On the road again...!

STAGE FOUR: Leave - Done!

So, at last, on Sunday Jan. 31st, we left for Tucson. We'd planned for mid-Jan. but weren't quite ready, and the big El Nino storms delayed us even more. Getting a new RV outfitted for full-time living is not a casual packing job!! It took a good, solid week. Some stuff came from the yurt. Some stuff went back to the yurt. Some stuff even made it back to the shed in Encinitas!

We spent several nights in our RV before we took off. We found that while parts of the RV were quite nice and even plush, others were very unhandy and still others were broken or non-functional! For instance, there are rubber seal/weather-stripping all along the edges of the slide-outs. On a particularly dewy morning, I found water dripping onto our leather couch. Apparently the seal is not doing its job!!! There are one or two other equally large problems and a smattering of smaller ones. It strikes us that there is quite a bit of very poor design involved in the manufacture of RVs in general and it's a sad statement on their quality control as well!

And that's only the half of it. The other half is the terrible servicing one receives after buying an RV. We'd heard that when you buy a new RV, you have to just plan on stopping by their manufacturing base sometime in your first year as there will be so much that needs fixing or replacing. On the other hand, if you buy a good used RV, those problems have probably already been attended to. That seemed to have been the case with our BRAVE. It really didn't give us any problems. And unfortunately, the TOUR has lived up to its reputation as well, that of a new RV. So, here we are in Tucson, and short story, the dealerships are not exactly bending over backwards to help us out...! So, for now, we will be doing our best to deal with the problems ourselves. Wish us luck because it's supposed to rain here Wed. I hope we get all this stuff sorted - I hate to see the wind get taken out of Bill's sails, and so early on too!!

I have to conclude that the RV industry's general demise is not due solely to a bad economy and high gas prices but also because of its own ineptitude and "whatever" attitude!

On the upside, we are in a great RV park here in southwestern Tucson, and the other campers are all really friendly, and most have dogs! The park is several miles from the city and surrounded by cacti and hills. Most of the spaces are roomy and lined with bushes. NOT the parking lot/RV city that many other parks are here in Tucson! AND it's cheaper! Phew!!

After a long day's drive, we got here after dark and couldn't find the park owners. I was afraid we wouldn't find a spot! But they found us and got us set up. There was a slight kerfuffle in the morning, involving a dispute with other recent arrivals over the spot we were supposed to move to. After having moved to the spot, we ended up having to move back! But it was not a huge deal, and maybe our paved spot will prove to be better!