Category Archives: featured

The seed.

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3 years or so ago the seed was planted. That was when we started thinking about retirement (it’s closer now, look at the timer to the right). On our trip to Alumafandango, the seed was watered further when we stopped in Redding. A couple of weeks ago the seed finally blossomed.

What is the fruit of the seed? This:

New Truck

 

Knowing that we would be on the road a lot I knew I wanted a newer truck for our retirement. The current truck would have done it but would be 12 years old by that time. By getting it now we have at least 2 years to make payments on it and get ahead of things.

When we were in Redding I went for a drive with my friend Mike who has a new F450 to tow his 5th wheel. That is when the seed got watered.

Right now the 2013 models are ending and the 2014’s are coming in. There is no differences between the years except higher prices. So we thought we would see if we could get one. Our credit union approved us and the search was on.

I probably contacted 8-9 dealers in different ways, AAA, CostCo, TruePrice, etc. It was fun wrangling all these dealers, not! My son loves it but I don’t. We test drove the Ford and also the GMC model but liked the Ford better. I started dealing with two in Fresno but one was more aggressive in pricing and communication. When all was done we had worked out all the numbers via email. I love that!

This truck ended up costing us more than our first house we bought in 1986! OUCH! A friend and I were talking and he mentioned about wanting a new truck but not wanting to spend that much. I told him if we waited longer then he would be paying even MORE!

We were able to get great financing from our credit union and did not have to trade anything in. But that means we have to get rid of the old truck. Off to Craigslist!

We waited a week to post the old truck as a family friend was trying to buy it. Unfortunately it did not work out. I posted it on CL. We had a few nibbles. One guy that seemed very interested but fell off the map.

We were parking it wherever we thought there was good traffic to get exposure. I was only asking $12000 with room to negotiate. One day I took it to work and got a call the next day from a guy that saw it driving by.

Today they came and put a deposit down on the truck and should be bringing the rest in a day or two.

We are planning on a trip with the trailer the first weekend in Oct with Aaron and family. This will be the first trip for both of us towing our trailers with our new trucks. Should be fun!

Labor Day Trip

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Ok, a late post here.  It is now a bit past Labor Day 2013 but I am here to talk about it nonetheless.

After coming back from our previous 17+ day trip this was a quick turnaround (2 weekends).  We thought about just cancelling our reservation and staying home but there was one thing that kept our commitment.  Our granddaughter!

I made the reservations at Oceano campground at Pismo State Beach on the coast months ago and we told our granddaughter that we would take her along.  It was a good choice and we are glad we went through with it.

One of the things that I was working on was a front hitch for our bike rack (I talked about it in our Alumafandango threads).  I purchased one but part of the task was to remove the nuts off the front leaf springs and put on a helper bracket.  I could NOT get those nuts off!  I had to take it to a suspension shop but eventually got it on:

Front Hitch

Bike Rack 1

 

We went through Cholame, near where James Dean was killed.  We told our granddaughter about it and she was mesmerized about it and kept talking about it.  We told her we would stop on the way back so she could see the memorial.

We got to the campground just around dark.  Here was a shot from next day:

Oceano Campground

 

Our granddaughter, Paige, thoroughly enjoyed herself.  We went to the beach both days and she spent at least 3 hours in the water each day.  We don’t know HOW she did that as the water was so cold but there were many others that did so also and she made a few friends.  We also had a campfire one night with her cooking ‘Smores.  She really liked to ride her bike around the campground which kept her busy.  We rode with her a couple of times.

On the last day we took a walk around the pond that is by the campground.  It turned out to be longer than we though and here are a few pics:

Roger and Paige

Roxie and Paige

 

One evening Paige told us that she had never seen the sunset.  So what did we do?

Sunset

 

It was just a short walk from the campground to see the sunset.

It all comes to an end as usual.  We did stop at the James Dean memorial on the way back to show Paige.

One more thing about the bike rack on the front.  It performed well, but it did scare us from time to time because it sure did bounce at times!  Here is what we saw:

Bike Rack 2

 

We are very glad we went because it meant a lot to Paige.  Roxie turned around in the truck and told her, on the way home: “We did this trip just for you”.  Her positive reaction to that statement was all we needed.

Roger