A New Class A Motorhome

10/4/04 - Last Puppy Sold, More On The Way
We found out this morning that Bliss, our chocolate brindled Chihuahua which we sold last month, had puppies last Saturday. One of the reasons we sold her was because we didn't think our male was able to mate with her, so we were very surprised to say the least. My wife went to see the six new puppies today and is considering buying one of them back from her. I'm sure this will be a continuing saga.

Our last Chihuahua puppy Pecan

Tonight a family drove down from the Seattle area to adopt Pecan, our last available puppy. They had recently driven all the way to Sacramento, CA to adopt another puppy and had decided they wanted to have a playmate for her. So they now have two four month old puppies (born one day apart) who will entertain them for many years to come.

10/6/04 - Installing Our New Awning
Today I spent most of the afternoon figuring out how to install our new Sunsetter Awning. I don't know why I have such a hard time locating studs in walls, but that has always been the case. They even supplied a stud finder with the awning, but I had a heck of a time making it work for me.

I finally got all the brackets up and some painting done that Steve had left for me to do nearly a month ago. Tomorrow Tom will come over and help me lift the awning into place. Then we will be able to use the hot tub even if it is raining.

Since we only have one puppy left, we have let him run with the other dogs and sleep in the house. He and his mother have had a great time playing together. The dogs all get along great, but Adonis doesn't seem to like playing with his son very much. I wonder what's up with that?

10/11/04 - Good News And Bad News
I picked up a heavy box too hastily this afternoon and screwed up my back. It was a stupid mistake actually. I was in the middle of doing something else when my wife asked me to unbury a box in our garage. I was slightly irritated at the interruption and so was not properly aware of my body mechanics and lifted the box in a twisted position rather than squarely nd carefully as I should have.

The good news is that our coach appeared at our dealers lot today. They will need a few days to prepare it for us, but we have an appointment to discuss the custom cabinets on friday morning, so the timing is nearly perfect. We may decide to go down the night before or leave early in the morning to get to Davis Cabinets in Junction City by 9:00am.

Our Newmar Dutch Star in Our Driveway A Few Weeks Later

10/14/04 - Cleaning Up The Driveway
In preparation for bringing home our Newmar Dutch Star we decided to get rid of the big pile of boxes that we had left over from unpacking from our move. We also had another large pile of things that we had decided give to Goodwill Industries, that had been sitting under a tent in the driveway for many weeks.

Since my back was very sore still from my accident on Monday I found someone on CraigsList.com (which is a great bulletin board service operating in most major cities in America) that was willing to come out and help me load a truck. So after making a few calls we decided to drive to Newberg to rent a small U-Haul truck.

Bob was waiting for us at our house when we arrived with the truck at about 1pm. We had all the stuff for Goodwill and all the boxes packed in about an hour and delivered to the McMinnville Recycling Center and the local Goodwill store another hour later. After returning to our house, Bob loaded some stuff that he wanted (that we were going to give to Goodwill Industries), including two king sized mattresses, into his car. He said that he knew some people that could really use the mattresses.

Bob also offered to finish the plumbing job that Steve had started more than two months ago. We quickly agreed and he took out the leaking toilet in the garage and then realized that he would not have time to complete the work before needing to leave for a previous engagement. We agreed that he would come back the following Tuesday to finish the job.

It was great to get that mess cleaned up. Now we are almost ready to bring home our new diesel pusher (the Newmar Dutch Star coach).

10/15/04 - Picking Up Our New Diesel Pusher
We got up at about 5am this morning, packed a few things and were on the road by about 7:30am, a half hour later than I had intended. Along the way we encountered some road construction, which made us at least another half an hour late. So by the time we got to Davis Cabinets, we had missed half of our allotted time for the measurements.

RV Corral in Coburg, OR

Jeff lake from the RV Corral in Coburg was nice enough to deliver our coach to Davis Cabinets in Junction City (Map), and even picked up a chair we had custom ordered from Countryside Interiors (also in Junction City). Our beautiful new coach was waiting for us when we arrived.

After an almost three hour ordeal of figuring out what we really wanted Davis Cabinets to build for us (made longer by our tardiness), we felt like we had covered at least 90% of our needs and wants and could only trust that the gentleman that helped us would be able to communicate them all to the designer and craftsmen who would build them for us.

At about 1PM, Jeff showed up and drove the coach back to the RV Corral lot in Eugene. After we ate lunch we met Jeff at the lot and spent the next hour or so signing papers and deciding about things like extended warranties. We decided to go ahead and extend the 3 yr or 60,000 mile factory warranty to 7 yrs or 100,000 miles. Then we were introduced to two technitions who gave us a detailed tour of our new Dutch Star.

At about 7pm we decided that we needed to speed up the Pre Delivery Inspection because we were getting very tired after a long day, and because we wanted to get out to the coast, where Dayadevi has another decorative painting class tomorrow. We did finally get out of there about 8pm and drove back to Junction City for dinner.

While eating we decided we were really too tired to drive the unfamiliar road (to Newport on the Oregon coast) in a new, unfamiliar vehicle that night. So we decided to go back to Davis Cabinets and spend the night there (where we knew we were welcome and safe). Unfortunately, Davis Cabinets is right by a railroad track which featured a passing train about once an hour all night long. It was quite a noisy first night in our new coach.