He Wants A Desk…Need Bigger Home-On-Wheels? YEP!

Sunday 03/06/22 Kevin wants a desk! There isn’t space in HOWE (our name for our travel trailer – Home On WhEels) to have a desk so he works from the dining room table. Since we are now traveling Full-Time, a desk would be much better. Kevin has been researching travel trailers the whole year we have been learning about Full-Time. He found he likes Alliance the best. This day we went to NASCAR Race in Las Vegas. (I will tell you more about that in the next blog.) When we left the race Kevin had me look up Johnnie Walker RV in Las Vegas. He had found them online last night and they have Alliances for sale. I was sure they wouldn’t be open on a Sunday but they were. They closed at 5:00 and this was about 4:00. We stopped in, told them we knew they closed soon, and we just wanted to see the Alliances they had. Robert, the salesman, took us to see them. They had the floor plan we were interested in. Alliance Avenue 32RSL. We looked at it and ah man, soooo beautiful! Light and bright with tons of windows. Truly, our dream floor plan, too. Oh my gosh, from what we see, it is everything we want. The back has a huge couch but we will take that out and put in a large desk for Kevin to work. Robert took us to the office and ran some numbers. Pretty soon, we were filling out all the paperwork. Done! HAHA We left, got in the car, looked at each other and said, “What did we just do?” Laughing our heads off!!! But oh no, we don’t have a truck big enough to pull it because it is a 35 ft 3 inches long, 5th Wheel. Last night, he had also found online a Ram truck, 3500, diesel, long bed, with a 5th Wheel hitch in Kingman, AZ.

Monday 03/07/22 We went to Martin Swanty Ram in Kingman. The truck that Kevin found online was sitting right there for us. 🙂 Chuck was a good salesman. He had on jeans, boots, a Car-Hart jacket, and a hat. Looked like he just came in from the farm. HAHA He gave us the keys and let us test drive it. It is the truck for us and we bought it. We didn’t have a Wells Fargo check with us so they said for us to take the truck home and bring a check tomorrow. Wow! As we left, I asked them their favorite place to eat. Chuck said LaCatina Mexican is his wife’s favorite and she would eat there every week. So we went there, just down the road from the dealership. The food was fine.

Tuesday 03/08/22 Called Robert and told him that we got the truck and have new insurance for the new truck and new HOWE. He said it would be ready for pick up on Monday. Then I thought about campgrounds. If you have been reading along (thanks!) you know that we booked a campground in Flagstaff for a base this summer. It is much cooler than other parts of Arizona and we want to explorer Northern Arizona. It seems that “most” (slight exaggeration!) people in Arizona camp in Flagstaff for the summer! I had a hard time finding a place even though we were booking it back in February. I remember when Kevin booked the one in Flagstaff, they had told him it was a small site, but wide. He called and there is no way a 35 ft 5th Wheel will fit in the site and they had all the other sites filled. I had a little panic as I knew all the other places around we had called were full. I found a few places and since I am deaf Kevin called them. All full. You can be on the waiting list, #12. No thanks. Thankfully the campground in Flagstaff called us a few days later and had a bigger site for us. Next was to talk to our current campground named Deseret View RV in Needles, CA. We were able to get a bigger site. So very thankful how things are working out. It is just amazing.

Later in the day, we back to Kingman. Stopped and picked up our mail. Kevin got a “Employee Appreciation” box from his work. It had healthy snacks, lavender essential oil, a Starbucks gift card and several other things. What a great company! At the dealership, we gave them a check. Back at HOWE, I made stroganoff for dinner. I had bought a garlic butter spread and I put it on some sliced tiny French bread from Smiths then heated in the oven. Very delicious. 

Wednesday 03/09/22 Laundry day. Got me thinking…what is it like to have a washer and dryer in an RV? Our new Alliance Avenue has places for them and hook ups ready on both sides of the closet. I started researching and even asked the question on a Full Time Living Facebook page. I found out there are two kinds. One is a combo (hardly anyone likes this!). The other kind is a stackable but can be apart, too. Lots of great reviews on having them in the RV and Splendide is the brand to have.

Thursday 03/10/22 Kevin called Robert at Johnnie Walker RV and asked for the couch to be taken out and how to get a washer and dryer. He gave Kevin a number to call for Service. Kevin said the service guy was really nice. He would have the couch out and they would order and install my washer and dryer. He moved out inspection time from 11:00 on Monday to 2:00.

I tried baking potatoes in my crockpot. They turned out great! It took about 5 hours on high but they were tender and fluffy. We had chili and fixing on top.

Sunday 03/13/22 We felt we didn’t need to leave until around noon so hung out. We hooked up HOWE to our new-to-us truck and I will tell you, we couldn’t even feel it behind us when driving! It felt like we were cruising in our car. We drove to Johnnie Walker RV, parked in the driveway and walked in. He walked us to the gate, gave us the code, showed me our new HOWE -getting the washer and dryer installed right then- and went to the back of the lot. We are very impressed! They have several full hookups plus in the corner, a nice large bricked patio with clean plastic chairs, picnic table, umbrella, fire pit, grill with grilling utensils, horse shoe and pits, mini golf and nice palm trees. They really thought about the customer.

We sat on the patio for awhile reading and then decided to go to Walmart. Kevin needs a bunch of stuff (grease gun, etc) but they didn’t have it. I got some food. Then home to read. For dinner I made grilled cheese sandwiches. Oh, this large Walmart had Grandma Sycamore brand bread! I was so excited. HAHA

Monday 03/14/22 We were told by Robert that new HOWE wouldn’t be ready today. We are a little disappointed but we guessed that would be the case. No worries. Kevin worked and I read. Later that day, they parked HOWE right next to HOWE. Wow! It is huge! 35 ft 3 inches compared to 25 ft. Chris, one of the shop guys, said we can walk around and look inside but not to move anything in to it yet. So excited. So amazed at this new one.

Tuesday 03/15/22 Our walk-through was at 11:00 am. Chris showed us lots of things. We found a few things that need fixed, liked a light bulb out in the fridge, etc. At noon we signed the papers, gave them the check, and it is officially ours! Moving in time. Kevin loaded up old HOWE in totes and then would bring it to the door of new HOWE. It is fun to decided where to put everything. There is a lot of room and still empty spots.

Wednesday 03/16/22 Chris came over and did a few things. Kevin got his work desk all set up. We had them take out the back couch (77 inches long) before they gave it to us. Today Kevin finished putting together his work desk that we got from IKEA. It is great! Nice cabinet drawers on both sides. The desk top barely allows for the side table storage to be accessed. Wow! Today Kevin finished putting all the wires and L-brackets to secure it. We went to the store and got groceries to stock up the fridge. It is a blast setting everything up. We said to each other that we don’t even need a stick and brick house now. Kevin said we would pull HOWE into the garage and sill work from HOWE. I said we would sleep in HOWE since our bed is so comfy. Then we laughingly said we would just live in HOWE inside the garage. HAHA

Please check out this website and see more pictures of the inside of our new 2022 Alliance Avenue 32 RSL. Ours looks just like the company pictures. Alliance RV

YEP….Kevin got a desk! 🙂