We are not new to this forum, but I did not know where else to post this:

We are back from our trip to Texas to pick up our new-to-us motorhome.Safely with no damage except to my ego.Parking a 40-foot motorhome is not easy.Nor is driving one for the first few days.

We left Barrington early on Saturday, March 21 and stopped in Texarkana, Arkansas.On Sunday we drove the remaining 300 some miles to Nacogdoches and were met at the dealer by the Texas southern gentleman who sold us the coach last August.Jimmie has since decided to pursue a different career, but he felt obligated to spend almost three hours with us that day and then another hour a few days later.If you want to know how unusual this is, ask yourself if you can imagine a car salesman returning to the dealership 3 weeks after he terminated his employment for the sole purpose of making sure you were happy with your used car.In the “pecking order” of motorized vehicles, RV salesmen are considered even lower than used car salesmen.It is generally accepted that when an RV salesman’s lips are moving that he is lying.

The next 4 days we were at the dealership as they made some changes to our coach and we squeezed in some driving lessons as the motorhome and someone on their staff was available.

By Friday morning we were chafing at the bit to leave and pulled away with our Honda attached to the back of our 40-foot motorhome.From nose to tail we fill up 56 feet of highway space.Did I say I was more than a little bit intimidated?

Sandy and I shared equally in the driving, but I got the role of parking attendant with Sandy providing the directions.This is an incredibly important role.You have to put your complete trust in your partner as viewed through a side mirror.Hand signals are of paramount importance and when I did not understand or was not sure, I stopped.

The only truly difficult parking experience was on a curved parking pad that was 10 feet wide with muddy sides.Our motorhome is 8 and ½ feet wide.

A few more words about our RV dealer.Motorhomes of Texas enjoys an A+ reputation, with people coming from as far as Florida and California for service, but at times we were very frustrated because they do things on Texas time and will often pull a tech away from one coach to work on another.But then we found out that sometimes we would ask a simple question and they would correct a problem for free that would take two techs an hour to resolve.We are satisfied enough to go back in November to take care of a few unresolved issues and a couple more upgrades.

When we are in Nacogdoches, Sandy will attend the Ladies Driving School that is sponsored by the Foretravel factory.It lasts for 3 days and includes some social events and a factory tour for the husbands.Hey, that works for me.

We spent part of Friday and all of Saturday in Houston getting to know Rudy Legett and his wife Carolyn.Rudy was instrumental in our making this purchase and we spent the two days learning more about our motorhome and enjoying some great food in Houston.

The remaining seven days were spent driving from Houston to Barrington with a stop each night in a different campground so that we would get plenty of experience driving, parking and living in our motorhome.

I need to add here that we had an on-call RV consultant in Jacksonville, Florida.Charles Henry is another friend I have met on one of the many RV forums that can be found on the Internet.Charles is a true southern gentleman with a wealth of motorhome and truck experience gained from an executive career of more than 30 years in the trucking industry.I’ve had Charles as a valuable resource for well over a year and he has patiently explained so much to us and in doing so has made our education more complete.But we still have a long way to go.

We have become real fans of the campgrounds provided by the Corp of Engineers.We stayed at three different COE campgrounds.And now that we have our senior lifetime pass to COE campgrounds we can stay for half price.We seniors love our discounts.But to put this in perspective we will be able to stay in incredibly beautiful campgrounds with electricity, water and often a sewer connection for about $6 to $12 a night.Our tax dollars at work!

We found a safe way to return to northern Illinois without driving in the nerve-wracking traffic on the major interstates highways in or around Chicago.

Our final challenge was backing our coach into a neighbor’s driveway, but with Sandy’s great guidance and help from this good friend and neighbor we have a safe and secure place to keep our motorhome until we sell the house.Oh.I almost forgot to mention, I had to run to Ace Hardware for some top soil and grass seed to fill in the 9 foot long by 8 inch wide rut I put into the front lawn across from our neighbor’s driveway.She was very gracious and said she did not mind.

So that’s our report on the last two weeks and the first Chapter in George & Sandy’s Great Adventure.

For those who might not know us, we bought a used Foretravel Model U320 built in 2000 with a single slide.  When we walked inside we could hardly believe it.  The coach is immaculate, looks like is was barely used.  But with 90,000 miles it had to be.

EMAILING FOR THE GREATER GOOD Join me

-- Edited by foxriverguy on Wednesday 15th of April 2009 08:57:36 PM

Congratulations! Sounds like a nice rig. Stay safe and have fun with the new home. Speedy

Congrats, George. I enjoyed reading your trip report.....more adventures are on their way....

We should get together sometime this summer before we both leave this area. I'm up near Great America.

Congrats on your new MH, and it's a nice one.

Barb

Congratulations! Hope you enjoy your new adventure. Would you mind sharing your trip route to avoid the Chicago traffic? We will traveling your way this summer to visit our kids in Gurnee.

Gurnee is a close in suburb of Chicago, so I'm afraid there's no way to avoid the big city traffic. That said, you should keep in mind that the width of traffic lanes are pretty uniform throughout the country. If you can drive around Salt Lake City, you can drive around Chicago or any other city. Why some people are intimidated by the "big city" baffles me. I've been in as many traffic jams in small towns as in big cities, there are just more lanes. But you can only drive in one at a time anyway, so just relax and enjoy your visit, Chicago, it's a great city. We are volunteering in a Wisconsin state park just over the line from Illinois in June and are planning on spending many off days in Chicago. There's a commuter train from Kenosha that's only about 10 miles from our campground.

Thanks Fred. Actually, we were there for two months last year. There was some major construction on I94 that made manuevering a bit difficult. Not bad in a car, just tight with big rig. Which state park will you be at? We stayed at Shady Acres in Bristol and dealt with some medical issues in Kenosha.

We'll be campground hosts at http://www.dnr.state.wi.us/org/LAND/parks/specific/bong/ for at least the month of June. Richard Bong State Recreation Area is 8 miles southeast of Burlington, Wisconsin, on State Highway 142. The entrance is a little less than a mile west of State Highway 75. Bong is about 10 miles west of Kenosha. We probably wont extend because all we have is electricity and I think we will tire of moving to dump and take on fresh water every 4 or 5 days. We took the position to get some experience with camp hosting and also to get near family in Milwaukee. If you're going to be in the area in June and would like to get together, let us know, we would love to meet you.

Hey Fred, I love your line, "You only use one lane at a time". My feelings exactly. 35 years ago when I taught swimming lessons in a lake we used to tell the kids that the extra water in the deep end was just that, "extra" "we don't use it anyway." Happy Trails! Leslie

Congratulation George and Sandy, Sounds like a nice rig. I know you'll enjoy it. It looks like all your research has paid off. Maybe Sandy, should give lessons on how to use hand signals.