours to make the truck “ours”. We pulled off some graphics, and added our toolbox and hitch.  It was a hot and sticky day for working outside, but very satisfying that everything went together well.

Keystone State Park comes to life

    I guess it was the combination of good weather and a Saturday that caused the park to come alive.  We went from seeing about 10 people a day to seeing hundreds, mostly people fishing, but lots of people camping with their kids.  The rain finally stopped, so that was a plus as well.  We walked two trails in the last few days, and they are still extremely sloppy and mushy.  At one point we had to turn around because the water was too deep to get through. I am glad I wore my high profile boots that are (mostly) waterproof. The trails are ok in general but still have some winter damage- trees that our down, or partially down, which is actually more dangerous.  Paul was afraid one of them would fall, so he pushed on it to make it fall all the way down, so it wouldn't land on anyone.
   Friday we found out that the truck title did indeed make it to our box in Livingston TX,  which means the end is in sight!  However, Fedex had already been and gone, so they can't ship it to us until Monday, for arrival here on Tuesday.  At least we know that it will get here though, so we can relax a little bit.


Keystone Lake

     We've rented a few movies over the last couple of days- Inception was one of them. I guess I understood most of it, but it wasn't my favorite movie of all time.  I did really enjoy The Tourist though.  We don't usually rent too many movies, but with all the bad weather we've had, we are running out of indoor things to do.  Paul has no "projects" for this trailer, since we'll only have it for a month or so.
     Hopefully the next pictures I post will be of our new truck!

We don't fish, therefore we just wait....and wait.

      We're sitting here at Keystone State Park in Derry PA.  Its a fairly small state park with a very pretty lake that is stocked with fish.  There are a lot of people fishing, even though the weather has been anything but cooperative. I think we've had about 4 daylight hours that it hasn't been raining, since we got here.  We went for a nice walk yesterday but I forgot to bring my camera.  If we get a break in the action tomorrow, we'll try to go for another walk.  Everyone I talk to has complaints about the weather, wherever they happen to be.  After a really lousy winter, the spring has not been much of an improvement.
  We're waiting here because we goofed.  We've been so busy for the last month or so working out all the details of buying a new truck and trailer, and moving our residence to Texas, that we forgot one detail.  I guess that's not too bad, considering all the things we've had to deal with.  We are here in Derry to buy a new F450 from the local dealer.  Unfortunately, we have not yet received our new Texas title for our truck, so we can't trade it in yet.  We have been in contact with the state of Texas, and they have assured us that it should be arriving any day now.  Arriving at our mailbox in Livingston TX, that is.  Then we'll have to overnight it to the dealer here in PA.  We don't have anywhere we have to be until next Thursday, so if we have to sit here for that long, we will. We're not anxious to move this trailer too often. We both feel like we're walking on eggshells, hoping nothing breaks before we trade it in.
    Memorial Day weekend is one of those "musical chair" weekends.  It's one of the few times that we really need to make a reservation, if we want to be sure of someplace to stay, especially here in the east, where RV parks are fewer and further between.   I had already begun researching where we might want to stay but hadn't found anything.  We need it to be within 300 miles of Boston, because we have reservations there starting on Memorial Day itself.  My dilemma was actually resolved without much effort on my part.  There is  a couple that we are friends with, although we've never met them, who happen to be in the NY/PA area as well, and we've been keeping an eye one each other's location, to see if we can catch up and finally meet face to face.  As it happens, they have booked a campground in NY, about 240 miles from Boston, for Memorial Day weekend, so I quickly called and made reservations at the same park.  We will finally get to meet them!