3. Picking up the 5er...oops, not so fast!

We were to go pick up the 5er on Tues. Oct. 6, but based on the below info. you will see why we didn’t make it. The remainder of this post is what I wrote in an email on Monday Oct. 5th.

Saturday (Oct. 3rd) started out hectic. We had to get stuff ready for brother-in-law Paul's 70th birthday party at the park, prepare for 40 plus people back to our house for a Cal football watching party, and Susie et al spending the night (plus breakfast for 30 at Connie's the next morning). Just a normal weekend in LWW. (And of course we had given up our tickets for the Cal vs U$C game just to go to Paul's party...with the caveat that I WILL be back in front of our TV when the game starts.)

We packed the 4-Runner early Sat. with tables, chairs, ice chests, crock pots, cameras, charcoal, etc., and backed out the driveway. We heard the sound of a crock pot lid 'settling' as I turned the corner, so I stopped, rearranged things, made sure the beans had not spilled and we started off again.

Got to the park safe and sound to find Connie and several others already setting up. My job was to BBQ 7 tri-tips on the huge permanent grill there...fun stuff! I got the coals started (while enjoying some ice cold Sierra Nevada Pale Ale) while others were arriving, and was watching everyone else fighting the wind trying to get the table clothes to stay on the tables. It was VERY breezy (as I guess it was a the Cal game as well). All at once I heard a commotion and as I turned a big bunch of colorful balloons someone brought (and tethered with a heavy weight) came blowing toward me (dragging across the ground) with the lake clearly their destination. For some STUPID reason I took off after them (as people were yelling "Grab the balloons!")

Some times the decisions we make in a split second are not the best...or maybe even the worst. As I ran after them (thinking I'd probably pull a hamstring) it became obvious that they were going to make it to the lake (why that was really all that bad of thing I'm not really sure) unless I turned into a SUPERHERO...so I dove.

Imagine the highlight reels that you see on Sports Center where they show the plays of the day, or week, or month, or EVER...well this was one of those plays. I laid out parallel to the ground and stretched as far as I could, and 3 feet from the water's edge I grabbed one ribbon of the 10 or so balloons. Everyone was watching, and cheering, and yelling to get my picture lying there on the ground with the saved balloons...and then they were wondering why I wasn't getting up...and just laid there instead.

I looked up to see Janna walking toward me saying, "You're hurt, aren't you?" (at least she had the courtesy to not add DUMBSHIT in there as well). "Yup", was my response. My right shoulder felt like I had...well, like I had dove and fallen on it...GO FIGURE. Well, after a couple more Sierra Nevada's and 4 Ibuprofen I was able to continue cooking the tri-tips, but the whole time I was thinking, "This is not good, that was dumb, I shouldn't have done that, what was I thinking" (and I still am!!!!)

Everyone was very complimentary of the meat as they sat down to eat, and after all the others (60+ people) had gone through the food line, Janna, Connie and I cleaned up the last of the beans, grabbed some tri-tip and potato salad and headed for the crowd to find a place to sit. I found a spot by Heidi and Bob and Janna was over by some other friends. I had taken one bite of tri-tip (of course I had nibbled a lot while slicing it) and one bite of potato salad when I looked up to see Janna standing off under a tree with napkins to her mouth. I got up and went to see what was wrong, only to find her bleeding profusely from the mouth. Remember the crock pot mentioned above, well apparently it splintered off a sliver of glass that then worked it's way to the bottom, and Janna bit into it and perforated her tongue.

I said "we're going to emergency", and after telling Connie and Doris what had happened (just as the crowd was singing happy birthday to Paul) we took off. That was approx.3:00pm.

By the time we checked in at the hospital and were put into a waiting room, the bleeding had stopped. The 'puncture' was about 1/4" wide, and nice and clean. We then wondered whether we should even be there or not. Plus we knew 40+ people were going to be heading to our house in about 45 min. Maybe (with any luck Janna observed...bad karma) she could get checked out and we would be out of there in 45 min (NOT!) At 6:51pm (per my cell phone log) I called home to say we were on the way home. We were sitting in the ER for over 3 hrs...just sitting and staring and reflecting...slow punishment (for something we guess). The staff was VERY apologetic, but when we checked in the nurse said all of a sudden they were VERY busy...of course. And yes, I do think there was a full moon that night!

Our house was a ZOO when we got home. 8 kids under 12 running around, 2 babes in arms (Chloe and RJ), a bunch of people that had been drinking for almost 6 hours and Cal on the big screen losing badly...YIKES! The good news is that everyone made themselves at home, figured out the Wii and the TV (I did call on that though), the BBQ (brats for dinner) and gas heater on the deck (someone had one just like it).

The other bit of good news (we guess) is that we are probably VERY lucky that Janna was the one that got the glass, as it could been someone 80+ (there are a lot of those in Paul's bridge club) that is taking coumadin...another YIKES!

