A Different Lifestyle

11/4/04 - Back to the RV Corral and then the Oregon Coast
We left at about 6pm Tuesday night to spend the night at the RV Corral where we had several minor problems addressed by the friendly and helpful people in their service department on Wednesday.

This morning we left for the Oregon Coast and stopped at Davis Cabinets again to discuss the final bill and my wife's drawing table which has begun to come apart already. When we got there the person we needed to talk to was not there, and the bill was considerably higher than I expected, so we left with the agreement that we would be back after our trip to the coast.

We arrived at Laura's Studio in Waldport (Map) for a decorative painting workshop that my wife wanted to attend around 2PM. Apparently the teacher had to postpone the event by a day so we spent the rest of the afternoon shopping at a very cool wood carving shop in Waldport and finding a camping spot for our Newmar Dutch Star. We finally settled on South Beach, which is an Oregon State Park.

After reserving a campsite, we went into town in search of an Internet connection. I checked my e-mail while my wife went shopping at an Asian store. After that she took me back to the coach while she went shopping for dinner. She came back with stuff to make a big pot of Spaghetti, one of her specialties, and made a very fine first dinner in our new motorhome.

Colorful mushroom

11/5/04 - Painting Class #4
This morning I took my wife back to Laura's Studio and then spent some time taking photographs of mushrooms and waves. The sea was particularly foamy this morning which was kind of interesting.

Today it occurred to me that this was really the first day of living a completely new lifestyle. I've done a lot of camping in my life, but nothing resembling living in a 40 ft coach. It is an interesting cross between camping and living in a house (or perhaps a cabin). We have most of the luxuries of home with few of the discomforts of camping. However we will need to get used to living in a rather confined space, needing to be aware of how much water and energy we are using, and paying rent for our space.

After lunch in our new coach I did some software development and then took my biggest dog for a walk. Along the way I found many more interesting mushrooms to photograph.

This evening we went to a great Chinese restaurant on Newport's Historic Waterfront. Then we went to Staples and bought some office supplies and a great new little vacuum cleaner called the Transformer Vac by Shark.

Accessing the Internet continues to be somewhat of a hassle. I'm still weighing the less reliable but potentially faster digital air card solution vs the more expensive Direcway satellite dish option. The more research I do though, the better the Direcway solution seems to be.

11/7/04 - No Shower
The last couple of days have been a relaxing mixture of taking photographs, writing, walking (a new habit I need to establish), and getting used to the RV lifestyle. This morning I realized that my gray water tanks was full, so even though I had plenty of fresh water, because we have no sewer hookup at this campsite, I'll have to live without a shower today (something I very rarely do).

Beautiful Newport Sunset

11/8/04 - End of Davis Cabinet Saga
This morning we left beautiful South Beach State Park and headed back to Junction City to deal with Davis Cabinets one last time. The moveable drafting table they had designed for my wife was already squeaking like crazy and needed repair. They decided an extra brace in the back was necessary and fixed it in a couple of hours.

Then we had a discussion about their final bill, which I felt was considerably higher than it should be. When we originally talked with Shawn Davis, the owner, he indicated we could get everything we wanted for about $3000. As it turned out they wanted that much for what they had delivered, which did not include the roll top cover for my printer or the monitor lifter I had wanted so badly. We also felt kind of cheated because instead of dealing with Shawn we had been handled by his father Rick, who lacked the creativity we had counted on. Also Rick was unwilling to even concede the fact that the process had taken much longer than anticipated, five or six days instead of the two that they had estimated. This extra time cost me something I'm sure, because I was unable to properly attend to my software business.

Even though Rick did lower the bill by about $300 we left Davis Cabinet feeling like we could not recommend them to others, especially if creativity is required and Shawn is not involved. We learned some hard lessons about having custom work done though. It is imperative that detailed plans be drawn up and approved before a final price and schedule are agreed upon. Unfortunately, we trusted too much and came away feeling like we paid for more than we received.

11/9/04 - End of the Furniture Outlet Saga
Yesterday we drove back to Carlton and today Furniture Outlet finally delivered our dining room table and chairs which we had ordered in August. The table they brought us was beautiful, except for the large leaf which had a strange wood grain pattern. When I tried to switch it for the one they delivered the last time I discovered that the hardware had been put on backwards, so I decided to live with the odd pattern.

The chair pedestals that they delivered were OK. They were covered in wood that matched the table which is what we had ordered (rather than the tacky light wood and tan painted metal pedestals that they had delivered the last time. With the new pedestals on the chairs it became obvious that the color of the chair's arms were wrong and so the delivery person made a phone call and found that their McMinnville store had the chairs with the correct dark wood arms.

So after he drove to pick up the other chairs he came back to install the new pedestals on the new chairs with the correct arms. My wife was writing a check to hand the person, when the chair she was sitting on broke. It made a loud cracking sound and split into two pieces right in front of the delivery person and myself. So after another half an hour the poor guy had switched the arms on one of the original chairs and we had our set of table and chairs (all in dark Oak) completed.