Photos from the trip

Sorry it's been a few days. We've been settling back into our "normal" routine.

Lucy seemed happy to be picked up from boarding, although as usual she never lacked attention while she was there. Apparently they had her sit in on some staff meetings.

Elias has started first grade, and we have work due soon so I've been scrambling to make up for the two weeks we lost while on the road. (Not that we didn't do educational stuff during the travels, and not that I can't have that count as our work, but I do need to get our organization in better shape.)

Steve has gone back to work.

The house is still for sale.

Oh, and Camping World might have messed up our hitch installation. Steve is talking with a hitch expert about that. Could be fun.

But without further ado, here are some photos from our trip, including the remaining photos of Homer's interior that I wasn't able to upload before.

Here's a big rocket at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. See Steve and the kids at the bottom? (At least I think that's Steve and the kids...)


This is the guard station at the Igloo factory in Brookshire, TX. (For the record, they have a factory store there, and we scored about $60 worth of coolers for $20.)


This is the World's Largest Fire Hydrant in Beaumont, TX. It's actually only the third-largest now, but who's counting? It sits outside the Texas Fire Museum and was created to publicize the release of the live-action version of Disney's 101 Dalmatians.


They also have some normal-sized Dalmatian-themed hydrants:


And Elias found a Hidden Mickey on one:


Anna driving a fire truck in the museum:


And Elias:


Here's Anna by the river at the KOA in Junction, TX:


Elias at the site where Billy the Kid was sentenced:


Anna being a goof:


The kids' wardrobe and bathroom in Homer:



Our first dinner in Homer:


A photo of the whole rig:


And finally, a rock Elias found at the campground in Yuma. He thought it looked like a fifth wheel, and I'd say he's absolutely right:

Homer's Innards

Today I finally got to see inside Homer. In fact, I'm sitting here at my new desk as I type. Next to my new "fireplace" and TV.

The internet connection is pretty slow, but I was able to upload a few pictures. There are more coming, but I lost the connection during the upload so those will have to wait for another day.

With no further ado, here is the inside of Homer.

The master bedroom:


Dresser, TV, window:


Washer/Dryer:


Closet:


Master bath:


Linen closet:


Living room/kitchen/dining room:


Table and couch:


TV, desk, fireplace, fridge, stove:


The rest of the kitchen:


The kids' room:


Elias is sleeping on the mattress on the floor for the trip home. Later on, we'll get a bed rail and figure out some way for him to get up to the top bunk. Then we'll either leave the spot below as a play space, or we'll put a toddler bed there for Anna. Not sure yet.

Steve has the electric, water, and sewer hooked up, but apparently the dealership failed to fill up our propane as they were supposed to, so we don't have hot water. I guess that means no shower tomorrow.

We will, however, leave tomorrow to start our trip home. Uh, presuming we have no more delays. Fingers crossed.

My mom also pointed out to me the irony of the "Free-Range Family" being so desperate to get home. Obviously once this is our home, it'll be easier. Right now we're sort of in limbo and just want to get back to our normalcy.

We might ACTUALLY be getting out of here...

All right.

So, as you know, we had a hydraulic problem on our brand-spanking-new Cedar Creek 36B2 (known to his friends as Homer).

Forest River and the company that makes the hydraulic system sent out a technician who they had to dispatch from Fort Worth, but he got here the other night around 7 p.m. Steve hung out with him while he worked into the night trying to diagnose the problem.

I don't completely understand the technical aspects because I know absolutely nothing about hydraulics, but basically a major component blew out. The technician was in touch with the engineer who designed the system, and the engineer was confident that it was just a faulty part, not a systematic failure.

So yesterday they had the part overnighted, and the idea was that the technician would be able to put it on very quickly, and then we could test the system just to make sure all was well. Forest River also arranged for us to take Homer to a local dealership tomorrow to have the underbelly cleaned and insulation replaced.

That would mean (ideally) the trailer would be ready to go on Saturday morning, just in time for Labor Day weekend. We worried that RV parks along the way might be full so we contemplated staying here until Tuesday, but we really, really, really just want to get home.

Anyway, the technician was here all day yesterday without much to do since the part wasn't arriving until this morning. To keep busy he decided to clean out the underbelly and replace the insulation himself. Steve says he was very thorough and appeared to do a very good job. That meant that we could skip the dealership tomorrow and hit the road, presuming the replacement part fixed the problem.

The part arrived at 8 this morning. The technician got it on and he and Steve ran through the systems a few times. Everything seems to be running well, and we're keeping our fingers crossed that it continues to.

Steve then realized that after installing the hitch and the connector plate, Camping World had failed to file down the metal where they welded the parts in (or something like that). So he's on his way back there with Homer and the Canyonero to have them fix that, but it should only take an hour or so.

