OUR CEMENT PAD IS IN BUT NOW WE HAVE AN ACCESS PROBLEM FOR THE NEXT 7 DAYS:((

THAT IS ACTUALLY A WINE CABINET & THE TOP FOLDS OUT INTO A TABLE

It was loud crashing thunder boomers at 2:15 a.m. that had me awake & out of bed.  Electricity flickered off & on & the pounding rain on our metal roof sounded like a 142 snare drummers going at it.  Headed out to our living room & climbed aboard my recliner.  Minutes later the snare drummers let up & I was happily back to la-la land & my Pirate dreams.

HEY & WE EVEN HAVE A NEVER USED BUILT IN COFFEE MAKER RIGHT ABOVE THE DINING ROOM TABLE

 
Knowing we would have a digging machine roll into our driveway at 8 a.m. we had to hustle our buns so hit the ground running when we got up.  Adding to the busy start this morning was the fact we had to take the Santa Fe to the Bayfield Garage first thing as well.  Clutch is slipping.  They called later in the day saying clutch is going to cost about $1200 to fix.  Needs a whole new clutch assembly.  We already knew clutches on those Santa Fe’s were not adjustable & rightly guessed we were going to need a new one.  The Santa Fe will be out of action till the end of the week sometime.

SOME KIND OF A LASER LEVELLING DEVICE METHINkS

Figured it was best I forego our morning walk in case the cement guys came early.  And they did.  A fellow with a flat bed trailer rolled in & unloaded a Bobcat  Didn't take him long to dig the dirt & gravel out of the carport.  About 5 inches deep worth.  Next the company owner Dana came in & compacted the dirt with a compactor machine.  After that he built a wooden frame around the carport's interior to contain the cement coming later in the day.

 
While the cement guys were doing their thing I was busy doing my thing power washing first the Jeep so Kelly could see out the windows to head off to Clinton & Goderich to do all the ownership change, tags, insurance, etc.  Next was the rig which took me the best part of an hour to get all the road dirt & road grime off from Monday's messy drive home in a sprinkling rain.  Then of course all the glass has to be cleaned because of our white spotting chlorine water.  And there is a lot of glass to clean which I intend to finish Wednesday.   We pretty much stayed out of the coach’s interior for the early part of the day because last night's heavy rains & the machine digging out our carport pretty well made a muddy mess of things in the driveway.  However by late afternoon under 80F temps things dried out well enough & I did get some pics. 
 

DANA, COMPANY OWNER COMPACTING THE DIRT WHILE PHEEBS COMES OUT LATER TO CHECK ON THE LEVEL

BIG CEMENT TRUCK BACKS IN

  

NOT SURE BUT WE THINK THAT MAY BE DANA’S FATHER HELPING HIM OVER THERE IN THE CORNER

 

SMOOOOOOOOOOOOOTH
We could not figure out how to deploy Big EEE’s living room slide.  No problem with the bedroom slide. We have had slides in all our rigs so it was not something new for us.  Wasn't until we hauled the manuals out this afternoon that we finally figured it out.  In our Winnie & Sunseeker the emergency brake had to be on & ignition key on Acc.  Easy stuff.  Same with our Damon but here's the difference.  Living room slide in the Triple E will not deploy unless coach has been levelled using the hydraulic jacks.  We could put the slide out in our Damon without deploying the levellers & we liked that better.  However it's just something we will have to get used to for our overnighter stops at Walmart & Cracker Barrel while in transit to & from the Southwest each year.  

REALLY LIKE THIS BIG BRIGHT SKYLIGHT (WITH CLOSING CURTAIN) IN THE LIVING ROOM
This Triple E was built on a  custom Workhorse chassis meaning bigger tires, anti-sway bars, air bags, & a whole list of things Kelly read off to me while driving home Monday.  I wasn’t surprised because I immediately noticed the difference in ride as soon as we pulled out of the campground Monday.  No swaying or rocking & oh sooooo smooth.  Quietest running Motorhome we've ever had.  And then there's that Chevy  V-8 Vortec engine I like so much.  More torque than the Ford V-10.  This 2003 36' Class A motorhome has more punch to it than our previous 2011 Class C Winnebago Ford.  Our Damon Class A had the same Chevy 8.1 & that is why I was hoping to find a rig with the same great engine again.  I had to flip on the ‘Cruise Control’ in order to hold my speed down because the smooth ride kept taking me up to 70 mph before I realized it.  The leather driver & passenger seats in our Sunseeker were really comfortable.  Our Winnie Wagon seats were even more comfortable & wow now the seats in the Triple E are even more comfortable than that.  Best ever seats so far:)) 

