Tomorrow's the day...

[AlanN]

Taking a break from packing; closing on our S&B home in three weeks! We hope!
Anyway, I've been waiting for months to finally post this image!

[brenkco]

Looks great!!!

Congratulations!!!

[0nTheRoad]

Nice looking rig!!!

[Titan Guy]

Looks Great. Let us know how you like the body. It's one I have considered. Where is your first trip?

[AlanN]

Originally Posted by Titan Guy

Looks Great. Let us know how you like the body. It's one I have considered. Where is your first trip?

Thanks, I think this Knapheide Westerner body is a great value for us. Forty cubic feet of lockable storage, plus another forty in the rear cab area, ordered without rear seats. The tool boxes come in at eight inches lower than a standard pickup, and I sure like that margin between box height and nose. So many rigs out there look like they have way too little clearance. The body came in at $10.5 K including the Curt Q24 hitch and the fabrication needed to weld body to frame. The cab and chassis was of course a bit less than a standard 3500 dually pickup.Our first trip will be to Maine in August to say goodbye to friends and family, and to my beloved Maine as well (I've done four books about Maine). Then we're back to Vermont through the fall while my wife finishes up her teaching obligations, but we'll be in a nice RV park nearby (the house closes Aug. 5). Then I believe we'll be off to Florida until Mardi Gras, then on to the Texas coast for spring bird migration, etc....

[Dan]

Alan you were talking about breaking in your Cummins well like they say on the the Ram forum drive it like you stole it

[rob_fla]

Nice looking setup, love the utility body on the truck.

[ksaltman]

Really like the utility body on your TV. I could really use that given the limited basement storage on my 38FL.

Safe travels.....

[AlanN]

Originally Posted by Dan

Alan you were talking about breaking in your Cummins well like they say on the the Ram forum drive it like you stole it

Ha! I read that post. Yeah, I rode it as hard as I could going for the pick up - hilly terrain, long climbs, hard accelerations, but back off at 75! Then just cruised home on the interstate. From now on it will get lots of varied driving too.

[AlanN]

Originally Posted by ksaltman

Really like the utility body on your TV. I could really use that given the limited basement storage on my 38FL.

Safe travels.....

It's not too late to replace the pick up bed on yer Ford with the utility body - just a little more expensive!

[Steve & Linda]

Nice looking rig. Would like to see pictures of the inside storage if possible.

[AlanN]

Originally Posted by Steve & Linda

Nice looking rig. Would like to see pictures of the inside storage if possible.

I'll be happy to accommodate you once we close on the house in three weeks. No time for pictures now, mostly because of the unnecessary hoops we have to jump through. Forty cubic feet will tell you a lot, though, for now. Remind me in a month.

[AlanN]

Our38GK has been home for a week, and we're almost half moved in while prepping the house for closing - yes, I think we've crossed all the major hurdles in selling our S&B home. Yeah, the shower leaks ... Whose didn't? Found & fixed! Etc. I've been sleeping there three nights now, helping the most persnik-kity cat to adjust. The other two are just day visitors for now. Angele hated the magazine rack until she found that the cutting boards fit there perfectly. We had a platform made for our Sleep Number mattress, but they didn't anchor it, so I combined an L-bracket and a strap hinge to anchor the head of the platform - it slipped off the nylon rollers if you barely bumped into the mattress. And so on. Neighbors have been popping in non-stop to see the rig, and most have said, "We had no idea..." I've settled on explaining it as "A really elegant efficiency long-stay hotel suite," and that seems to sum it up. I pulled the back basement walls off to see the layout back there and to check all reachable water fittings, and found a huge amount of extra storage over the vacuum cleaner PVC tubing. Perfect for winter clothing in vacuum bags, a large tent we weren't sure we wanted to allocate storage room for, etc. and I got my wired water sensor into the lowest point in the belly with the alarm unit mounted to the water filter access door, so I'm more confident now. And Angele is happier than I've seen her in a long time, so it's working already! That's my report for now - time to get back to work!

[0nTheRoad]

Great report, hope your move-in continues to be non-incedental. Sounds like you've really been busy getting to know your new home.

We hope you will be as happy as we have in our Redwood!!!

[lwg]

Originally Posted by AlanN

and I got my wired water sensor into the lowest point in the belly with the alarm unit mounted to the water filter access door, so I'm more confident now.

Be sure the water alarm will catch any water that comes down from the shower. I'm installing one this weekend after I discovered last weekend that my shower drain had been dumping into the basement for some undetermined amount of time...

[AlanN]

Originally Posted by lwg

Be sure the water alarm will catch any water that comes down from the shower. I'm installing one this weekend after I discovered last weekend that my shower drain had been dumping into the basement for some undetermined amount of time...

Roger that... Yeah, I plan to leave that middle panel loose for the first couple of months so that I can get a regular peek at what's going on under the shower, etc. Fortunately for us, we're moving to a nearby RV park for the first three months while Angele finishes up her teaching commitments this fall, so I'll have plenty of time to tweak and tune things up while we wait to hit the road. I have a few last photo workshops of my own to conduct this autumn. Come December, I'll already be in Florida and Angele can catch up with me and the cats.