Credit and blame where they're due

Until now I haven't mentioned the name of the dealership we used, and I've only mentioned the manufacturer a couple times. Mostly there was no reason to get into details.

I figure, though, that it's worth mentioning now. So far both the dealer and manufacturer have been responsive, and potential customers will probably be pleased to know that. On the other hand, if things take a negative turn, they deserve to know that, too.

So for any google-searchers out there, or anyone else who's interested, the dealer we used is Jeff Couch's RV Nation in Hamilton, Ohio, outside Cincinnati.

The trailer is a fifth wheel by Forest River: a Cedar Creek 36B2.

The people at RV Nation have been really good the whole time. Our salesperson has been extremely helpful during the entire process, and always went out of his way to answer our many questions. I did mention before that the dealership waited a week to send the paperwork back to the bank. In their defense, though, I do not believe it was laziness or incompetence that caused that delay. They were waiting to get information from us so they could send in the title. As it turned out, they didn't need to send the title, but perhaps other lenders or other situations require it. If anything, they were overly attentive to the situation, which I can't really blame them for.

As mentioned earlier today, Forest River is also stepping up to the plate so far. Hopefully they'll stand behind their warranty and we'll get this straightened out soon.

I certainly hope that when all is said and done, we'll still have nothing but positive things to say about all parties involved.

An update for the day

I have to say that (so far) the dealership and manufacturer have been quite helpful. The dealer got us in touch with a factory rep, who arranged a three-way call with Steve and the manufacturer of the hydraulic system.

They are sending out their technical service guy to look at it. The bad news (there's always bad news) is that as of about 1:30 this afternoon, he was still six hours away. But at least we'll get it looked at. Then they'll make it right.

Based on our description of what happened, they seem to think that the repair will be fairly simple. I don't understand all the technicalities of it, but we'll see. And Steve will stay on top of things to make sure they don't take any short-cuts.

We're definitely here for at least another few days. The manufacturer has agreed to pay for our hotel for now, so that's a slight burden off of us.

We have checked in and out of our current hotel about a dozen times now. I'm not sure if they really like us or really hate us!

The campground that Homer is parked at is nice and the woman working there today is very sweet.

So I guess that's it for now. I'll update more when we have a better idea of what it'll take to fix Homer.

It's bad. Real bad.

As promised, the owner of the dealership in Ohio got a mobile repair person out to the campground this morning.

Steve was hopeful it would be a quick fix. Maybe just a connector or something. I was much less optimistic, which is quite the role reversal for us.

Turns out I was right.

The mobile guy said the rupture is up high. To repair it properly will involve taking off and replacing the entire underbelly. His company can probably do it on-sight, but we would have to wait a couple days to get all the trucks here, and I imagine we'd need permission from the RV park.

Camping World is an authorized repair center, but to even transport it to Camping World, we would have to access the manual overdrive (Steve was unsuccessful last night), and apparently that means taking the bed apart.

All in all, the repairs will take between five days and a month. And it's possible that we will have to pay upfront and hope to get reimbursed by Forest River, the manufacturer.

The dealership owner has a call in to the Forest River rep to try to help us out, but it's lunchtime in Indiana, so it will probably be another half hour before we're even able to talk to someone.

We can't stay in the trailer right now because there's not room to move in there with the slide-outs in. (As mentioned, they're out a bit--not enough to make it livable, but enough that it can't be driven. Plus the jacks are frozen.) And even if we could stay in it tonight or tomorrow, we obviously won't be able to once they start working on it.

So that means even more nights in a hotel. The money we saved by buying from this dealer is slowly being lost on hotels and meals while we're here.

I toyed with the idea of flying back home with the kids, but I'm not sure what good that would do, other than cost us three airfares. Steve would still need somewhere to stay, and I'd be back to trying to keep the house presentable in case someone wants to buy it.

So, we're trapped. For how long, I don't know. I'm secretly hoping the manufacturer will just buy back the trailer, we can go home, and forget this whole thing.

From bad to worse to surprisingly good to horrid

My whole life, I've generally had pretty good luck. Clearly it's all catching up to me now.

To recap from my last update, we needed a certain type of connector plate put on the trailer so it would hook up to the hitch on our truck. The problem was that the closest part was at least 1,500 miles away.

We resigned ourselves to staying here at least another night while we waited for the part. Just before Steve left Camping World to come pick us up for lunch he got a call from our loan officer at Bank of America.



As you'll recall, we signed our papers at a Bank of America branch in Phoenix on August 21 and had them overnighted back to the loan guy in Georgia. The dealership was supposed to overnight their papers that Monday.

Only they didn't. They didn't send them until Friday, so they didn't arrive until today.

Our loan was only guaranteed through the 26th, which means it didn't fund. The dealership had sent us the trailer even though they hadn't gotten paid (other than our deposit), and we now needed to reapply for the loan.

I frantically filled out the online application again, and we called the loan guy to let him know it was submitted. He made it sound like it was just a technicality, but with the way things have been going, we had to worry.

We figured if nothing else, we could go register Homer (we didn't need him there--just his paperwork), and we could leave in the morning as soon as he was ready.

Then Camping World called to say that they had located a compatible part and the trailer would be ready today. Whoa! Something unexpectedly good!

We wouldn't have time to make the four-hour round-trip drive to register the trailer and be back to pick it up by close of business, so we decided we'd go park it in a campground overnight, then take care of the administrative stuff and do a shortish drive tomorrow.

We stopped at Walmart to pick up some things we needed for the trailer. I also got a few of those ready-made shelf-stable tuna salad lunch kits just in case we found ourselves in the middle of nowhere when lunch hit on one of the legs of our trip. (This is called foreshadowing.)

While we were in Walmart, the loan guy called to say that our loan had been re-approved. He said it wasn't as seamless as he had hoped, but he went to bat for us since the delay hadn't been our fault.

