Off to Red Bay, Alabama

Well, I am glad to report that all renovations both to home and driveway had been completed to satisfaction. With regards to the driveway, we had to excavate in order to develop a contour at the head of the driveway. Bringing in structural fill of crushed stone accomplished the desired parking goal. All's well that ends well, I say!!!
So..... here we are on the road again happily driving our new rig. Our goal after warranty work in Red Bay is to bring our coach to Florida. I must say that as I reviewed the items that we had originally purchased for our day-to-day living in the coach, I was very pleased with myself. All I had to do was pack up our clothes and purchase groceries. So, it was pretty slick. (Helpful hint: duplicate your staple items in your coach such as toietries, cleaning supplies, etc. It makes packing day a breeze!!)
As with all new trips of the season, there are always quirky things that occur. Our quirk for this morning was finding my passenger side cup holder filled with a brackish colored water. Now where could that have come from?????????????????
There were no other signs of water near or around the area. Lee and I would have to check this out further when we arrive at a WalMart parking lot somewhere in Virginia or West Virginia.

You Want to Stick What Where????

After being parked on the street for about a week, we found it necessary to try to park our motorcoach on the existing gravel driveway as a temporary fix until such time as we could have the upgraded work done on the gravel. We really did not want to take advantage of our neighbors any longer and felt this was a means to an end for the time being.
In order to do this, we had one of our friends sit on top of the coach in order to lift up the telephone wires since they hanging lower than we would have wanted. We had another friend watching for any bottoming out which was a major concern due to the pitch of the driveway. Lee was backing her in as carefully as he could. We all held our breath and were relieved when our new motorcoach was sitting in its new home at least temporarily.
We would not be physically moving our coach until we scheduled some warranty work at the local dealership. Our original thoughts were that we were going to be able to live in our coach during our household renovations. All our bathrooms were ripped out. It would have been an easy fix to live in the coach. Now that we were unable to make any "dumps", we had no choice but live in a hotel for a few weeks.
With our son's upcoming graduation, warranty issues to be addressed, day to day monitoring of renovation progress, upgrading our driveway situation, and the general day to day "stuff", we had alot on our plate.
It was time to think about Florida and our Life in the Slow Lane!!!!

Who Says Five Feet Doesn't Make A Big Difference!

Well it took us three days to come back to Maine. We knew we were going to have a parking challenge with our new motorcoach when we got home. We were never planning on purchasing such a large coach considering our old coach was 35 feet. If anything, we were planning on no more than 40 feet. Would the extra five feet really make a difference.
YES IT DID!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We were afraid to park it on our gravel driveway used for our old coach. We were concerned that we would bottom out as well as sink down due the the extra weight.
So...... we parked her in the road in front of our home. Thank goodness we had wonderful neighbors. Thank goodness the school bus and other trucks could pass along side of us. We knew that we had to have the gravel driveway redone and do some other things to make parking our coach as easy as our old one.
Oh, by the way, did I happen to mention that we began renovating our home the day after we returned. Besides that, our older son was graduating college at the end of the month and I was planning a party. Phew!!!!
Could everything be accomplished without losing our minds????????????????????

Bio-Hazard Suits NOT Required

After we successfully emptied our tank, Lee proceeded to hose down the entire area with water. He must have done this for a half an hour or more. We gathered all the "tainted" materials which were on the lot and placed them in a plastic bag and left it for garbage pickup later that morning.
It was sometime after 3:00am when we saw a security guard passing through the area. We flagged him down and told him what happened. He seemed very non-plussed. Did this really happen more often than we thought????? We just wanted to take the responsibility to ensure that there would be no further problems after the clean up. I am glad to say there were none.
After a while, Lee needed me to go into our old motorhome so he could finish the job. As I sat on the stairs, I removed my sandals and disposed of them in another bag before going in. I patiently waited until the cleanup was complete. When Lee came to the door, he had to strip down and dispose of all his footwear, etc.
Finally, we took our showers!!!! Boy did that feel great. As we settled in our bed to try to get a little sleep, we began to laugh. Had this really happened??? This would be another one for the books. Another Griswold first.
Now we were ready to begin a whole new set of adventures...........................or were we???????????????????????????

Required: A Sense of Humor

Well................
As we were standing there in amazement, we both started to laugh and cry. What were we going to do????
At one point, Lee motioned to me to hold his end of the hose along with mine in order to work the problem. As we pondered our predicament, we came up with a fantastic idea. We decided to use the portable dump disposal "wagon" (usually used for grey water) as our portable sewer. We emptied our hoses into this "wagon" and wheeled it over to the sewer connection where we disposed our "stuff". We repeated this process until we were done. It took a while but we did it!!!!!!!
But now there was one more thing to do........
The "toxic cleanup"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The "Transfer"

Thank goodness Lazy Days has the Crown Club. It certainly makes your time at the property a very nice experience while your coach is undergoing the necessary repairs/updates during the day.
In the late afternoon prior to the "transfer of items from our old coach to the new one" later on that evening, Lee and I enjoyed three Cosmos and some delicious appetizers from the buffet. I have to say that it was extremely hot (well into the
90's) and the thought of the labor intensive work to move into our new coach was exciting yet physically uncomfortable due to the temperatures. It had remained hot all through the evening hours. I have to admit the Cosmos helped!!!
The coaches were parked in reverse of each other which made it easier to transfer our "stuff". How exciting!!! We were moving into our new home. Finding new places for things, getting rid of other things, sorting out all the stuff the kids played with through the years was quite emotional.
Needless to say, when we were done, we were in desperate need of a shower. Our plan was to sleep in our old coach for the last time. However, Lee needed to do a dump.
That's when the "s__t" literally hit the fan. Our old coach was not lined up well with the septic. Lee thought he could connect an extension hose to make the length requirement. We did not have a joint connector but felt that if held properly, the dump would be successful. NOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Before you knew it, "s__t" was everywhere. I was holding one end with you know what trickling down my hands and Lee was holding the other. We just looked at each other. It was now 2:30am and we were just exhausted. Was this really happening???
What were we going to do now???????????????????

We did it!!!!!

Well after considerable thought and negotiation, we decided to purchase our Zephyr. Yippee!!!
After the papers were signed, we went to the Crown Club and had a drink to celebrate our new home. One of the benefits you receive when purchasing a luxury coach at Lazy Days is that you become a member of the Crown Club for three years where you can eat, drink, and be merry for free. Pretty nice perk, I must say. This was particular handy during the coach preparation period.
Now the prep process is very interesting. When you buy a coach, there is always something that needs to be done prior to your taking it off the lot. In our case, we needed a new windsheild, detail work in the bathroom vanity area, caulking around the shower, electronic additions, wheel covers, etc. Then there is the "Switch". Since we had a motorcoach to trade in, there was the process of moving all your stuff from one coach to the other.
Now there was the rub!!!!! Little did we know that during the move we would find ourselves living evey owners' worst nightmare...........