So, here we sit in the aftermath, sort of wondering what just happened.

Janna had one stitch put in (self dissolving), has penicillin to take, liquids only for 24hrs, and now soft food for a week.

I just got back from the Dr. No specific diagnosis, but I should keep my arm (right of course) immobile in a sling for 10 days to 2 weeks, make an appointment with a physical therapist in two weeks to start rehab, and also make an appt. with an orthopedist (takes two weeks to get into them anyway) in case it is worse than my GP thinks ("Doc, it only hurts when I do this...well then don't do that!"). I don't need any pain killers (as the continual throbbing is just a nice little reminder to not be moving it) but it sure hurts if I try to move my arm away from the body (front, back, or sideways...but typing is OK, and I can still bend my head down low enough to brush my teeth...but have to brush my hair with the left hand). I can sleep OK, and can even roll over onto it (as long as I hold my right arm still with my left hand while rolling)

Oh, and did I mention that we are suppose to go pick up the 5th wheel tomorrow, drive to Disneyland for a 4 day weekend on Friday (not with the 5th wheel), and go camping in Yosemite for 4 nights (two weeks from today)? I called and moved the 5th wheel appt. to the 14th as Janna does NOT want to even attempt to tow it (she hasn't even driven the new monster truck yet). Janna can drive to DL, and I can push RJ around in a stroller with one arm. So now we hope I heal good enough for us to 1) be able to pick up the 5er on the 14th, and 2) still go to Yosemite. But if not it won't be the end of the world...we've been there before, and we'll go again!

The whole time we were at the hospital Chris was texting me play by play what was happening at the game (he was watching TV and listening on the radio), and Steve Balling was texting me from the game. When I told Steve we were at the emergency room he made the observation that it was probably more painful for them being at the game...and I agreed (but I hadn't yet told him about my arm).

2. Buying the 5er

The week after taking THE TRUCK home (not kidding…I need a ladder to wash the windows!!!) I had to take it back to the dealer for a day for them to apply a paint protective coating and install an upgraded alarm system. Instead of just hanging around I rented a car and drove around to 5 different RV dealers in the Sacramento/Roseville area.

One concern that I was having was in regard to something I had not thought of in the purchase of a new truck; the spacing between the bottom of the over-hang of a 5er and the top of the trucks bed rail. When being towed there should be a gap of ~6 inches so as to allow flexing when going in and out of steep driveways, etc. However, with the beefiness of our new truck’s suspension, the height of the bedrail is 56 ½” right over the axle. That meant that a 5er had to have an overhang height of ‘no less than’ 62 ½”…and that information is not readily available from the Mfg’s when doing an internet search. Bottom line…I was afraid we may have out-thought ourselves and bought ‘too much’ truck which could possibly have meant we would only be able to look into buying a TT instead of a 5er.

The first RV dealer I went to (Pan Pacific in Sacramento) had only a few 5ers, but a lot of TT’s. I liked the 5ers they had, but armed with my tape measure they did NOT meet the 62 ½” minimum…I was bummed. I called home and told Janna it looked like we were now in the market for only a TT.

OK, so what’s the big deal; TT vs 5er? For some it is just a matter of preference, but for most there is a recognition that 5ers are more stable to tow since approx. 25% of their tow weight is sitting on the bed of the TV right above the axle. This is opposed to a TT where over 90% of the weight is hanging off the back of the TV. And since ~4 ft. of a 5er’s length overhangs into the TV the ‘net’ length of 5er is less. (TMI ?)

Then it was off to dealer number two…just down the street. Happy Daze had a good over-all selection of both 5ers and TT’s. The first thing I did (before looking at ANY rigs) was talk with the sales guys about bed rail height. They brought out an ‘expert’ that said he had not ever seen an issue with ‘newer’ 5ers and any ‘stock’ pickup. Well, that was good to hear…but let’s prove it. So off to the lot we went…tape in hand.

Before I even looked inside the 1st unit we came to (in our budget range) I measured the height…63 inches. Wow! We may be OK here after all. When we got inside I looked around, sat down on the couch, called Janna, and said it looked like I could still look at 5ers and that in fact, the one I was in was perfect and I would feel comfortable buying it on the spot.

Then I was off to another dealer down the street that was actually going out of business because of the economy (had some good deals, but nothing we were looking for), then on to Camping World in Roseville, and another Pan Pacific showroom in Roseville. Both these places had some good looking rigs, so I was able to go home with lots of brochures and pictures from multiple mfg’s at four different (reputable) dealers…not a bad day’s work.

Over the next couple of weeks I took Janna back to Camping World (Roseville) and Happy Daze, and then we also stopped a couple of times at the new Camping World outlet in Vacaville to/from the Bay Area. By then we were getting a pretty good idea of what was out there, and at what price. Plus we could then go on the internet and compare local prices to those in SoCal, or even out of state.