Even better, we didn't have to go register Homer. The trailer has a temporary Ohio registration. When the dealer gets the title, they'll send it to Bank of America, who will take care of filing the necessary paperwork with Texas. (As it turns out, BofA already has the title, as that's what the dealership was waiting on--remember how they needed our Texas licenses?--and thus why they didn't send the paperwork back until Friday. Even though they didn't need to do that. And probably shouldn't have.)

Anyway, all we needed to do was get a VIN Inspection certificate and an official dry weight and send those to BofA.

Things were really looking up!

It turned out that Camping World could do the VIN Inspection, and there was a commercial scale about a mile away.

We were set! We went back to Camping World, and they finished with the trailer just in time for...

...the torrential downpour.

Little would we know that would not be the worst thing to happen.

After about an hour and a half, the rain had subsided enough that Steve and the Camping World people could make the final little adjustments and get us hitched up.

Next stop was the scale. It was getting late, but we wanted to get everything out of the way tonight so we could leave early in the morning.

That was an ordeal in itself, which I might save for another blog post. It involved me being very scared and worried that Steve would accidentally crush me between the truck and the trailer. But we survived and got our weight certificate.

Then it was off to the campground a few miles away.

We pulled in. I got out and registered. They gave us a nice pull-through spot. Steve got Homer unhitched. Then he hit the auto-level button. Then we heard a pop. Then Steve looked under the trailer and saw the busted hydraulic line.

He freaked out a little. I stayed calm because there was nothing I could do and I was relying on him to make it better.

In a move he would later regret, he decided to see if the slide-outs were on the same line. He pushed the button to extend them, and they did move a few inches before they stopped. And wouldn't go back in.

So we were stuck there, with no way to move the trailer (can't move it with the slide-outs out, plus the jacks were frozen). Steve called the service that's supposed to help with this kind of thing, but we needed an account number from the dealer. We didn't have an account number from the dealer, and the dealership had closed hours ago.

There was a manual override, but Steve needed a drill, which we also didn't have.

While Steve desperately tried to figure out what to do, I gave the kids our emergency tuna. Anna dropped a tuna-salad-laden cracker on my foot. It was a really crappy dinner.

We decided the only course of action was for Steve to take us back to the hotel, go buy a drill, get the slide-outs in, and take it to Camping World in the morning to hopefully be fixed.

When we got back to the hotel, Steve noticed he had a business card for the owner of the dealership in Ohio, and it had the guy's cell phone number. Steve called, apologized for calling so late, and explained the situation. The owner was very apologetic and said he'd call the manufacturer first thing in the morning to make sure they'd make it right.

So...we're here for at least another day. Our trailer is busted. We're frustrated. The kids are worn out. It's really frickin humid. And we're not sure if this is further evidence that we're just really not supposed to do this.

Meet Homer

It's official: We're here for another night. The closest parts are, ironically, in California and Akron, Ohio. Camping World was kind enough to let us spend the night in their parking lot, but with two little kids and no hookups, we figured extending the hotel stay would be the more comfortable (though also more expensive) choice.

In the meantime, let me introduce you to Homer:



I haven't met him in person yet, but Steve sent me the photo.

Why Homer? The reasons are threefold:

1. It's our new home...er.

2. It's big and bulky, like Homer Simpson, and we seem to have a Simpsons theme going. I call our truck the Canyonero, after a vehicle on the Simpsons. Our truck's trim package is called Laramie, which is the cigarette of choice among Springfieldians. It all ties together.

3. Homer wrote the Odyssey, and we're undertaking our own Odyssey (presuming we ever get out of Texas). We also traded in our Odyssey to buy the truck, so it call comes full-circle.

I had hoped to post photos of the inside, too, but that will obviously have to wait a little longer.

Our current plan is to go to lunch, then head up to get Homer registered. Ideally, the part we need will arrive at 8 a.m. tomorrow, and should only take an hour to install. Then we'll be on the road tomorrow morning. We hope. Really.

We're never leaving Texas

Or at least that's how it feels.

Steve left around 7:30 this morning to meet the guy who was delivering the fifth wheel. The kids and I stayed behind at the hotel to have a leisurely breakfast and pack up. The people at Camping World still needed to put some kind of plate on the trailer to make it compatible with our hitch, so we figured that Steve would come back to pick us up while they were doing that.

Then the plan was to drive up to the city two hours away where we need to register it, and then either leave this afternoon or first thing in the morning.

It looked like things were going well. Steve said there were two gouges in the kitchen cupboards, but other than that (and a few other little things we'd have to take care of), it looked great. He said the back bedroom is probably even better than we imagined. Awesome!

The plate installation was only going to take an hour...until they realized they had the wrong part. They were going to call around to the other stores in the area to see if there are any nearby. If not, they'd have the part overnighted, but obviously that pushes everything back a day.

They were supposed to let us know what the deal was an hour ago. Still no word.

Oh, and while they were moving the trailer so they could work on it, the forklift broke the electrical cable that connects the trailer to the truck. Awesome. (They are replacing it.)

Meanwhile, I had to call our vet's office, where our poor dog is being boarded. We already felt bad enough leaving her for so long, and now it's going to be even longer. I was pretty sure I had told them we'd pick her up on Sept 1, but obviously that's not happening. Because of the weekend and Labor Day, the soonest we'll get to her is the 7th. She's going to hate us.

Food

We're taking it easy at the hotel today, since the next few days will likely be pretty hectic as we take possession of the fifth wheel and hopefully start to head back home. I figured I'd use this time to post about some of the food we've had on this leg of the journey.

The photo up top is a picture of chips and salsa from my beloved Manuel's. We did wind up going there our first night in Phoenix, and I'm sad to report that it wasn't a great experience.

See, Manuel's food is usually good--really good--but it's their chips and salsa that are unbelievable. The chips are warm, light, sweet...wonderful. Totally addictive. This time, though, the chips were blah: hard, bland, indistinct. I still ate a ton of them because I needed a way to get the still-excellent salsa into my mouth and drinking it directly from the bowl would have been uncouth.

