First Night in the Montana

[davidaf]

Finally closed escrow on our home base lot and dropped the 5er off last weekend. Went back yesterday for an overnight. I'd give the night a B-, though little fault of the Montana. We've been RVs for sometime and usually we know what we are doing therefor I have higher expectations for myself than most and grade accordingly.

The day started off good. We arrive and everything was working great. Spent the first hour swapping out all the bulbs with LEDs while the wife ran to town with our adult daughter, who was also staying with us. Hooked up the sewer and did a quick leak test, really like the swing out thing. No more slinky yeah! I will miss the "master" knife that I usually install before installing the hose to protect from the leftover water leaking down the tube. Finished unpacking all the goodies we brought to stock up the unit. I miss some of the storage that my Fleetwood has. They stuck a door or cubby any place they could. Keystone could learn a bit from Fleetwood but Keystone still makes trailers so i guess the same could be said for Fleetwood.

Girls finally made it back with some grub to nuke since we knew we'd be short on time and kitchen goodies. Silly microwave didn't have the turning plate in it. It was noted on the walk through but was never fixed. We cooked w/o and then realized we didn't have any utensils. Woops, town and Wal-Mart are 20miles away guess we'll share the one plastic fork.

Once dinner was finished we sat back to watch some TV but then, the cable went out. No problem i'll break out the new VuQube for Dish network. Uh, something is wrong, it's empty. They sent me the display unit. Oh well TV came back on shortly. CW swapped it out today w/o issue.

11PM, time to pull out the sleeper for the kid. "4 D Batteries, what the.." guess she'll sleep on the couch. New problem, we forgot sheets, blankets and pillows. Good thing it's a warm night. Now the real fun. Ring Ring, work calls at 11pm. The world is falling apart! Spent the next 3 hours sitting on the bed working. Would have been nice to try out the new desk but figure i'd let the kid sleep. Finally got to sleep around 3am.

All and all the trip was okay. Guess everybody is a novice when it comes to a new unit. The Montana did well, i'd give it a strong B for the cardboard mattress and missing Microwave turning thing, but we got a C for our efforts (the work thing didn't help but can't fault anyone but me for my choice of careers). Guess we just got used to everything being in the unit. BTW, the sleep number mattress should be here this week. The stock mattress is probably the worst mattress i've slept on in my adult life.

Looking forward to next weekend when the washer and dryer are installed then it's another week until we go full time. I'll certainly have the kinks worked out by then.

dave

[drsmart]

Glad there were no major problems. Regarding the air mattress in the Hide-a-bed couch. Ours came with the battery powered inflator as a backup. We always use the AC powered inflator that is installed in the mattress. Do they no longer come with one?

Dave

[Jewels]

Sounds like a great adventure and some fun with a new toy. Would never appreciate when we get it right if there weren't challenges along the way. Best of luck with full timing, sounds like paradise!

[psomers]

Good write up Dave. Very interesting. Most RVers could probably write a book on some of their camping experiences.

Sounds like you have it under control now.

Ever see Lucy Ball and Desi Arnes "The long long trailer"? We keep it in our camper.

[DQDick]

Glad to hear it didn't phase you. Hope you like full timing as much as we do and you go on to make many wonderful memories in your new rig.

[davidaf]

Would that be funny if I missed the AC powered Inflator? I'll have to check next weekend. The whole process is an adventure. You just never know what kind of weird thing is going to pop up. Weirdest one was in the Lance camper. After I got setup I decided I wanted to fish at a stream down the road a ways so I dropped the camper. Two days later I went to load the camper but couldn't get the slide in. Had all power and everything seemed to work it was just binding up. Little did I know if the frame of the camper is bent under normal stress the slide may not retract. I didn't know what to do so I figured I'd just put the camper on and drive down the road to get to a big spot w/o a checkout time and figure it out. The minute I had the camper setting square in the truck the slide went right in. We spent about two hours fighting with the darn thing, and probably used more choice words than i'd like to be remembered for. Just part of the adventure.

[CORattler]

I've learned to laugh at these "adventures" (mostly). They make great stories around the campfire and you'll be surprised how many others have experienced the same thing. Thanks for sharing and the memories it brought back to me.
Have fun with that Monty!

[Neil.M]

Maybe every thing didn't go as planned, but guess what---you were making memories.

[Neil.M]

Maybe every thing didn't go as planned, but guess what---you were making memories.

[Carl n Susan]

quote:Originally posted by davidaf

....Hooked up the sewer and did a quick leak test, really like the swing out thing. No more slinky yeah! I will miss the "master" knife that I usually install before installing the hose to protect from the leftover water leaking down the tube....

You can install a knife valve at the outlet pipe just as you had before. You will have to cut off part of the big flexible boot that covers the connection area to give you a bit more room. But it is doable and worthwhile. I love the boom although others despise it.

[davidaf]

Carl n Susan good call on cutting the boot. It's on my list for next weekend.