Still in Oregon

Well.  We've been gone almost a month and still haven't made it out of Oregon. A week in Newport, waiting for our appointment with Guaranty RV. Another 12 days in Junction City while Guaranty made several stabs at fixing the RV. So far so good. Then most of a week in Florence, where we could camp for free, while waiting for some money to arrive. Now due to time constraints, we're back in the I-5 corridor, near Ashland, preparing to head south on I-5.

Repairs on the RV and a new pair of glasses for Jenny set us back about $800 we hadn't budgeted for. After all, when your new RV spends six months at the dealer, you sort of expect that it won't fall apart right out of the gate. But it did. Things the dealer said weren't a problem were, the gas leak the dealer said didn't exist did, the stabilizers they said they fixed, they didn't. "Nuff said about the dealer. We will not return there. (Curtis RV in PDX. AVOID.)

Guaranty managed to fix it all, for much less, and so far it's all working. Tomorrow we may actually make it to California.

IN OTHER NEWS

We sold our house, effective May 1. We hired a company to do the estate sale and clean up. Somebody started breaking in in mid-April stealing things. The people we hired are as baffled as we are because they are very careful about locking up.

The first night, a large screen TV and some jewelry disappeared. The next night, they took the upright freezer. Then the dryer, followed by the washer. Every night, another missing item. We are now up to several thousand dollars worth of stolen stuff.

We have a pretty good idea who is doing this, and the locks have been changed, but the culprit (suspected) never had a key anyway.  I'm not going to say more because there is a police investigation underway. Eventually, I may tell the whole story.

ONE LOST CAT

Our second night in Junction City, our cat Buddy ran away. We kept trying to find him but finally gave up when we left for Florence. So far, Abby and Zee are around, although Zee likes to go on walkabout so we're never sure when he'll be back. Needless to say, we are saddened by the loss of Buddy.

I promise more photos and stuff once we get out of Oregon and start finding better Internet. Junction City and Florence had none.

Blog? What Blog? or SHEEEE"S BAAAACK!

I know, we promised a blog. And there shall be a  blog. But we're on the shakedown part of this cruise, discovering new things all the time. For example, blogs require Internet, something the Oregon Coast seems to lack in any reasonable speeds. And here at Whaler's Rest, just south of Newport, there isn't even cell service.

We finally escaped  Beavercreek on April 6th, just a couple of weeks later than planned. This was due to unforeseen circumstances, such as the RV falling off a stabilizer while we were in Seattle visiting the middle child. At 3 am. Cats and humans flew in all directions, one of us assuming that the entire West Coast was heading into the Pacific and/or Mt. Rainier was erupting. The other one went outside and fixed it. Sort of. But this meant another trip to Curtis Trailers (whom I don't really trust), another unreasonable delay, and one cat who absolutely refused to get out of the RV.

Yes, we are traveling with cats. Three of them. More on that later. When the RV finally came back, we had to hurry and stow stuff, but were unable to open the slides because there was no power. We, of course, have no idea how to open them otherwise, although I suspect there is a crank or something. Of course, maybe the crank is just me.

We spent two nights at Silver Spur RV in Silverton, making trips back and forth to the house. At last, we took our overloaded fifth wheel out on the road, all the way to Newport. That's about 153 miles from our former home in Beavercreek. We were on our way.

Until we tried to put the living/dining room slide out. The RV has been to Curtis twice to have this problem fixed, and each time they told us it worked just fine. Even though they had to come to the house one time to put it in for us.

Short story: slide wouldn't go out. Called two different (and highly recommended BY CURTIS) RV specialists here at the coast, only to have both of them tell us the slide was faulty, the problem was structural, and continuing to try to open the slide could lead to the entire wall of the RV exploding. Somebody tell Scott it's not too late to follow us around with that video camera. An exploding wall could make for great television.

So we're still in Newport, waiting for our appointment with Guaranty RV in Junction City (supposedly the best in the country) starting on April 17th. It should take only two to four weeks to fix (by replacing the slide), quite an improvement over Curtis keeping the trailer for six months while watching our warranty run out and doing virtually nothing. Not even ordering the parts. There will be discussions.

More to come.....