October 5th weekend – Saturday we were up with an
alarm to take care of the pugs and have our coffee. We had a trip to make up to Longmont to pick
up used racing tires for Scrappy and jumped in Flo for the journey. We arrived only a few minutes later than
planned due to traffic and got our tires without incident.
We were pretty hungry at this point so stopped for a quick
lunch at Qdoba.
Next we drove to an RV dealership to peruse their stock of
class A diesel pushers. After the Kansas
Lemons race we agreed that our current racing accommodations were lacking and
have somewhat settled on buying and using an RV to tow our trailer to
races. While we’ve both been inside
similar large RVs it has been many years so we decided to check some out to
refresh our memories. We weren’t ready
to buy and fortunately the salesperson didn’t hound us too much. It was fun seeing what they had in inventory. We stopped at another dealer though found
their particular stock to be far above anything we could ever afford.
Once finally back home from the longish drive we hung out
with the pups for the remainder of the day.
Sunday we didn’t do a whole lot. We put a little coolant in Scrappy as we knew
snow and cold weather were coming and then kept the pups company on the
couch. This was Susan’s last day before
starting her new job so it felt fitting to relax.
October 12th weekend – Saturday had Susan waking
up early to attend a rallycross event. I
got up as well and saw her off and headed to the couch to hang out with the
pups. I had some vague plans to do this
and that but ended up falling asleep buried under three furry bodies and didn’t
wake up until after noon. I figured
“what the heck” and just stayed where I was until Susan came home. She had fun driving Flo at the rallycross
which was great. In a further pique of
laziness we had Safeway deli food delivered for dinner.
Sunday had us up with an alarm. We didn’t really have anything planned until
the night before when I got ahold of an individual selling an RV in Falcon. I had tried texting the seller on Friday but
had mixed up a digit in the phone number.
As it seemed like a good deal for us I tried calling the next day to
find out that the number didn’t exist.
Susan confirmed the correct number and I tried again. The guy was happy to show us the RV and coincidently
had someone else scheduled to look at it at noon. I asked if we could come down at 9:00 and
thus the alarm was set.
The drive was longish and I25 was chock-full of construction
south of Castle Rock. The RV was sitting
on some flat land and the seller, Lars, was waiting inside. We chatted as Lars showed us this and that on
the motorhome. Eventually we went to the
gas station and then I got behind the wheel.
Susan and I were excited as it ticked all of our boxes and, after some
deliberation, I made an offer. It was a
low offer but Lars accepted. We could
hardly believe that we were going to own a big ol’ RV!
The drive home was slower as an accident had I25
closed. We took a back route via Google
Maps which was interesting as the scenery was beautiful. There were poorly maintained dirt roads and a
few hills that crested quickly adding some excitement to the journey.
Once home we spent the rest of the day researching RV stuff
and watching RV-specific videos on YouTube.
What a crazy weekend.
October 19th weekend – Saturday we slept in until
10:00ish before our longsuffering pups harassed us out of bed. After coffee we zipped over to our credit union. The RV we had agreed to purchase was too old
for traditional RV-lending which made financing an issue. We were instead getting a HELOC loan which
was fine except that it would likely take a few weeks to complete. Thus we went to our credit union to apply for
signature loans in the meantime.
The line was long in the lobby when we arrived but we didn’t
mind as we had our never-bored devices and each other to talk to while we
waited. Eventually we met with a banker
who sympathized with our situation and helped us get the applications
started.
We were hungry when we left the branch and stopped by Dickey’s
BBQ for BBQ which was mighty tasty.
Once home we finally spent some time working on the E30 we’d
picked up from California several months ago.
The first thing we did was make space behind it to hoist out the spare
motor from the trunk. This was much
easier than we had anticipated which made me feel silly for putting the task
off for so long. Next I replaced a
radiator hose and swapped out a belt. We
ran out of coolant so headed out to buy some and so a bit of shopping.
We stopped by Home Depot to buy metal to hold down the E30’s
battery and then went to Walmart for coolant and various food stuffs.
It was getting dark when we got home so we called off any
further productivity for the day and hung out with the pups on the couch
instead.
Sunday had us sleeping in again which was nice. After coffee we ventured out to the garage to
fill and bleed the coolant system on the E30.
This was somewhat painful and we discovered the radiator fan was
missing. After some head-scratching we
determined that the previous owner had used the A/C fan to cool the radiator
and that it wasn’t currently working. I
bypassed the wiring to get the fan spinning and we were happy for a time.
It was a couple of minutes later when Susan checked the oil
only to discover clear signs of coolant where it was not supposed to be. Dang.
The headgasket was definitely blown and blown badly. Thus much of the work we had performed was for
naught as it would have to be redone. I
suppose we gained a little experience which is an ok thing as we had never
worked on a BMW before.
A bit demoralized we cleaned up and plopped on the couch for
the remainder of the afternoon and evening.
