Our new home! (07-11-11)

We picked up our new Mobile Suites 36TKSB4 on Monday, July 11th!
    The day didn’t start out very well, but I guess we were still lucky, all in all.  We woke up abruptly to the sound of 60-70 MPH wind gusts buffeting against the Alpine, raising the awning like a flag.  With a torrential downpour, complete with thunder and lightning, a squall line was coming through.  Paul ran outside to hold onto the awning, and I followed right behind.  For about 10 minutes we hung onto it, in the wind and the rain, successfully rescuing it from being ripped right off the side of the trailer.  If we hadn’t been planning on trading in the Alpine in about 2 hours, I’m not sure we would have been so stupid.  But, like I said, we were lucky.  8 awnings were destroyed in the RV park and one trailer was moved about 2 feet, off the blocks it was sitting on.  That couple was trying to hold their awning too, but when the awning became a sail, and the trailer started moving, they went inside.  Their awning was facing the wind, a much more dangerous situation.  We heard later that the storm was so bad, numerous trees were down, and about 50,000 people were without power.
        Anyway, after that, we were anxious to get rid of the Alpine before something did happen to it!    We got to the dealership early, dodging a second storm that was due to come through later in the morning.  We spent 4 hours going through the new trailer, checking to make sure everything works.  There are a few issues, and they forgot to do one of our customizations- installing the wires for outside speakers- so we are headed to the factory next week to get that taken care of.  At about 3 pm we gave our final acceptance of the new rig!
    That’s when the real fun began.  We swung into action in 87 degree weather, moving all of our belongings to the new trailer.  At least it wasn’t raining, but the humidity was awful.  It took us 5 hours.  In the end, we were just throwing things in there because the dealership closed at 8 pm and we wanted to get back to the RV park before dark anyway.  Once we were back at the RV park, it took us another 2 hours to get things to the point where we could go to bed.
    Dozer seems to have adjusted ok.  As usual, he needs to find and explore every nook and cranny of his new surroundings. This trailer has a completely different layout than the last two, so he is a little more unsure of himself. 
      Tuesday morning we got our recliners that we had ordered 6 weeks ago from the local Art Van store.  They worked out perfectly. 
The last few days have been crazy busy, settling in and making decisions.  I am amazed at how many people stop and comment on the trailer or the truck.  Honestly, the truck gets just as much attention.  6 people have already expressed an interest in seeing the inside of the trailer, but we put them off until its more set up. 
I did finally decide it was cleaned up enough that I could post the pictures of it, although we still have a long way to go before its how we want it.
If you hover over the picture, you’ll see the description, if there is one.
   
            
 

Traverse City, MI (7-10-11)

We knew when we came to Cherry Festival that we wouldn’t spend the whole week doing Cherry Festival things.  We picked several events we wanted to go to, and planned accordingly.

         We took an Orchard tour on Friday.  The tour starts with a tasting room where they serve all kinds of things made with cherries, including bread, ice cream, salsa, and muffins.  We had fun trying a bunch of stuff before heading to the open air wagon for the orchard tour.  This land was bought by local farmers and is leased to Michigan State University.  The school performs  growing experiments with cherry trees as well as other local crops, like grapes.  There are 80 wineries in the Traverse City area.  They experiment with planting, strains of trees, soil etc. and help the farmers find new strategies for growing crops.

That same day we attended the Cherry Grand  Buffet. Believe me, it sounds much grander than it was.  We’ll try anything once, but we sure won’t be going  back to this “grand” buffet again.  They advertised  a live show as entertainment while we ate, and the show wasn’t too bad for local talent, but our sitting of the buffet was scheduled for an hour and a half.  The show was over in 35 minutes (Paul said he was fine with that!).  The food was just ok, served on paper plates, with only Pepsi or water left to drink by the time we got there.  They also ran out of dessert       ( chocolate chip cookies) long  before we went looking for them.  Oh well. It was a different experience, for sure.

Other days were spent exploring the area.  Carol and Larry came up for a day and we all took off to Leelanau Peninsula, an area that Paul and I have never been to before.  The weather was perfect for a drive!  We stopped at the Grand Traverse Light house, at the tip of Leelanau Peninsula and wandered around the grounds.

    There are several small, interesting villages in this area.  We stopped in Leland, a town on the water, with a unique shopping area, called Fishtown.  It consists of old shanties along the water,  that were rescued from being  bought by a real estate developer, and turned into small  boutiques and restaurants. We started out with drinks and appetizers outside at the Cove Restaurant. The weather was perfect when we got there, but by the time we got our drinks, the sun was gone and the wind had picked up, so we moved inside to have dinner.  

 











Yesterday we put the dinghy in the water on Grand Traverse Bay. I know I go on and on about how beautiful the water is up here, but it really does look like the Caribbean, and  being out there on the dinghy didn’t disappoint.  The weather was perfect for a dinghy day- no wind, and it was hot.  Really hot.  The lake water is not as cold as the ocean back home in MA, but its  still “refreshing”. 







That brings us to today. Today we left Traverse City, regretfully.  I am sure we’ll be back.  We both loved it there and want to spend more time in this area.  At our campground there we met a very friendly family, staying in the rig next to us.  In the course of the conversation, we mentioned that we are getting our new Mobile Suites soon.  They wanted to see what our Alpine looks like inside, so we gave them the tour.  They liked it so much, it looks like they’ll be buying it.  Not from us.  We are trading it in tomorrow.  They have contacted the dealer and it looks like they may have a deal.  It’s a good opportunity for them to get a 2012 5th wheel at a used 5th wheel price.   I hope it works out for them!
So, tomorrow, if all goes well, we’ll have our new home.

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.