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Winter-  Can we get on the road yet?

Winter started out with staying at Kerin's, aka The Ranch on December 15th, and the snow started to fall! Eli came home from Belgium for Christmas break. I believe the snow was suppose to be for the weekend. Several weeks later, we were all still alive but maybe not the same. It was a great family Christmas with 4 adults and 1 dog in a toy hauler with average 24 degree's and up to 18" of snow on the ground. Fortunately we had the house to visit because holding tanks would have been a problem. I don't think the boys were thinking the first visit in the toy hauler was going to be in those weather conditions. The first freezing water problem educated us further on the trailer. The trailer is very well insulated and the furnace ducting runs along the water tanks, seems like a good design? Rick found that the drain lines that come out from under the trailer to drain for winterizing, froze and the freezing run up into the enclosed compartment water lines. He placed a fan in the basement to move the warm air around and the water unfroze in a few hours with the help of LL's hair dryer. As most of you know, LL does not use a hair dryer often but when deciding whether to put it in the trailer or not, I thought "what the hell might need it". So LL put hair dryer on the essential list of things to have.

We ended up moving to Renton Highlands mid January to be closer to what Eli needed and a little warmer weather, 10 degrees warmer "in town" makes a big difference on propane use. We are staying in the Dwyers former residence that they are getting ready to sell. Had a problem with one of the landing gear motors that burned up. Took a while to find a replacement motor, the toy hauler requires a heavy duty landing gear motor due to the weight. Hanging out until the 18th to head south to Denny & Patty's, finally on our way south. Eli will be playing in Texas for the new season, and will be flying out of LA next month.

Fall 2008

The Rig

In the beginning

Fall 2008

We started the Fall with getting the RV rig in September 2008. We purchased the RV in Oregon, we headed down to Denny & Patty's in the new truck. It was a great road trip and upon returning to Washington to get organized and finishing up business, we made a phone call to our friends, Bernie & TO and asked, "can we park in your driveway?" We had not made plans of where we were going with this 39' monster so it was a whim on a phone call. Fortunately they said, "sure".

Staying at the Lovato's was great for sorting out and setting up our belongings. The Lovato's aka "The Compound" was wonderful. They had gotten their very first puppy, CODY and Striker had a puppy to play with. The weather was moderate 50 to 60's so we didn't have weather issues to get the trailer figured out. We made a trip over the mountains to Spokane, hoping to see a new great niece, some friends and get the storage belongings figured out as we put things in "long term" storage there last spring when moving out of the house. We retrieved our "short term" storage items immediately to end that monthly expense.

We had a great first road trip to Spokane staying at Vantage Wanapum Dam campground both ways. By this time we were learning things every day, like check your own tire pressure don't rely on the guys that hooked up the hitch that said they checked them and they were perfect. Perfectly 15lbs under on every tire! We ended up filling them in Vantage after cruising down the Vantage hill at 70 mph, at the only gas station with air which was located in a difficult location for filling the tires. Rick ended up using his own air hose connected to their air hose and reconnecting the nozzle when we were done.

I had always wanted to go to Wanapum Dam which we have made at least a hundred trips without stopping. It was beautiful and the campground was 1/3 full so we got a great spot. The toy hauler got some attention there by other RVers, but it was when we stayed in a private campground in Mead, WA that we gave our first tour to strangers. So we are thinking maybe this thing is bitchin even to RVers, since we are clueless on the RV world.

LL got sick as soon as we set up at the campground in Mead, so no new baby visit and we headed up to Deer Park and started getting our stuff sorted out, what should really be in long term storage and retrieving what we really needed. Oh, and all of the photo's! LL's project is to scan all of the photo's. Big job, lots of photo's!

We returned back to Bernie & TO's just in time for Ricky to go Elk Hunting. LL went it alone in the RV finishing up paper work.

THE MORE THE MERRIER - Due to the economic wonders going on, Jason returned to Seattle from LA just before Thanksgiving for the next few months. That's where the toy hauler with the king size bed in the garage comes in handy. We had a great Thanksgiving with the Mattheisens, and Nina's boyfriend, Dave joined us for the first time. Eli was in Belgium and was missed. He got to go to Spain to visit Emma, so I am not sure we were missed.

End of fall we moved to our friend Kerin/s out on Auburn-Black Diamond Road aka "The Ranch".

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The Rig