Later in Sept. we went to Hawaii, and returned late on a Sat. We stayed in a motel that night close to SFO, and then on the way home stopped at an RV show at Cal Expo in Sacramento that I had learned about from folks on RV.NET. Wouldn’t you know it that the very first dealer we saw as we entered was Happy Daze…and right there in front was the rig I had called Janna from when I was on their lot (destiny?). They said they had some good ‘show’ deals going, and we told them we would come back after we finished looking around.

Well, we did find another rig we liked a lot but it was just a little too long. So how does one know if a rig is ‘too long’ if you have a TV that can tow almost anything? Well, it all has to do with where you want to take it. Some campgrounds have size/length restrictions and longer rigs may not fit. This could be due to the infrastructure of the roads in the campgrounds (i.e. too narrow) or the length of the driveways of the individual sites. So prior to getting serious about a certain rig (before we started looking) I called Yosemite, Bothe-Napa State Park, and looked at the website for Plumas-Eureka State Park. From this I learned that there were restrictions for trailers (net length) of over 24ft. So that meant we pretty much needed to look for something in the 28-29’ range.

Now it was back to Happy Daze and the original rig that I fell in love with that first day …which was/is 28’11” long…are we really about to do this?!? They made us good offer, I countered that I would like them to throw in the hitch (a slider since we have a 'short bed'...ask me if you want to know about sliders), a ceiling fan and install some upgraded batteries…and like that we had a deal.

In about 10 days we were scheduled to go pick it up.

1. Buying the TV

For some time we had been talking about the ‘need’ in the future to upgrade from out tent trailer (PUP…stands for pop up) to some larger and more ‘convenient’ trailer…either a conventional bumper hitch 'travel trailer' (TT), or a 5th wheel (5er).

When on our family reunion ‘road trip’ to Pocatello in Aug., after setting up and taking down camp in our PUP, checking out all the different rigs on the road, in campgrounds, etc., I think we both decided that we were pretty close to ‘pulling the trigger’ on making a change. But we still had to decide what kind of trailer and what kind of tow vehicle (TV).

We started evaluating the options of having a larger SUV type vehicle that could seat 7-8 people (ala a Chevy Suburban or Ford Excursion) and being able to tow a TT, or an extended cab pick-up truck that could seat 6 and tow either a 5er or a TT.

I had done a lot of research (especially in the RV.NET forums where I had been posting/learning over the years) about GVWR (Gross Vehicle Weight Rating), payload, towing capacity, hitch weight, axle ratings, etc., so although we didn’t know yet what type of trailer we wanted, I did at least have a good idea of the minimum requirements for a TV.

After deciding that a ‘large’ pick-up would probably be the best option for us, we then had to decide which ‘brand’; Chevy, Dodge, Ford, Toyota…the options were almost endless. But Ford’s reputation for building great trucks, and the fact that they did NOT take any money in the Gov’t bailout program sort of steered us that their direction.

Over the Labor Day weekend Ford was having a big sale on 2009 vehicles, so we went on-line and did some dealer comparisons and decided Future Ford in Sacramento had the best selection of F150’s and F250’s (1/2 ton and ¾ ton). On our way to the Cal game that Sat. we stopped by to get a feel for what they had in stock, pricing, and towing capacities, and to discuss trade-in options. It became apparent that the sales staff were great guys, but basically knew very little about towing requirements…thank goodness I had done that homework!

On Monday, after deciding we would keep our 4-Runner as the ‘family car’, I then cleaned up the Subaru Forester and we headed back down to Sacramento…check book in hand.

Over a period of about 5 hours we had looked at pretty every truck on their Sacramento lot, and had even gone down to their Roseville lot and looked at most of the trucks there. Besides the normal issues of color, leather vs fabric seats, etc., the biggest issues became towing capacity and gas vs diesel. After camping and listening to the diesel pick-ups ‘rumbling’ noisily by us, we decided we did NOT want a diesel. (Of course they had a LOT of diesels to show us…go figure.)

When we got back to the Sacramento lot (quite disappointed that our search seemed to be going nowhere) the Sales Mgr. had a truck pulled out and waiting for us to look at. It looked great…but huge! It was indeed gas, but instead of an F150 or F250 it was a F350 (1 ton)…and instead of a 2009 it was a 2010. What?!? Is this like a bait and switch operation (just kidding). When it came to towing capacity this thing was loaded for bear (with heavy suspension, etc., it was actually almost a 2 ton!). With this baby we could tow just about anything out there (TT or 5er) w/out a worry! (6.8L V10, 11K lb GVWR)

And as far as pricing…well, it was fairly lean as far as (non-towing) options were concerned…and they did make us a good offer. Maybe we were just brain dead by then, but said yes…let’s do it.

Now that we had a truck we then needed to decide what to ‘fill it’ with.