HOW NICE TO HAVE A REAL KITCHEN TABLE AGAIN PLUS A BIG BRIGHT WINDOW TO LOOK OUT
Monday's drive home was a joy.  Felt so good to be back in the driver's seat of a Class A coach again with that big high up view of the world going by.  Yes there are always pros & cons when it comes to different types of RV's & I for sure will miss the easy access driver & passenger doors of our Class C Winnebago.  I do have a driver's door in the Big EEE but it's not something I would get in the habit of using regularly.  Getting in & climbing up using a bit of brute force is doable but getting out & down to the ground requires a parachute & a first aid kit.  A driver's door is something I wanted though.  I've never liked the idea of only one door in an RV.  In case of an accident, fire, or an emergency I feel much safer knowing we have an optional escape route.  I remember hearing some folks saying those doors have a lot of wind noise etc.  Nope not this one.  Quiet as a baby's breath.   And it has a power window in it that goes two thirds of the way down.  Nice.  I just like the fact I can sit there, open my door & let the breezes flow through. 

BEHIND THAT REAR DOUBLE MIRROR IN THE BEDROOM IS A BIG ALMOST WALK-IN CLOSET

 

I JUST LOVE ALL KINDS OF LIGHTED SWITCHES & DIALS IN THE COCKPIT AREA

HAD ME A PEAK UP ON THE ROOF, NEEDS A GOOD CLEANING & THE 4 SOLAR PANELS ARE ALL AT THE FRONT

<<< EVEN IF I DON’T USE MY DRIVERS DOOR A LOT I AM  JUST HAPPY TO HAVE MYSELF A DOOR THERE

It's more of a boarding house reach to some of the things on the dash like the radio compared to the Class C’s but that's Okay.  Am really, really, really, glad to finally be done with those miserable touch screen radios we had in the Sunseeker & Winnebago.  Back to knobs & dials radio again.  Super:))  Sound system isn't quite as funky as the Winnie but I still have some tweaking to do.  Soon as I can figure out how to get the sub woofer rattling the windows I will be happy.  There are 3 speakers up front high atop the windshield.  There are 2 more brand new uninstalled speakers still in the box & at some point I would for sure like to have those installed somewhere in the living room kitchen area.  There are also speakers in the bedroom with their own on & off switch.
  

THAT COUCH POWERS INTO A BED – ROOMY SHOWER HAS A BRIGHT SKYLIGHT – CB RADIO COMES STANDARD WITH THE COACH
I had to retreat into the house by mid afternoon because of the rapidly building heat & high humidity.  Kicked on the A/C.  Welcome relief.   Big cement truck rolled in & they were soon pouring cement into the carport.  The guys were working hard in the heat to level out all that concrete.  It didn't strike me as a job I would have cared for years ago.  Didn't take them long to get a nice flat & smooth surface going on.  By late afternoon we had severe thunderstorm warnings coming in as the skies began to rapidly darken.  Dana had to hastily build a makeshift tarp to cover the entrance of the carport.  Pounding rain could mess up the cement & he finished putting it up just in time.  Well not really, he got totally soaked loading up his truck.  Luckily the storm was fast moving & didn't last long before heading inland where it later spawned tornado warnings.

TARPED UP AGAINST THE COMING RAIN
As happy as we were to see the cement pad poured today it has caused a bit of a temporary problem for us.  About a 7 day problem to be exact.  It will take that long for the cement to cure, set, & harden before we can walk across it & gain access to our carport storage area.  And it is in that area where most of the stuff to be loaded aboard the Big EEE is located so our ‘getting er all jazzed up’ will have to wait a week.  Oh well we can get a lot of things in the rig boxed up & organized.  Don left us enough new spare parts to start our very own NAPA store I think.  Holy smokes we got spare parts for just about everything…………..and we keep finding more:))

 

JUST A FEW OF THE SPARE PARTS & I THINK DON HAD MORE BULBS THAN WESTINGHOUSE

LITTLE BUGSY BOOMER WASN’T LONG IN FINDING HERSELF A SPOT ON THE BED

Our neighbor Monica isn’t home this year to see her beautiful Magnolia tree in bloom.  I think she is back from Hawaii now but out west visiting family for another week or two.

 
GROANER'S CORNER:(( The little boy was caught swearing by his teacher.

"Jeffrey," she said, "you shouldn't use that kind of language. Where did you hear it?"

"My daddy said it," he responded.

"Well, that doesn't matter," she explained, "you don't know what it means."

"I do, too," Jeffrey corrected. "It means the car won't start."

