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!

    
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