At least the pups were happy to have us around.
It was on Tuesday night that we picked up the RV. After much finagling and back and forth with
the credit union we had finally managed to obtain the necessary cash to buy the
dang thing.
On the way down Susan contacted our current insurance
company to set up a policy on the RV.
Connection issues had us pulling over on the side of the road as Susan’s
first call was dropped. It took some
time but we soon were on our way again.
The transaction part of the deal went without a hitch and
Lars answered a few last minute questions.
He graciously pulled the motorhome out of the ridiculously tight opening
to his property and left me to finish the journey home. Said trip seemed to go alright and we made no
stops along the way. It was later that
we figured out that the blinkers didn’t function with the headlights on. Turn the lights off and the blinkers
work. Turn the lights on and they
don’t. No, we don’t know why (yet). Susan thought I was driving recklessly and I
thought I was being cautious as I physically used the turn signal stalk
appropriately. Whoops! We were glad to have made it home
safely.
After making an unsuccessful attempt at backing the RV into
its future home next to the garage in the dark we settled on parking it down in
the lower 40. On Wednesday morning we
tried again and had no problems backing it up in the light. We can hardly believe we now own a big
motorhome. Madness.
October 26 weekend – Saturday began with an alarm and
coffee. Our planned outing for the day
was to be at HPR for an open lapping day so we were up and out relatively early
in the morning. We arrived to the track
with enough time for three driving sessions before the lunch break. The temperatures weren’t supposed to be too high
but it was warm enough that the lack of a breeze had Susan and me wishing that
we’d brought our cool shirts.
We had a blast driving Scrappy around and chatting with
fellow participants. There were more
exotic cars than usual which was interesting.
It seemed there was a gathering of young fellows there with their
parent’s super cars. Evidently in the
driver’s meeting they mentioned it was their first time out and then proceeded
to not pay attention at all and just play on their phones. No one was surprised when they were terrible
on the track and generally unsafe. I
suppose we all learn eventually.
We were hoping to hang out with Alvin but he volunteered to
bail out Jeff (the village idiot) whose radiator blew up and who had no way to
get home. We did get to see Alvin for a
few minutes before he left and he suggested we all get together for dinner
later. Susan and I left a little early
so I could back the trailer into the driveway with the help of the sun’s
light.
After taking care of the pups we jumped in Flo and drove up
to Conifer to meet Alvin, Kari, Karen, and John for dinner at Snowpack Taproom
& Kitchen. The menu was limited but
we found what was offered to be quite yummy.
We enjoyed each other’s company and chatted about this and that. When we finally got home later that night
Susan and I agreed it had been a great day.
Sunday had us sleeping in which was nice. After coffee we slunk into Flo to drive over to
look at a Pontiac Solstice. It was rough
but looked to be a decent donor car for Scrappy’s upcoming engine swap. We arrived on-time at noon to the given
address to find a closed non-car-related-business. I texted the seller that we were there and
waited. It was feeling a bit hinky so we
left after 15 minutes to catch lunch.
The guy got back to me almost an hour later but by then I was past
caring so we didn’t attempt to see the car again. Such is.
Lunch was Swedish meatballs at Ikea which was nice. We then proceeded to walk around the joint
and look at this and that. We didn’t
need much and only bought a couple of wine bottle openers and foot stools
(their foot stools are awesome). I
thought it would behoove us to go to Costco to pick up a couple of items but
the parking lot was a madhouse and I decided it wasn’t worth the crowds.
Once home we settled in with the pups for the rest of the
day and had a nice time simply hanging out and doing our relaxation thang.
It wouldn’t be a proper update if I didn’t mention the snow
that hit the Denver area Sunday night through Wednesday. It wasn’t a blizzard but snow piled up enough
that the roads were poor and schools closed.
I was fortunate that I could work from home on Monday and Tuesday when
Susan also elected to stay home. Growing
up it was common for our first snow storm to hit right before Halloween and I
wonder if this is a return to the weather of those times. If so then I expect the rest of the winter
season to be snowier than the last several years. We’ll see!
Oliver is still alive and well. He had his manhood altered which we’re
hopeful will calm him down a bit. Susan
sees Oliver most days and I do once a week or so as my allergies make it
difficult. He seems to still be growing
which is probably a good thing for his role as a barn cat.
Bella, Pebbles, and Mel are doing well. We love them so much and they seem to be
happy in our company, especially Susan’s.
Pebbles is back to wearing her ubiquitous sweaters though she’s shrunk
out of many them as she’s lost weight.
Mel is still oblivious to her size and Bella is as cute as ever.
Susan is liking her new job.
HR is mostly newly staffed and thus she gets to decide how to fulfill her
duties. In her previous jobs there
seemed to always be issues with her not being allowed to make improvements to
the various processes. At this new job
there are things that need to get done and how they get done are for Susan to
decide. This is a good thing.
No comments:
Post a Comment