Anna had fun smashing the chips, though, so I guess that's something.



The rest of the food was also mediocre. Steve's chimichanga was soggy, and my Pollo Especial (shredded chicken stuffed in a flour tortilla, then fried and topped with a cream cheese-chile sauce) was lacking in cream cheese-chile sauce.

Maybe it was an off night. Maybe it was that particular location. In any case, I'm not writing off Manuel's completely. It was too good for too long to let one bad experience ruin it for me. Plus I still have $60 left on my gift card.

Our next noteworthy meal was at a steakhouse in Kerrville, Texas. I think it was called the Cowboy Steakhouse. We have gone back to In-N-Out a few times since my virgin burger, but besides that haven't had any red meat. But we figured, when in Texas, do as the Texans do.

It was time for a steak.

Steve had his tastebuds set on a ribeye. I had no idea what I wanted. Even when I used to eat beef I really didn't eat steak. I explained my situation to the waitress and left it up to her. She said filet mignon would be best for my "sensitive palate." Ok, then.

I have to say...it was amazing. So. Good.

It was also the first time in three attempts that I found a restaurant that served fresh green beans that were still green and slightly crispy.

Best of all, our waitress was also the restaurant's baker, and she was having a chocolate-pie-tasting. She had prepared six different recipes and was trying to determine which pie to put on the menu.

I subscribe to the theory that all pies should be fruit-based, but I also subscribe to the theory that one should never pass up a free dessert.

Steve and I have extremely different tastes in dessert (for example, he believes that no pies should be fruit-based), yet amazingly we both chose Pie #2 as our favorite.

Another gem we discovered was a Mexican place in Livingston, Texas. The name escapes me, but I did take a business card for when we're back that way.

The first thing that made me love the place was the warm queso they served with the chips and salsa. Maybe that's typical here, but it was a first for me. In it, Elias met a cheese product he didn't like (because it actually had flavor), but Anna liked it so much she resorted to dipping her whole hand into the bowl. Ah, to be young again.

Our food was great, too. Steve had chicken tacos al carbon--simple yet delicious with a fresh, tasty guacamole. I had something called the No-Name Enchiladas: fajita chicken stuffed inside mild chile peppers, then wrapped in corn tortillas and covered with enchilada sauce.

We've had a few duds, too. There was the place with the Sponge-Bob-clad employees and dry, bland chicken. There was a Thai place that came highly rated on Yelp, yet wasn't very good at all.

To be honest, we've mostly been eating at chain places (and a lot more fast food than I'd like) because that's what tends to be the most readily available. We're trying to eat at small local places as much as we can, though, and so far the results have been surprisingly good.

Whew!

We are now, officially, finally, Texas residents.

Steve's birth certificate arrived at 8 a.m. We happened to stroll into the lobby at the same time the FedEx guy (same as the day before) was walking in. I'm sure he thought we were stalking him.

We had breakfast and got on the road to our destination, two hours away.

Steve and Elias went to the bank (weird places here don't run on credit cards) while I went to start registering the Pilot. I was done in five minutes but had to wait another five until the boys came back with the money.

Then we were off to the drivers license office a mile or so away. I tried to remain hopeful but my spirit was broken.

The same two ladies were working and they remembered us. The one had been rather curt the last time but was quite friendly today. She seemed as relieved as we were that we finally had everything we needed. (We did not elaborate about what it took to finally get to that point, but she probably would have enjoyed the story.)

Two vision tests, two thumb-print recordings (well, four, since we each have two thumbs), and a couple signatures, and we had our temporary Texas licenses in hand.

We then went to the office where our insurance broker works. We needed to turn in some paperwork, but we also wanted to use their fax to get a copy of Steve's license to the RV dealer in Ohio so they could finalize everything.

After that, we went to lunch to celebrate our new residency. (More on that later--I'm planning a post to talk about the food we've had on this trip.)

I'm currently in the middle of the third book in the Twilight series. (Bear with me here--it pertains.) Right now Bella is contemplating becoming a vampire but is just slightly apprehensive about leaving her human-ness behind.

That's sort of how I felt about becoming a Texan. I even had a whole pithy post typed out in my head, but then all these complications arose and quashed my creativity.

Not that I'm comparing Texans to vampires. Or Californians to humans for that matter.

Steve and I both thought we'd feel some sadness, or at least some wistfulness, about no longer being Californians. In reality, we're so relieved to have most of this ordeal behind us that we just don't care either way.

Anyway, the trailer is scheduled to be delivered on Monday morning, so we still have a few more days here. There are still opportunities for things to go wrong, but I'm trying to stay optimistic. As optimistic as a vampire can be.

And now for something completely different...

My past several posts have sort of been downers because, well, that's the way things are right now. For the kids' sake we've been trying to remain calm (and doing a pretty bad job), and we've been trying to keep things fun.

We went to a mall yesterday that had some diversions: carousel, "train," etc. The coolest thing, though, was a shallow pool of water with these big plastic bubbles that look like hamster balls floating on it. All day long Elias begged to go in the hamster balls, and how could we say no? (Steve and I wanted to go, too, but sadly missed the 120-lb cutoff.)

Here's Elias running around in there. Well, crawling in there. He did figure out how to stand and run for a few seconds, but I had put my camera away by that point.

Hopefully THIS will take care of it...

When we last left off, we were back at the hotel near Houston, agonizing over the fact that we still didn't have Steve's birth certificate and didn't know when or if we ever would.

We had sent a text message to Lori, but we got impatient. We also felt bad imposing on Lori yet again, and we knew she'd feel awful about what happened even though it really wasn't her fault.

Steve called his engineer and friend Natalie, who lives an hour from us but is always willing to help out. We decided to get her on the way to our house, and hoped that our neighbor had replaced our hidden key from the other day when she faxed us the registration for the Pilot.

