first stop ... home

After signing the papers and making the purchase official on Friday October 29th, we decided that the traffic was too scary around West Chester, PA at rush hour, plus we wanted to try and get her up the driveway for the first time in daylight with friends and neighbors to help.  So we decided to leave her there and come back on Sunday for a more leisurely trip home.  It is a long drive from Bloomsbury New Jersey but we finally got there, bought some lunch at the local super market, and ate our lunch in our new coach. At the last minute, I decided to hook the Durango up to the coach.  Why shouldn't Kathy enjoy the first drive in the coach along with me?  I took the video of the instructions with us, just in case we forgot something.  It was really pretty easy to hook up, and then we were on our way home!

The trip home was mostly uneventful.  With having to keep track of 39 feet behind me, plus however much longer the Durango is, kept me in the right hand lane for most of the trip.  So when this woman on her cell phone was trying to merge into my lane while I was in it, I leaned on the hadley horns (glad we got that option) until she looked up in surprise to see that I wasn't going to move out of her way.  The trip through the toll boths was not a big deal but it was quite a tight fit.  We were almost home travelling on I78 when I turned to Kathy and asked if the U-Haul in front of us who had stuff that looked like it was ready to fall out, looked suddenly worse than it did a few minutes ago.  I immediately slowed down, and a good thing too.  Sheets of what looked like metal started sliding out and flipping up all over the Interstate.  By this point I had pulled off the road, as we watched people slam on their brakes and swerving around these obstacles.  No accidents, and no one hurt, so it all ended well.  We finally pulled back into traffic after it eased up, and finished the drive home.

When we arrived, my friend Tom, and a couple of neighbors stopped by to help direct me up the driveway, and get the beast turned around and placed on the outside part of the island.  The coach faired pretty well, and I only made one error where I got the back tires in dirt and caused a bit of a rut.  I filled it in later, so no worse for wear.

I am so glad we can park in our driveway.  It makes it so much easier figuring out what to store in it, try things out before going on our first trip without having to travel a few miles down the road to an RV campground.  Plus I was able to spend an hour here and there until I finally removed all the pieces of the bunk beds.  It is now ready for the new office furniture.  We ordered a desk and accessories from Versa and hope that it comes before we leave for Bella Terra in Gulf Shores, Alabama for the winter.  Kathy made reservations for us from the end of December until the end of February.

dining and entertainment

In the beginning

After Kathy spent months researching what our new home on wheels would be, we finally settled on what we think will be the perfect coach for us.  This story begins on September 4th, 2010 when we took the trip to Stoltzfus RV to make the deal to purchase our Tiffin Allegro RED QBA38.  We liked the RED because of the layout.  Most important to me since I am still working, is that I need a place to work where I can make work phone calls and not disturb others.  The QBA38 had an area for bunk beds, so the plan was to remove the bunk beds, and turn that area into my office.  There are doors that can be closed to seperate that area from the rest of the coach so it was the perfect choice for that.  Also since it was a Rear Engine Diesel, and on a raised rail chassis, the basement storage area was huge.  If we are going to be on the road for months at a time, having a decent storage area was important.

We went to the Hershey RV show the week of September 12th, 2010 to look at the new 2011 models, go to a lot of the seminars and buy some of the extras we would need for the show prices.  At the Hershey RV show we met the Parts manager from Stoltzfus and ordered the Blue OX Adventa LX towing system. While we were at the show we also ordered the Weingard Trav'ler HD Satellite system for DirecTV.

our first glimpse

  On October 10th, we made the trip to Red Bay Alabama to see our new coach on the assembly line.  They let you see three days of your coach on the line where it comes in as a chassis and engine, and leaves for the paint shop almost fully built.  We missed the first two days because of the Schutzhund trial for Gus's BH (we passed, yay!!).  So we were there for the third day on Monday, and stayed on Tuesday to get the full tour of the plant and see what we missed with our coach by not being there the first two days. It was very exciting, and a lot of fun.  They let you walk around, getting in the way, asking questions, and not a soul even hinted that we were doing anything wrong or getting in the way.  In fact they continually asked us if everything was ok, and was there any questions or concerns that we had that they could take care of.  Getting there was another story. We left Newark airport and headed for our connecting flight in Charlotte North Carolina.  When we got there we were told that our flight to Huntsville Alabama was cancelled, and that we would have to fly to Reagan National airport to get another flight to Huntsville. Then, that flight was delayed for three hours.  We finally got in to Huntsville and picked up our rental to head for Red Bay.  We arrived finally at the bed and breakfast we reserved and crashed from exhaustion, and to get up bright and early the next morning to see our new coach on the line.



waiting for under coating



We took video of our time there so that we could refer back later to verify what we heard and saw.  Here is a picture of the new coach coming off the line so that it could go to the bay were they do the under coating.  At this point it was close to being done on the line. It would go back for a few hours the next day before going off to the paint shop a few miles down the road.  We could have stayed for that, but you know the quote about watching paint dry and all that.

On October 22nd, 2010 Kathy and I made the trip to Stoltzfus RV to pick up the Durango after getting its modifications so it can be towed.   We also had them add the braking system.  We got the SRI Air Force I which is a unit installed into the engine compartment and ties into the car's hydraulic braking system. I liked it because there was nothing to disassemble each time you want to drive the toad.  Just disconnect the hitch and go. It also is keyed to trigger the brakes proportially by signals from the air brakes on the coach, not on sudden deceleration. While I was settling the bill in Service, our salesman Frank asked Kathy to accompany him outside, and that he wanted to show her something.  It just so happened that our new coach just came in from Red Bay Alabama that day, and that Frank didn't get the time yet to call us at home to tell us.  He was surprised that we were there that day coincidentally.  This is the first time we saw her painted and got the chance to actually walk through her before we took ownership.  The following week on October 29th we came back to finalize the paperwork and bring the new coach home.