Pride of Ownership--Sunday, October 23, 2011

Wilsonville, OR: Flight from Honolulu to Portland was fine, a little bumpy, nothing to be concerned with. We spent Friday night at Mom's house.

In the morning, Bob called me into the bedroom; he said he had something funny he wanted me to see. I walked in and looked around but didn't see anything.

A little back story is needed here to get the full impact. At the Honolulu airport when we checked our bags, one of my bags was over by 5 lbs, and one of his bags was under by 15 lbs, so I moved books and some of my other things into his bag. Everything weighed in fine, so we checked the bags.

So back to the funny thing. Bob asked me how the jeans looked that he was wearing. I told him they looked good. He said, "They're your jeans." They fit him perfectly, except they were about 3" too long in the legs. We laughed and laughed. When my brother came over and we told him the story, he said, "So Bob can say, 'I know how to get into your jeans.'" We all laughed some more.

We had a good day. Our main objective on Saturday was to learn how things in our trailer worked and how to hook up the trailer to the "fifth wheel hitch." Wes, who was a wealth of education at Camping World in Wood Village, OR, spent 2-1/2 hours going over everything from the water hookup to the propane stove, to how to work the slide-outs and, of course, how to hook up to the sewer.

When Wes finished orientation, we had a list of things to purchase from Camping World's store. That being complete (for the moment), we met with Tim in Finance who had us sign our final papers for the trailer sale and gave us our keys. Woo hoo!

From Wood Village we drove to Wilsonville and paid for a spot at Pheasant Ridge RV Park for four nights. Talk about pride of ownership...when we were driving down the freeway our truck and trailer looked so great. I was driving my Mom's car and Bob was driving "the rig."

It was Bob's first time pulling a 33' trailer. For him it was harrowing on the freeway on a Saturday afternoon with people driving 65-70 mph and he was driving 45-55 mph. I was ahead of him and watched people coming on on-ramps and passing him like crazy. Kind of scary. When we got to the RV park and he got out of his pickup, he said, "I need a hug." Awwww. My heart melted.

At the RV park, we had a little incident unhooking the trailer from the 5th wheel hitch. At Camping World they showed us how to hook up the trailer to the hitch, but not how to unhook it. We thought we knew what we were doing, NOT! We put down our front stabilizers like we had been taught, but Bob thought he had to loosen a handle on the hitch. He tugged and tried to turn it...that's when something broke and went flying. We tried to find a piece of it to figure out what broke, but didn't see anything.

At that point, we extended the trailer on its supports and the trailer lifted out of the 5th wheel hitch. We were then able to move the pickup truck away from the trailer. Later, we found a piece of a cotter pin in the bed of the pickup. He will replace the cotter pin before we head out again.

We hooked up the electricity, the water and the sewer line. Once all that was done, it was time to unpack what we had brought with us on the plane. (Mind you, this doesn't include all the stuff in our cargo container or the four boxes we mailed last minute from Honolulu to my Mom's house.) Bob filled up his two dresser drawers in about one minute. I worry where the stuff coming in our container is going to go. We'll find out tomorrow when we try to fit it all in. I see more trips to Goodwill in our future or perhaps more "gifts" to relatives. LOL.

Mom's house was our next destination where we met up with my sister, brother, sister-in-law, mom and son. My sister informed us she met a nice gentleman at a single's dance in Portland and he asked her out the next day. They hit it off famously. He even bought her a couple of gifts. She couldn't wait to share one of the gifts with us.

First, we all had to gather in a circle in Mom's living room. Then she pulled out a stuffed monkey and threw it on the floor. The crazy thing rolled around the floor laughing hysterically which, of course, caused all of us to laugh hysterically. This new boyfriend has a sense of humor! The gift was called an LOL Rollover: it also comes in dog, cat or pig. My sister also made chocolate chip oatmeal cookies for us. Yum!

My brother, Frank, and his wife, Gina, said we couldn't go to dinner yet because they had gifts for us. Gina made scarves for us to wear in Fallon, NV when the temperature is 17 degrees F. She also gave us soap in a crocheted bag that we can hang in our shower. And then, she gave us a blanket with a beautiful border she had crocheted around it. Very thoughtful gifts from her for our upcoming cold climate experience.

For dinner, we went to Country Buffet and had all we could eat and then some. After dinner we invited the family down to see our "new home." A tour a was conducted and they "oohed" and "aahed" appropriately.

Last night we slept very comfortably in our unit.

Bob and I came back to Mom's house and she fed us apples and tuna sandwiches.

Michael, my son, is working with Bob today at the rig trying to figure out how to hook up the TV...something about putting in a digital box between our cable and the TV.

Tonight we are supposed to go over to our friends' home, but for some reason they haven't given us a time. It's 2:00 pm and we're still not sure if we're going!?

Got to go. I've said enough for today. Mom would like to use her computer at some point (since I'm visiting her while Bob and Michael work on the TV at the RV park).

Travel Bug out.