With Natalie en route, we decided to go to lunch since we had nothing else to do. Just before we got to the restaurant, Lori called and we filled her in. She felt terrible and kept apologizing. I kept trying to tell her not to feel bad; that she had already gone above and beyond. We told her that we didn't want to inconvenience her any more and that Natalie was on her way, but she insisted on going over to the house to meet her.

As we waited for them to arrive, I decided to drown my sorrows in a Cinnabon. While I was in line, Steve got a call from Natalie. They were both at the house, and they confirmed that they had a certified copy of Steve's birth certificate in hand. My Cinnabon indulgence turned celebratory... tempered with caution, of course, because we're not out of the woods yet.

Lori took it to FedEx, so it should, again, be here by 8 a.m. tomorrow.

We were so grateful to Lori, and felt so bad that she felt bad, that we decided to send her flowers. I called the florist near our houses, the one we always use, only to be told that the shop is temporarily closed for a few weeks because the owner is in the hospital. Strike 12.

We have decided to buy Lori a nice bottle of wine--or perhaps a case of it--as soon as we get home. Natalie is getting all the Starbucks she can drink for a month.

Back to Square One

As we were eating breakfast in the hotel lobby this morning, I saw a FedEx truck pull up to the hotel next door. It sat there for a while so logically I started to panic that they were trying to deliver our envelope to the wrong place. Just as Steve got up to check, the truck pulled up to our hotel, and out popped the driver with our envelope.

I ripped it open, and there it was: my birth certificate, Steve's (I turned it over to confirm a stamp on the back), the Pilot's registration and title.

Yay!

We finished filling out the paperwork for our licenses, got the kids in the car, and started our two-hour drive to the place where we need to take care of everything.

Luckily we were only five miles into the trip when I noticed...

Steve said, "So you're sure those documents are correct?"

"Yep!" I pulled them out to look again. I read our title. I read our registration. I read the notes my mom had scribbled on the back of my official birth certificate at some point.

I glanced at Steve's birth certificate and thought, "Hmmm. That's weird. Why would Steve's signature be on his own birth certificate?" Then I glanced at the signature next to it and realized...oh, shit.

It was not Steve's birth certificate. It was his marriage certificate from his first marriage.

We're now waiting for dawn to break in California so we can call Lori to see if she can go back and find Steve's birth certificate.

Again, even if she finds it, there's no guarantee that it's an official copy. So I'm also researching flights again. If Steve has to fly back, we'll have to wait until Monday to take care of everything because there's really no way he can fly back to California, get a certified copy, and get back here during normal business hours tomorrow.

As I have mentioned before, I do believe in signs and omens. I'm trying to convince myself that the universe isn't trying to keep us from moving to Texas, but it's getting harder and harder to deny it.

Another Crisis...

So last night as I lay in bed, unable to sleep and waiting for my adrenaline rush to dissipate, I had a horrible thought: What if Lori (our real estate agent) got Elias's birth certificate instead of Steve's?

I wasn't on the phone with Lori when she found the certificates, but I heard Steve's end, and it almost seemed like she found his too quickly. See, newer certificates are big and colorful and look nice and official. Older ones are white and boring, and usually folded up. What if she saw an official-looking colorful thing that said "Certificate of Live Birth" (or whatever) on it, grabbed it, and assumed all was well?

I tried convincing myself that I was worrying over nothing, but it kept nagging at me.

As soon as I woke up (after finally falling asleep), I asked Steve about it. We were both pretty sure that the kids' birth certificates were in my lock-box, not his, but I still couldn't get the possibility out of my mind. We decided to call Lori, but as it was only 4 a.m. in California, we had to wait. And wait. And wait.

Finally at 8 Pacific we gave her a call and left a message. When she called back, I hoped she'd laugh off our concerns. Instead she confirmed that she had, indeed, grabbed Elias's birth certificate.

She could go back to our house, of course, but that still left the question of whether Steve's certificate was official or not.

In the meantime, we had taken the Canyonero to have our hitch installed (so we can pull the fifth wheel), and we quickly surmised that it would be better to rent a car than to sit in a waiting room with the kids for five hours. That was a fiasco in itself, but we did eventually wind up at a mall--and a relatively nice one at that.

Just after we finished lunch, Lori called to let us know she had Steve's birth certificate. There was much rejoicing.

Then I asked Steve if it was certified. He got a deer-in-the-headlights look and called Lori back.

Indeed, it is a certified copy.

She got everything to FedEx, and it should arrive by 8 a.m. tomorrow. I won't breathe easily until it is in our hands, but hopefully we're a step closer. Actually, I won't breathe easy until our new licenses and registrations are in our hands. I'm not sure what else can go wrong, but hopefully we've used up our quota.

From bad to worse

When I undertake something, I usually research it to death. I'm a bit obsessive-compulsive, so by the time I'm ready to do something, I usually know the topic inside and out.

For some reason, this trip was almost like an afterthought. I researched things, of course, but not to an extreme. We got stuff in order (so we thought), but I failed to read through every Texas statute available.

Perhaps I should have.

When we last left off, I was panicking over not having the registration for the Pilot. Clearly this was our fault--we thought we had grabbed it, but got the wrong one.

Things started to look up, though.

We got ahold of our neighbor, who faxed us a beautifully legible copy of the registration. I filled out the paperwork, ready to submit first thing in the morning.

Then I looked at the information the driver's license people gave us. The required documentation:

1. Texas registration on ALL vehicles.

Check--well, soon.

2. Insurance on all vehicles.

Check.

3. Out-of-state driver's license.

Check.

4. Social Security Card (actual card)

Check.

5. Original birth certificate.

WHAAAAAAA????????

The packet of information I got from our mail service about establishing residency had said nothing about birth certificates.

I checked the official Texas website, though (a week too late), and sure enough: They need a birth certificate or passport to prove we're citizens. Apparently a California driver's license and Social Security card aren't enough.

Cue further panic.

Our birth certificates reside in two lock boxes. The keys to those lock boxes sometimes reside in a certain part of the garage, and sometimes don't, depending on where we've left them.

