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."