“YAAAAAAHOUIE LOUIE”:)))))))))))))

WE BROUGHT OUR TRIPLE E COMMANDER HOME TODAY:))

Had myself an exercise in frustration this morning.  After week's of waiting for a phone call to come pick up the Motorhome Don phoned this morning saying, "Motorhome's done & ready for us to pick it up".  Great news:)))) Only one problem, Kelly had headed off to Goderich about an hour earlier & I could not remember or find the cell phone number to call her.  I knew we had a big rain front headed our way & time was important if we were going to get over to Cambridge & get the rig back before the rain nailed us.  I didn't want to start off by having a big road grime clean up job on the coach.
 

OUR BIG RV PARKING AREA  IS FILLED & OUR DRIVEWAY IS LOOKING NORMAL AGAIN
I searched high & low for that darn cell phone number but to no avail.  Nothing written on piece of paper near the phone, nothing in my little book I carry, nothing in our phone address book.  We had changed cell phone companies before leaving Congress & I just never remembered to write it into my shirt pocket book.  Fortunately Kelly had stopped in at Deer Park Lodge & before heading for Goderich she phoned home.  Soon as I told her the Motorhome was ready to be picked up she made a U turn on the highway & headed back.  Twenty minutes later we were in the Jeep happily heading for Cambridge.

SHE’S IN HER SPOT

It was about 1:25 in the afternoon when we reached the campground  where the rig was parked & Don was outside laying out the attachable sunroom to show us how it all went together.  We did a walk around off the coach as well as Don explained all the workings.  There is a lot more to learn with this coach because of all the upgrades & accessories.  Even though we have been RVing (Snow Birding) for 8 years we had not come across some of the systems & features this coach has.  I felt like a Newbie as Don pointed out this & explained that.  In the coming days & weeks I will take photos & try to explain how things work.  Good luck AL!!
 

SUN ROOM LESSON

 
We had noticed in the past weeks that several times we contacted Don he was at opposite ends of the country.  One time Vancouver & a short time later he was in Halifax.  We couldn't figure out what kind of job this fellow had.  We guessed a company owner & President.  Maybe a traveling CEO.  With Don's meticulous nature, obvious intelligence, inventive nature, & particular attention to detail & overall handyman/craftsman skills I figured his job had to be something special.  And I was right.  Kelly finally asked Don what he worked at & when he told her, all those above things fell immediately into place for me.  I understood right away why the coach was in such great condition.  I understood why Don has done all his own maintenance including the installation of the whole solar system.  I remember him telling us he does all the work himself because he wants things done right.  In Don's line of work all things have to be done right & he has to be meticulous with a keen eye to attention & detail.  No room for doing things half right.  In other words no room for error.  Don is a pilot who flies from one side of Canada to the other for Fed-Ex.  I meant to ask him what kind of plane he flew but I'm assuming it's one of those big Fed-Ex jets like we've seen parked at the Indianapolis Airport when we used to go by there on our way south a few years back.

 

We did a tour of the coach's interior going over all the systems etc.  Paperwork was done, I put the hitch on the back of the coach, wheeled it out & hooked on the Jeep.  With a handshake & hearty Hi-Ho Silver we were off.  But we didn't get far before we totally embarrassed ourselves.  And that embarrassment began with me misreading one of the instrument panel gauges for starters.

DON SIGNS OVER THE OWNERSHIP

Pulling out of the campground onto the paved road I glanced down at the fuel gauge & saw there was a quarter tank of gas in the rig.  I knew that was not enough to get us back to Bayfield.  We had spotted a Flying J on our way to pick up the rig so about 5 minutes later that is where we stopped for gas.  But.......try as we may we could not get the locking gas flap open.  We were familiar with these types of locks, had the right key but we could not get it open.  Both of us tried & tried.  Nope!!  Well how embarrassing was that because now we had to call Don & hope he wasn't too far away.  He had just opened that gas flap for us not an hour before.  Don said it would take him about 20 minutes to reach us but was befuddled why the door wouldn't open.  In the meantime I had moved the coach away from the gas pump.  We both continued to trying everything we knew until Kelly finally tried putting the key in only part way......and that worked.  Feeling rather silly we called Don back & said we were Okay.  Well actually we weren't & in few minutes we were again feeling like the Boobsters.

WE ARE VERY, VERY HAPPY CAMPERS:))))))))))))))))))))

 

I had motored the coach back up to the pump again & we had not locked the gas flap in case we would have trouble again.  Kelly does the pump thing with her credit card & all I have to do is screw off the gas cap & pump some fuel in.  Simple eh, well nothing’s ever simple for this guy!!  Gas cap would not come off!!  Both of us twisted & turned that dam thing but no way was that cap coming off.  Oh no, how embarrassing is this going to be if we have to re-call Don back.  Then I noticed a very small hard to see rectangle in the middle of the cap.  Holy smokes it's a locking gas cap as well.  Spotted another key on the key ring beside the key that said gas.  Tried that other key & sure enough it fit the slot but we still had to fumble & bumble for another 20 seconds to get that cap off.  Of course you realize everything is normal with the coach so far & the problem is not with the rig, the problem is with the Clampetts who just bought it.  Everything has a knack to it & we will just have to get our knack in line with rigs knack & we will be just fine.  So.....were we fine now??  Nope!!