If all goes well (I realize at this point that's a big "if"), we will sleep in Homer tonight and get on the road tomorrow. We figure the places we're likely to be staying aren't big tourist destinations so we're not too concerned about parks being full. If they are, we'll stay in rest stops and have even more fun stuff to write about.

Please cross your fingers that things go smoothly from here on out. Southeast Texas is a lovely place, but we are so done with it for now.

I know why this is happening

I'm a bit embarrassed by Anna's birth video. Not because of the nudity, but because of what I'm caught on tape asking a split second after she emerged. Most normal people would have asked something like, "Is it a boy or a girl?" Instead, I asked (frantically and repeatedly) what time it was. Poor Steve, instead of welcoming his new baby into the world, is seen on the video fumbling with his cell phone trying to find out. Finally someone answered and I could get on with other things, like realizing I had a baby girl.

Why was the time so pressing? Because you can't get a complete astrological chart without an accurate time of birth.

As I've mentioned before, I believe in omens and superstitions. I also believe in astrology and metaphysics and other things that most people view as whacky. I just do, and I'm not going to apologize for it.

So I have to believe that the planets are the cause of the problems we've been having. Actually, just one planet in particular, that pesky Mercury.

A few days into our trip my mom reminded me that Mercury Retrograde had started the day we left California. Mercury Retrograde occurs a few times a year and lasts for a couple weeks each time. During that period, Mercury appears to be going backward and it makes things go haywire. You're not supposed to undertake any major new projects, make large purchases or sign legal documents.

I wasn't worried, though. I had always operated with the understanding that it was ok to finish things during Retrograde--you just couldn't start anything new. Since we had applied for the loan, ordered the trailer, and paid our deposit well ahead of Mercury Retrograde, we should be fine.

But with things going so utterly bad, I looked into it some more. It turns out I might have been wrong.

The information I found today specifically said not to end any major projects during Retrograde if it meant signing documents or contracts. One should allow extra time for travel. And transportation issues are especially affected. (I also learned that one shouldn't hold elections during Mercury Retrograde, a fact I'll be sure to remember should I ever stage a coup.)

My mom placed a call to our astrologer (yes, we have one) to see if there's anything we can do to make this better, but we haven't heard back yet. Mercury Retrograde doesn't end until September 12, so we might still be in for a long haul. (As an aside, the first time I heard about Mercury Retrograde was when I accompanied my mom to a meeting with our astrologer when I was about 10. I thought she was referring to a type of car. I still think the Mercury Retrograde would be an awesome car name, though it would probably be a terrible car.)

On the topic of superstitions, a while back I wrote about EcoJoe, the environmentally friendly St. Joseph-house-selling kit. The owner of the company read my blog and asked if I'd like to take St. Joe on our travels and photograph him with different landmarks, sort of like the Travelocity gnome. Of course I would! She also said it was fine if I buried him in the meantime if I needed help selling our house.

I was quite conflicted about what to do. I didn't want to bury him because I worried he might clash with or negate the other St. Joseph I already had buried. I didn't want to disinter the original St. Joe lest he get mad at me and seek revenge (I have issues, I know). At the same time, I didn't want to bring him with us on this trip. After all, his role is to sell property, and we're trying to buy something. I could have just let him sit, unburied, in the house, but at the last minute I buried him in a different part of the yard as the other Joe. Hopefully they're playing nice.

Anyway, EcoJoe has missed out on some roadside attractions, but I think it's best that he's not with us on this trip. I already have one supernatural force trying to keep us from this trailer, and that's more than enough.

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.

Road trip!

The dealership in San Diego quoted us an MSRP and a "best offer" that were both $10,000 higher than the dealership in Ohio. We have no idea how they came up with such an inflated MSRP given that we asked for the exact same options for a trailer coming from the exact same plant in Indiana. Even factoring in a couple thousand more for destination charges shouldn't result in that much of a difference.

Rather than negotiate with them, we went ahead and ordered from the dealer in Ohio. That's right: We have paid our deposit, and should be the owners of new wheel estate in just a few short weeks! Right now they're estimating the middle of August.

Now I get to start planning our road trip to Cincinnati. In case you're wondering, we don't have to go pick up the trailer. The dealer will deliver it to us, but we can get there ourselves for less. Plus we want to have them install the hitch on the truck, make sure everything lines up, and make sure the trailer is as we ordered it before we get it 3,000 miles away.

Driving that far with two little kids will be a challenge, but it will also give us all a taste of what we're in for.

Meanwhile, I have been cleaning the house all day so our real estate agent can come take pictures this weekend.