We tried to get ahold of our real estate agent again.

Then Steve realized that his birth certificate might not be an official copy.

More panic ensued.

We thought of our options.

Abandon the whole thing. Ditch the trailer, forfeit our $6,000 deposit, go back home, sell the truck, refinance the house.

Have me get a driver's license (since I know my birth certificate is official)--presuming our agent could get to it--and I drive the trailer home.

Have Steve fly out first thing in the morning, go to the Hall of Records to get a copy of his birth certificate, then fly back that night.

That actually turned into our most realistic option. We had my mom start researching flights. It would cost nearly $1,000, we would have to leave our hotel two hours outside Texas to get to Houston tonight, I would be responsible for driving the truck and getting the hitch installed... it was unappealing but doable.

Still more panic ensued.

Finally our agent got back to us. (In reality, it was only like half an hour, but it felt like forever.)

She got to our house and Steve walked her through finding the stuff. The keys were in their proper places. Our birth certificates were on top. Steve's is certified. For good measure, we're having her send our title and registration, too, just in case.

She'll overnight everything tomorrow, and we should have it by 8 a.m. Thursday. We are eternally, eternally grateful to her.

In the meantime, our plans have now been pushed back several days. The earliest we'll get the trailer now is Saturday, and the earliest we'll be able to leave is Monday, after we have registered it. So we're looking at another week in the greater Texas area.

On a side note, the place we went for dinner was not Crusty McNutter's, but Buster McNutty's. (I'm referring to it as Cluster McFucky's because it seems more apropos.) The good news is that kids eat free. The bad news is that the food was lousy and a guy dressed as SpongeBob and some kind of rodent (a chipmunk, maybe) scared Anna, and both kids wound up having meltdowns.

It's just sorta been that kind of day.

Errrrrgggggg

So frustrated and angry right now. Not able to type in complete sentences.

Ok, here's how today went:

1. Got a call from the dealer. They can't issue a title until they verify our Texas address with a license, otherwise it'll like like we/they are trying to avoid paying California sales tax.

2. We detour 1.5 hours out of our way to take care of registering our vehicles and getting our license so we can get a copy of our license to the dealer, so they can issue title and get our trailer on the road.

3. We pick up our Mail Service Card, which proves we have an address. Awesome. Yay.

4. We get an inspection for the truck. It passes, of course.

5. We go to register our vehicles.

6. They need a bill of sale for the truck because it's considered "new," even though we bought it three months ago. We don't have a bill of sale with us, because none of the literature we read said anything about it.

7. We call the dealership in California where we bought the truck, and they are able to fax over the bill of sale. $127 later and the truck is registered. Awesome. Yay.

8. We try to register the Pilot, only to realize we stupidly brought the registration for the Odyssey we no longer own, NOT the registration for the Pilot.

9. No problem; we can register it by mail when we get home.

10. We go to the office where we get our licenses.

11. They look at our insurance paperwork and see the trailer on there. We explain that we don't have the trailer yet. They ask if we have signed the paperwork for it. We say sort of. They say they can't issue a license until it's registered in Texas. We explain that we can't get it until we have a Texas license (see #1).

12. I start to cry.

13. Woman says that anything that has a title with our names needs to be registered.

14. We re-explain that there IS no title, nor WILL there be until we have a Texas license.

15. Other woman working there says ok, fine.

16. Crisis averted.

17. Ha!

18. Woman asks if we have any other vehicles.

19. Stupidly, I tell the truth and say that yes, we have another vehicle, but we forgot to bring the registration.

20. She says sorry, but no Texas registration, no license.

21. I have visions of us having to cancel the purchase of the trailer and driving back to California with nothing.

22. I panic and throw up. Ok, not really, but I come close.

23. I calm down a little.

24. We realize that our realtor has access to our house, our car keys, and our car, where the registration is.

25. We go back to the registration office and verify that a legible copy of the registration is sufficient; we don't need the actual title.

26. We call and leave her a message.

27. We don't hear back from her (honestly, we didn't give it long, but we're panicking here).

28. We call our neighbor, who also has access to this stuff.

29. Steve is on the phone with her right now.

30. I am still trying not to panic.

31. I'm trying to lift my spirits, so we're going to place called Crusty McNutter's or something for dinner. If that doesn't do it, I don't know what will.

SNAFUs

When we started this trip, we had hopes that everything would go smoothly. The paperwork would all get signed and back to the bank quickly, the dealer would take care of everything quickly on their end, we'd get the trailer quickly, no snags.

We never really believed it would all go that smoothly, though, and we were right.

Much of yesterday afternoon was spent with me on the laptop in the car, begging the MiFi to work just a little better as I frantically tried to access our bank accounts to transfer money over so we could wire our deposit to the dealership. We could have gone into a branch, of course, except that the closest one was seven hours away.

After much strategizing and briefly stealing wifi from a Holiday Inn Express in Middle-of-Nowhere, Texas, we did get the deposit taken care of.

Then this morning we got a call from the dealer saying that they didn't think they could issue our title in Texas if we had a California address. No problem: We gave them our Texas address, which we obtained a week ago. All's well.

Except that they can't confirm that address without a driver's license showing that address. So now, instead of waiting until we got the trailer to register everything and establish our residency, we have to rush to the little town where our address is to pick up proof, then go have the Canyonero inspected and registered, and get our driver's licenses.

What was supposed to be our shortest travel day is quickly turning into one of the longest, and certainly the most complicated.

We're letting the kids burn off some steam at a McDonals'd play area right now, then we're heading out to become Texans.

In the meantime, enjoy these random photos from our trip that I haven't had a chance to publish until now.


Anna getting ready for the trip


A coffee truck. (Not really, but we could have used one at the time.)


The family with a giant roadrunner made out of trash.

Boobs in Arizona

What better way to spend our time in Phoenix than with a little good old social activism?

