There is more progress being made every day but at the same time more keeps happening to slow us down. For instance, while the weather has been unusually warm for over a month, payback is coming later this week. Which means Steve has to take some time off from work to winterize the Allegro and at the same time learn how because the systems are different.
Two days ago I put an ad on Craigslist to sell Tulip and yesterday a couple gave us a deposit to buy her. That was an unexpected quick sale and she wasn’t quite cleaned up yet so there is that to do before we turn her over. And we have to get a small roof leak repaired by Thursday. All the RV techs are booked out, Steve is working, and Thursday our family is having lunch at a restaurant for my mother’s birthday which I forgot about. And today two windows are being replaced. Next week Tuesday is Steve’s last day at work and then I am promoting him to Chief Coordinator.
The house is a horrible mess. We had a garage sale and already spent the proceeds from that for our trip to Arizona to buy Alice. Bit by bit we are hauling what didn’t sell plus more over to my mother’s house to have another garage sale. I still have a few more ads to place for some furniture pieces but then the rest goes either in storage or to my mother’s. We started taking things to Alice and her outside bins are quickly filling up. But then I noticed Steve took boxes from Tulip over without going through them so that has to be dealt with.
The good news is we made it through the house inspection process without having to do much. The windows were the main items. We don’t know what the house appraised at but it met the sales price at a minimum. So there should be no more hurdles to closing which was moved up by one day to April 7th.
After the closing we will collapse in Alice with a Margarita and not move a muscle for a couple of days. Then I will catch up on blog reading as I am way behind on keeping up with many of you.
P.S. There is a new item above in the menu for Allegro Alice where you can see some interior pictures.
I am finally up early enough every morning to see the sunrise.
For the past several months Steve and I have scoured the internet ads looking for the perfect motorhome within our budgeted price range. In my last post I mentioned we had a narrow list of three. But neither felt exactly right for several reasons. For example one of them had a refrigerator in the slide, another had negative reviews for that model year, and the other had a very low axel/wheelbase ratio.
There are very few short diesels for sale around the US and when we factored in our year range of 2005-2007 there were even less. Then last week a 2008 model came up for sale and I remembered that the chassis on motorhomes is normally manufactured the prior year. I contacted the owner and sure enough, this MH did not require the ULSD fuel that cannot be obtained in Mexico. Better yet, it was low mileage, had first been owned by an aerospace engineer who had added every upgrade imaginable to include 540 watts of solar panels with a 2000 watt pure sine wave inverter. Documentation and CAD drawings are bar none. I will eventually make a tab at the top for “Alice” listing all the upgrades which you won’t believe. Anyway, here she is:
2008 Tiffin Allegro Open Road FRED 32 feet. There is a slide out for the sofa and dinette on this side.And another slide in the bedroom. The body is in perfect condition as it has been stored under cover and professionally cleaned and waxed twice a year.
Of course we didn’t get every single “want” but Alice comes close enough. No washing machine and the kitchen is rather small, but there are two pantries to make up for that. And recently, new very small portable washing machines have come on the market that we can stow. Oh yeah, and we came in under budget!
It was a one and a half day 800 mile drive to the Phoenix area. We met the owners at their house at noon on the second day, received a good going through of everything, wired the money at 3:00, did the transaction at their financial institution at 4:00, and were on our way by 5:00. The funny part is the owners were looking to buy a newer RV of a particular model which is hard to find. While we were at their house, they received a phone call that the RV they wanted had just come in on a trade and no other salesmen knew about it yet. Our Allegro owners bought it the next day. The wife thought it was Karma that brought us to them at just the right time.
We had a bit of a problem finding a place for the night and Steve was understandably nervous as he has never driven anything this big. The extremely nice owner, who I might add had an oil change done the previous day and filled up the fuel tank, actually drove Alice to the very north end of Phoenix for us so that we would immediately be on the two lane road headed north. The only place to stay was a casino at Ft. McDowell. We got there and it was so crowded that there was not one spot to park an RV. Then we found out there was also an RV resort only 1/4 mile away. But they were full. The lady at the desk suggested an overflow parking lot at a county park a few miles away. The problem was we had absolutely no kitchen utensils, no food, it was almost dark, we had not eaten since breakfast, and the casino was the only place for miles with food. Then the desk clerk generously told us we could park behind their RV storage area for the night in a wide open area. It was quiet and the views were pretty good. We were warned that cows and horses might come up to the RV but that didn’t happen, unfortunately.
The next day we drove through the mountains to the high desert where we picked up the 4 lane highway in Holbrook. The driving then became easier for Steve and he is loving the engine brake for steep downhills.
We spent the night at the Route 66 Travel Center which is next door to a casino. As we had had no lunch (again), we splurged on the all-you-can-eat seafood buffet. This casino has a pretty classy buffet with different stations for Mexican, Mediterranean, Asian, and American food. Very good but expensive!
I will take pictures of the interior once we put the living room slide out and get more organized. I am sitting in the passenger seat at my desk writing this as we go down the highway. And when Molly Dog travels with us she will have her very own window at my feet.
Wanderlets 