RVing With The Fergs: May 2022

We ended up extending at Pier 4 because of snow on the passes, for a total of 9 days there. We did drive back to Yakima and spent time with Kim & family and got to take the girls to an Easter egg hunt. It was cold, but Ally & Jessi had a great time and found lots of Easter eggs.

Lucy stayed home, nice and warm in the RV.

It was time to pack it up and head over the mountains to our next campground near Monroe, WA. And once again, the big slide wouldn't come in. The slide is just a big rectangular box that moves in and out of a big rectangular hole. The top of the slide won't move, but the bottom will. Upon closer examination, one side of the slide had a normal gap in it while the other side was squished tightly along the top side causing the whole slide top to not move. I dinked around with our leveling jacks and watched the slide gaps even out and sure enough, the slide would now come in. It seems like the whole RV frame will twist when using the leveling jacks. A cracked frame maybe? Not good. The slide on the other side also developed a problem lately too. when it comes in, a part of the assembly will rub on the tire, carving a groove in the rubber. This wasn't good either. When moving, I have to bring the slide in, then extend it out an inch to clear the tire. Then to make matters worse, when dumping the tanks, somewhere along out route, the black tank drain handle must have fell off. OK, I can buy a new one, but I also noticed some dripping under the RV around the black tank plumbing. OK, we are done. We believe it is time to go RV shopping.

After getting the RV packed up, we made the trip over the mountains, 188 miles, to the Thunderbird Thousand Trails park near Monroe. We got a nice 50 Amp & water site.

The next day, we went RV shopping. We went to Poulsbo RV in Everett, WA. We have bought 2 RVs from them in the past, a travel trailer and a fifth wheel. To make a long story short, we bought a new travel trailer. It is a Crossroads Sunset Trail SS285CK. We got a killer deal. In our experience (and we have lots of that), they work up a trade in value of your RV without even looking at it. That was something in our favor for sure. And I get to remove our batteries, inverter, and solar which I have done many times. We got 25.5K trade in for our Crusader. We paid 27K for it and lived in it for 17 months. We will pick it up on April 28th. This gives us a week to get everything packed up and for me remove all the stuff I am keeping.

In the middle of this, we did get to spend time with our son Tim & family. Here is some pic of a baseball game we went to. Our grandson Ryker was playing.

The whole packing process was nuts! When we delivered our Crusader to them and transferred everything to our new travel trailer, we wanted it to go quickly and smoothly. We had to take down all our pictures and decorations, and see what we could do without. It was downsize time.

And I had to remove the solar, inverter, and Lithium batteries. That was crazy! I really had them stuck to the roof. I did get them all off. I installed 1 new Walmart RV battery for my 3 Battle Born batteries I removed. I also patched the rubber roof with Eternabond Tape and lots of Dicor. My four 200 watt panels will go on our new rig.

Poulsbo RV is just 30 miles from our campground at the Thunderbird, and we got back and settled into a new spot.

Now it was time to get everything organized. What a job it was.

During this time, we got to take our grandsons to the movies. We saw the movie The Bad Guys. We all had a great time.

After getting our new RV organized, and 2 week in Monroe, it was time to move. We packed up our new home. And guess what, the slides came in like they should! We headed back across the mountains 190 miles to Crescent Bar RV Campground near Quincy, WA. I too a nice picture on the way of our rig.