See, a week or so ago, a woman on my car seat message board was kicked out of a Phoenix McDonald's for nursing her baby. The owner of the restaurant issued a lame, generic apology to the media, but when she talked to the woman herself, instead of offering an apology the owner begged her not to sue and downplayed the whole thing.

Since I was going to be in Arizona anyway, a few of us decided to have a nurse-in at the McDonald's to encourage them to issue a real, sincere apology and to commit to better training for their employees. We spread the word about the nurse-in via the interwebs, and we got a huge turn-out. There were probably close to 100 moms, babies, kids, and supporters.

The owners of the McDonald's were there, but didn't talk to any of the moms. One of them was laughing on his cell phone most of the time, probably thrilled that he was getting so much extra business. They kept the media in the parking lot, far from the entrance, but all of the Phoenix news networks covered the story, and all were sympathetic to the cause.

Two or three stations ran interviews with me, and Steve was interviewed by two, also. This is a link to the Channel 12 coverage. I'll try to find more as time permits. That one has an interview with Steve, Clarissa (the woman who was initially kicked out) and me. Anna's there, too! (The channel 3 guy said that I drove in from Southern California just for the nurse-in, which isn't entirely accurate, though I might have anyway.)

No one got an apology, but one of the owner/manager-type-people eventually gave out cards for free smoothies. I guess that's supposed to make up for it.

As a quick update on our trip, we're currently in El Paso, headed toward Houston tomorrow. I'll update more later on other goings-on. We have to go get dinner now and try to get the kids in bed at some point.

It's a Dry Heat

We're in Phoenix! We made it here before noon, which is definitely a record for me, although I've also never left home before 5 a.m. before.

The day started off a little shaky. I woke up at 4 with an upset tummy and hoped it would go away.

We got the kids in the car (Elias stayed awake; Anna screamed for a minute then fell asleep) and hit the road just after our 5:00 goal.

My tummy continued to hurt. I tried sleeping a little, but that's pretty hard to do when you're being conscientious of keeping the seatbelt properly fitted and when the rising sun is glaring behind your eyelids. (That's the other problem: I scratched my eye yesterday--I blinked wrong, apparently--so no contact lenses for me today, which means no sunglasses.)

Halfway between civilization and Blythe I started feeling better mentally, if not physically. We stopped for breakfast in Blythe and I was able to down 1/4 of a piece of toast and two cups of hot tea.

When we got back on the road we explained to Elias what a mesa was and had him keep a lookout. We also pointed out the Saguaro cacti and told him about how his Grampa Rick calls them "waving man" cacti.

We were able to check into our hotel early, and Steve is now waiting for me to finish typing so we can go get some lunch. I'm still having stomach pains, but I do feel hungry, so I figure that's a good sign.

I hope I'm well enough by tonight or tomorrow to have Manuel's, because I didn't come all this way for no Mexican food.

Still getting ready...

Things are falling nicely into place, and I hope I didn't jinx myself by saying that.

We have our Texas address, insurance, and whatever other stuff they needed for the loan. We should be able to sign the paperwork in Phoenix on Saturday morning.

We're going nuts today trying to get ready for our 5 a.m. departure. There's laundry and packing to do, kids to keep entertained, last-minute doctor's appointments, the truck's 3,000-servicing, etc. We have crossed very little off our list, but we're getting there.

Although we'll be staying in hotels on the way there, we hope to stay in the trailer on the way back. We're not taking much--just sheets, towels, and pillows, mainly--but enough that we can sleep in it.

We are all excited to see what it looks like in person, and Steve cannot wait to tow the thing. I, of course, am terrified of towing it, so I'm glad he'll be doing the driving.

I'm taking my computer with me, so I hope to be able to update from the road. (Not literally, as typing while riding could pose a danger if the airbag were to deploy.)

Getting Ready...

Our trailer is being born as I type! Or possibly already has been. I don't know. But it was scheduled to come off the line late yesterday or sometime today.

That means that we're getting ready to head out to Texas to pick him up. (Yes, it's male.)

That also means that we are going nuts, because there is a LOT to figure out. The manufacturer needs to ship the trailer to the dealer. The dealer won't send the trailer to Texas until they have our money, which won't happen until we close our loan. To close our loan, Bank of America needs some number from the dealer, which the dealer has to get from the manufacturer. Bank of America also needs our Texas address to close the loan, unless we want the trailer titled in California, which we absolutely do not want. There's also the issue of planning our route and timing so that we arrive in Houston a day or so before our trailer does, because we need to have the hitch installed.

We had planned on waiting until we were in Texas to go in person to get our address. However, this "needing a Texas address to close the loan" thing threw a wrench into those plans. We went yesterday afternoon to have our necessary documents notarized and overnighted to the organization we're using for our mail service, so we should (hopefully) have our address by tomorrow afternoon. Presuming there are no snags with that (knock on wood), that's one major component out of the way.

Then there are the usual hassles of going on "vacation" with two kids: the packing, sending the dog to the boarder, making sure the house is clean in case someone wants to come buy it while we're gone, canceling swimming lessons, etc.

Oh, there's also the matter of making sure we have all of the paperwork we need with us, and securing insurance for the trailer (needed to close the loan), plus securing insurance for all our vehicles once we have them registered in Texas.

And probably 15 other things I'm forgetting.

Our tentative plan is to leave very early in the morning (like 5 a.m.) Friday, then get to the Phoenix area that afternoon. We'll spend Saturday eating at Manuel's and hanging with friends, then we'll leave very early Sunday to get to western Texas. We figure two more days from there to get into Houston.

We plan on driving about six hours per day, and we hope to knock half of that out before breakfast. We don't want to push the kids (or ourselves, for that matter) too hard since we haven't done a roadtrip with them before.

Hopefully we're in for smooth sailing!

More Musings on St. Joseph

A few days ago I wrote about how I hoped that St. Joseph would help me sell my house. People weighed in with their opinions about why I hadn't had any luck yet.

My mom thought that putting him next to the playhouse might have confused him, and might be causing him to work on selling the playhouse, not the rest of the property.