KELLY WORKS ON FIGURING OUT HER SUN VISOR, MINE IS AUTOMATIC…NEAT-O:))

I decided to put in about $70.  I didn't want to fill it & have the rig sitting at home with all the weight of a full gas tank (75 gallons) for the next month or two.  Soon as I started pumping gas & put the handle all the way in the pump would click off.  Awwww nuts now what!!  It kept doing that as if the gas tank was full.  You know how it automatically shuts off when the tank is full.  I did manage to get my $70 in though but it took me a little longer than usual to do it.  Had to keep manipulating that squeezy trigger.  We had a Ford Class C way back in late 04 that had some kind of a problem to get fuel into & this reminded me of that.  Now you would think I would have clued into something rather obvious by now right?  Wrong, & it wasn't until a few minutes later while sitting in the coach waiting for Kelly to return with a cup of Flying Jay coffee (mud) that I happened to glance at the fuel gauge again.  What the !!!!!!!!!  The gauge was now showing full.  How could that be????  Then I saw my mistake:((

YOU CAN SEE HOW PRECISELY ORGANISED DON WAS & THIS IS JUST ONE OF HIS FILE FOLDERS

 

NOPE NO EGG SALAD SANDWICHES FROM THE GALLEY YET

STOPPED ABOUT A MILE FROM OUR PLACE & UN-HOOKED THE JEEP…BOY ARE THOSE 2 VEHICLES EVER DIRTY FROM THE WET & RAINY ROADS

The gas gauge in the Jeep reads full on the right & empty on the left which means the needle shows it's full on the right side & empty on the left side.  I think the Winnie gas gauge might have been the same.  I had mis-read & confused the gauge with the Jeep but something else contributed to my mistake as well.  In all my years of buying vehicles (well over 40 now) nobody had ever left anymore than a quarter tank of gas (if that) in any one of the vehicles.  My brain being pre-programmed to that just automatically & hastily saw that gauge with only a quarter tank of gas remaining.  Good thing I'm not a pilot eh.  And speaking of pilots you can see how Don had thoughtfully left the rig with over three quarters of a tank of gas.  A responsible pilot like Don would never leave an aircraft with a quarter tank of gas knowing another pilot was coming to fly it.  Happened to singer John Denver though & that is how he died.  So a big thanks to Don for being so considerate but oh how foolish Kelly & I felt & especially me for making such a dumb mistake.  Anyway we finally rolled out of the gas station & headed for Bayfield.  With very sheepish looks on our faces I might add……………………….

KELLY WAS HOME A MINUTE BEFORE ME & TOOK THIS PIC AS I ROLLED IN WITH THE BIG EEE

  

WITHIN SECONDS OUR EXCITED LITTLE PHEEBS WAS OUT OF THE HOUSE & INTO THE RIG…OF COURSE SHE WASN’T THE ONLY EXCITED ONE:))

I am soooooooooooooo pleased with how well this coach drove on the way home but I will write more about that tomorrow because it's getting late & when we arrived home around 6 p.m. tonight a message on our answering machine had me scrambling like crazy.  One of the main reasons I was anxious to get this coach home was all the RV stuff piled up in our carport that had come out of the Winnie.  We've been stumbling over & around this stuff for the last couple weeks or so.  Wanted to get all this stuff organized & out of the carport into the Big EEE before the guys came to dig out our carport in preparation for laying in a concrete pad.  Well guess who was on our answering machine??  Yep, it was the cement guys saying they would be here at 8 a.m. in the morning so have everything out of that carport.  With distant thunder out over the lake & rain on it's way I hardly had the rig parked before I was racing around getting everything out of the carport.  Motorcycle moved & covered, bicycles, garden tools, the Santa Fe, all the RV stuff had to be picked up & moved to the storage area.  Hooked the utility trailer to the Jeep & pulled it out & parked it on the road out front.  Left the Jeep out there too plus the Santa Fe.  Moved the rig back about 6 feet so everything’s good for the morning.  A late supper & here I am.  And here I go.......zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.  An excited little Boy tucks himself in tonight with a wee smile on his face:))

SOON AS WE GOT HOME I HAD A CARPORT TO CLEAN OUT

GROANER'S CORNER:))    Most of us have a bad habit we are constantly trying to break. For me, it's biting my fingernails. One day I told my husband about my latest solution: press-on nails.  "Great idea, Honey," he smiled. "Now you can eat them straight out of the box."