I know some of you have been wondering where we are and what we have been doing for the past three weeks. I will be catching up on the blog, and some big news will be coming out soon! But at the present time, we have been dealing with auto and RV issues. Nothing slows you down more than having no wheels or no home on wheels. This episode should be called a WEEKLY detour instead of a daily detour.
Can you believe that it has been almost a year since Darin flew to Michigan and drove the fifth wheel back to Texas? Do you know what that means? It means our one year warranty is almost up. So naturally we needed to get a couple of things looked at. Especially since we covered more miles in a year than most people cover the entire time they own a single camper.
One thing that has bothered me since day one is this crack between two wall panels. It is located on the doorwall in the bedroom and I can see it every time I lay down in bed. Someone didn’t glue the seam tape over the joint, and I think it needs to be done, under warranty of course. Also, our hot water has not been feeling very hot since we got back from Belize. Those are definitely two issues to be checked out. Needless to say, our showers have been rather short lately.
One day as I sat on the toilet, I heard a drip on the dry shower pan. It had not been used that morning, but a little puddle of water was sitting near the drain. Water drops were coming from behind the faucet and dripping down the shower wall. On top of that, on the day before our appointment, the large slide in the kitchen started vibrating and making noise when we closed it. All of these repairs required a one week stay at the RV dealer (More about what we did without our home on wheels is coming in another post).
We attended the RV Show in Dallas to see the new 2018 models since Darin was thinking about downsizing our unit. We looked, and looked, and looked, but we didn’t see anything that we liked better (around the purchase price of our Sprinter). We’ve been quite happy with our economical choice.
We even looked at some high end models for my parents, but none of them compared to their current Redwood fiver. Some of those campers were fancier than most stick built homes! It was fun to look around, plus we got some exercise since Market Hall is so huge.
Back when we bought the RV, we had traded our Jeep for a friend’s Ford F250, which worked out for both of us. Well, we have yet to officially register the vehicles, so the Jeep is still in our name and on our insurance. While parked in a driveway in an urban neighborhood, a rat created $3700 worth of damage to the wiring harnesses. It took about a week for the dealer to replace the chewed up wiring in the Jeep.
So back up to last year….the day after we received multiple offers on our house, a hail storm hit and we had to replace the roof on our house right when we moved out. Luckily the RV was under covered storage, but the F250 was in the driveway. You bet, it has tiny dents on the hood and on the roof of the cab.
Since everything else is getting repaired, we might as well take care of the hail damage. It will be another $2000 insurance claim, but this one goes on our friend’s insurance. At least we can drive the Jeep while our friend is out of town.
They say everything comes in threes and that was certainly the case when it came to our autos. The third car failure was our daughter’s 2006 Honda Odyssey. It had required over $3000 in repairs and new tires over the past year and a half, and just recently broke down twice on her. The shop was suggesting another $3000 to get it back on the road and we told her not to spend the money. Instead, we patiently waited nearly three hours at a dealership and walked out with a 2018 Escape. Why do they take so long to sell cars? Seriously!
Hopefully, we will be heading out of the Dallas/Fort Worth area in the near future. Stay tuned while I play “catch up” on our adventures…