My dad offered to give me a statue of Willie Mays to bury along with St. Joseph. I appreciate the sentiment, but seeing as Willie Mays is not dead, I don't think he's capable of performing miracles. (His catch in the 1954 World Series not withstanding.) Plus I worried that burying his statue might hasten the actual man's death, and I'd feel really guilty about that.

My friend Anne thought maybe I needed to have the statue blessed, but I figured he came pre-blessed out of the box. She also suggested that maybe he's a one-time-use item: Since I already used him to sell one home, maybe he can't do another.

This idea intrigued me, so I typed "can I reuse St. Joseph" into google and got two relevant hits. The first was worthless, but the second was a wealth of information. It was a link to EcoJoe (photo above), a company that sells environmentally friendly St. Joseph kits. See, people forget to dig up the plastic relics, which can eventually ooze toxins into the soil. EcoJoes are made out of clay, so if you don't dig them up, no problem.

One of the questions asked on their site is whether you can use St. Joseph more than once. Their answer: Why not? Plus it's the environmentally friendly thing to do!

(As an aside, whether or not you're selling your house, you have got to check out the EcoJoe website. It's cheeky--but not disrespectful--and you'll learn about other neat things like Paul, the octopus who predicts the future.)

I decided my mom was probably right about needing to move St. Joe away from the playhouse. Another friend of mine in Utah had her house on the market for two months with no activity. Then within days of burying St. Joseph, her house was sold. Coincidence? I think not. So I asked her where and how she buried her statue. She said that she put him head down, with his face toward the home, in the flower bed farthest away from the house.

As much as I didn't want to disturb St. Joseph again, I decided that today I would unearth him--just this one last time--and rebury him in the front yard, far away from the house but facing it, and upside-down. A few minutes after I made that decision, Steve came in from doing yardwork to say that he had reburied St. Joseph for me. He did put him in the front yard, but not in the position or location I would have chosen. Rather than bother him again, though, I'm going to let him be. Maybe Steve will have better luck with him than I did.

And if we go another week or two without a sale, I'm burying EcoJoe. After all, my plastic St. Joe is more than six years old now. Maybe he's expired.

Surreal Experience

I probably won't be able to convey in words how weird this was, but I'll give it a shot.

First, the backstory.

Shortly after we got the truck, Steve had automatic retractable running boards installed on the truck. The running boards were a necessity (I could barely get in/out of the truck without them). The automatic retractability...not so necessary, but they are very cool.

A few days ago Steve noticed a pool of clear oil on one of the boards. Upon closer inspection, it was clearly coming from some part of their mechanism. So this morning Steve took the Canyonero back to the place where we had them installed. They said there is no oil in any of the parts. Maybe it was water.

Steve knows the difference between oil and water and was pretty sure he wasn't crazy. When he got home, he decided to call the manufacturer to see what they would say. He left a message and an engineer called back. He was also baffled, but it turns out the company is in Orange County and they wanted to take a look.

So after lunch we drove the truck over to their location. The engineer asked if he could drive the truck "around back" so they could take a look. We said sure. So he got into the driver's seat, Steve climbed into the back with the kids, and off we went. We expected to see a service bay or something.

Instead, he drove the truck over to the loading dock at the back of their warehouse. The ramp didn't look like one made for cars--it was like a ramp for dollies and was at about a 45-degree angle. I seriously don't know how the wheels of the truck even fit on there, and he had to rev the engine to get it up. Now we saw why he didn't want us driving it in there.

Then suddenly we were inside. Not inside a service area, but inside a regular warehouse, driving down the aisles. Again, there was barely room for the truck to fit, and on either side were shelves with boxes of parts stacked 18 feet high.

We got to the end of one of the rows, and the guy had to maneuver like crazy to turn the corner and get us into the "service" area, which was really more like a workroom that happened to be big enough for a truck.

While the guy was working on the truck, Elias wanted to get out, so he went and drew on a white board with one of the employees. I didn't want to get out with Anna because she'd be too difficult to corral, so I hung out in back with her. She started to get cranky and asked to nurse. I looked around the Canyonero, at all these employees milling around, talking with the engineer, looking at the truck, etc. I felt like I was in a fishbowl, but figured everyone cared more about the truck, so I shrugged and fed her.

Then I started to get bored because there wasn't much to do in the backseat of a truck sitting in the middle of a warehouse. So I figured I'd see if there was enough room to change a diaper in the middle of the backseat. There is! Quite comfortably, as a matter of fact.

Then I was still bored, so I sat Anna on the seat and decided to reinstall her car seat to see if I could get it more upright. (No go.)

Then I gave up and got out of the truck to stand in the nice air conditioned workroom.

In the meantime, they did discover the clear oil inside one of the parts, although it didn't belong there and they had no idea how it got there. But they replaced the parts for us and took the oily piece for further inspection.

When they were done, another guy got in to drive us out. I don't know how he did it, but he zoomed out of there--backwards--in like 30 seconds. (He did drive forward down the ramp. I swear I thought we were going to nose-dive.)

So that was our bizarre experience of the day. Mystery oil and a trip through a warehouse. It would have been better with popcorn.

Birthdays on the Road

The only prime-time TV show Elias gets to watch is ABC's "The Middle." In one episode, the family was going on a road trip during the daughter's birthday, so they let her decide where to eat, when to stop, and what sights to see along the way. We thought that would be a good rule for us to adopt: If we're on the road during someone's birthday, that person calls the shots.

So a couple months ago--when things were still more hypothetical than they are now--we asked Elias what he'd like to do if we were on our trip during his birthday. His answer? Go to Las Vegas (or Lost Vegas, as he so aptly calls it).

Well, Elias's birthday is tomorrow, and we're not going to Las Vegas. Technically, we're not on the road yet, so that's our excuse. Things are up in the air, though, which has made it hard to plan a party. It takes all I have to keep the house spotless (in case someone wants to come see it) all day with just my own two kids. Add a bunch of other children and we might as well pull the house off the market.

I finally talked Elias into having his party away from home for the first time ever. We're doing a low-key party at the park, with just snacks and cake. The theme of the cake is yet to be determined as I still haven't ordered it. This is a far cry from the days that I would have the elaborate, homemade cake planned weeks in advance. But hey, things are up in the air.

The other challenge we faced was what to do about gifts. We're trying to downsize, of course, and getting a bunch of new stuff would be counterproductive. On the other hand, how do you talk a 6-year-old out of presents?

I found the answer thanks to the party my friend Ruth threw for her son a few weeks ago. Instead of regular presents, people were asked to bring a small "treasure," like a rock, marble, seashell, whatever. I played up the coolness of that idea to Elias, who finally acquiesced with the caveat that his grandparents still be allowed get him Legos.

So, this year will be the small-treasure-in-the-park party. Next year: Vegas! Or something. It's too far away to plan for the seventh birthday.

Found a new trailer

We found a cool trailer-car set-up. Unfortunately, I doubt we can track one down. It might be for the better.

Update on the House

Well, the housing market died right when we listed our house. Maybe that thunderstorm was an omen...

And since I am so superstitious, I have been resisting the urge to disinter St. Joseph. The-who-what-now, you ask?

Yes, you see, supposedly burying a statue of St. Joseph will make your home sell faster. You can buy St. Joseph House-Selling kits, which I did several years ago when I was selling my condo. It's hard to say if St. Joseph or a robust market was more responsible for the sale, but I'm not one to ask questions.

That particular St. Joseph was subsequently dug up and had been hanging out on a shelf in Elias's room until a couple weeks ago when I buried him upside-down in the vegetable garden next to the playhouse. Then I read an article about it on Snopes (it's hilarious, by the way) and decided St. Joseph might perfer a different position. So I unearthed him and put him horizontal but face-down in the same location. Now I worry that someone will come make an offer on the playhouse but not the rest of our property, so I'm toying with the idea of putting him in the front yard.

But I realize I can't rely on a plastic saint to sell my house (especially when I'm not Catholic--I figure he might hold that against me), so we have also lowered our asking price and have held several open houses. We do have a few people who seem interested and another open house this weekend. In the meantime, we wait...

Laundry Day

Until recently, I had a lot of clothes. The nice thing about having a lot of clothes is that I could avoid doing my laundry for up to two weeks.* Although it felt nice to purge the closet, fewer clothes meant that I'd have to do laundry more often.

You know what, though? It turns out it isn't so bad.

See, I have come to realize that it's not the actual doing of the laundry that I despise. I have no problem throwing some clothes into a machine and sitting back while it does its work. No, what I dread is the sorting (after two weeks, there are too many clothes for one load), folding, hanging, and putting away.

This is what my typical laundry "day" used to look like:

1. Sort clothes (either by general color or by "what's closer to the top of the hamper/what's closer to the bottom").

2. Throw one load into the washer while the other load(s) sit on the bathroom floor.

3. Five hours later, remember that I have clothes in the washer.

4. Move clothes into dryer.

5. Determine whether anything else (besides the loads on the floor in the bathroom) needs to be washed. If so, return to step 1. If not, continue to step 6.

6. Don't bother getting the clothes out of the dryer.

7. Next day, rummage through the clothes in the dryer until I find something not too wrinkled to wear that day. Close the dryer door.

8. Repeat step 7 for a couple more days, or until something else needs to be put in the dryer, or until Steve complains about the clothes on the bathroom floor, or until I have depleted my supply of clean yet unwrinkled clothes to wear.

9. Put clothes in the dryer on touch-up.

10. Two hours later, remember that the touch-up cycle ended 1 hour and 42 minutes ago. Put clothes on touch-up again.

11. Half an hour later, remember the clothes had been on touch-up and decide they're probably still warm enough that I can smooth them out without having too many wrinkles.

12. Dump clothes on the bed and smooth out shirts. Put everything else in a pile.

13. If Steve is at work, leave stuff on the bed until he gets home. Secretly hope he works overtime.

14. When Steve gets home, move the piles onto a chair.

15. Eventually Steve complains about the clothes on the chair, and I grudgingly put everything away.

Total time to do a load of laundry: About one week.

Here's the thing, though: When you hardly have any clothes, the annoying steps are reduced/eliminated.

No need to sort, because everything fits in one load!

Folding/putting stuff on hangers takes only a minute, because there aren't that many items to deal with!

Putting stuff away, also, takes almost no time because there are almost no clothes!
It's almost refreshing.

(*Please note that I'm talking about my laundry. The kids' laundry--especially the diapers--get done much more often. And Steve does his own. It's in our prenup.)

Chips, Salsa, Water!

For many years, some friends and I would make an annual pilgrimage to Phoenix each spring (and sometimes in the fall and summer, too). The trips were officially about baseball, but unofficially they were about Manuel's, the best Mexican restaurant ever.

Manuel's was always our first stop when we got in, and our last stop before heading out. We ate there nearly every day of our vacation, and sometimes twice a day.

Their chips and salsa are ridiculously good. (The water is just regular water, but the refill people wore shirts that said "Chips, Salsa, Water" on them, hence the title of this post.)

When we started planning our trip to Texas/Ohio, I knew we had to go through Phoenix. I haven't been there in about four years, and that's too long to go without Manuel's. (Plus I need to stop in and buy a car seat from a friend there, and also see her brand new baby. Hi, Shrimp!)

So I was thrilled yesterday when I saw that Manuel's is selling gift cards for half-off through their website. I immediately ordered a $100 card for $50. 

There's no way we'll use that all on our upcoming trip. We'll be in Phoenix for a max of 24 hours, and it's not an expensive place (plus kids eat for $1.99 through August!). But I'm supposed to be back in Phoenix for a conference in March, so I can use it then, too. And if there's still some left over? Well, I guess we'll just have to go back.

My mouth is watering...