I also have been planning our trip northward to Washington too. We plan on leaving Yuma on April 15th, heading west to Interstate 5, then north into Oregon where we will head on over to the coast. This year, our youngest daughter, Kim, will be having a baby in June. It will be my first granddaughter. Pretty awesome!
Our trip planning can always be found online at www.thefergs.com/trips.
A couple of weeks ago, with our friends Tim & Bev, we headed over to El Centro, CA to hit the Costco there. Since we were so close, we decided to show them Slab City. They have heard of the place but have not seen it before. I told them about the place and about Salvation Mountain. We got there and drove through the .... RV area. Well, they have seen it now! What a dump! But then we stopped at Salvation Mountain.
They agreed that it was an 'out of this world' place. Definately strange. OK. Been there, done that, back to Yuma.
Besides riding bikes, hiking up Telegraph Pass, and exploring the shops in the Historic downtown district of Yuma, we went to RV World here in Yuma and checked out their inventory. We had talked about maybe downsizing the RV since we no longer had to carry everything we own.
We met with Nick, the Internet salesman for RV World.
He was really helpful and together, we looked at quite a few rigs. We didn't want a towable, because I didn't want to have to get a truck. There were some really nice travel trailers there. We looked close at Class C motorhomes. But nothing really called out to us.
Hey, maybe a shorter Class A. OK, we will look.
And found one!
We traded in the Southwind and picked up our new rig March 1st. We bought a used 2018 Thor Hurricane 29M Class A. It only had 4468 miles on it and looks like a new unit. It is 30 feet 8 inches long and has just one slide, a full length slide. It has the same engine that our Southwind had, a Ford V10 gas engine.
After we negotiated a price and our trade in. I asked if I could take off my solar panels, inverter and batteries. He said .. yes!
What a job that was. I removed my 4-six volt Lifeline AGM batteries, Magmum MS2012 inverter, Solar Charge Controller and all 6 panels. I also removed the conduits, romex, distribution breaker box, solar and inverter monitor panels, and all the other wiring. It was a lot of work! I did leave the combiner box and the solar panel feet on the roof, so I only had to 'Dicor' a few holes. All this equipment has now been installed on a Cameo fifth wheel, Bighorn fifth wheel, and a Southwind motorhome. And I will soon install it on our new Hurricane.
Time for some pictures.
The inside.
It did come with 1 solar panel and 30 amp charge controller, inverter, and 2 12 volt batteries, which I will be pulling out.
It is just a 1000 watt inverter (modified sine wave) and the only 110 volt outlets that worked off the inverter was the TV and DVD player. The wiring was only 10 and 12 gauge wire too. Not nearly enough for my 2000 watt inverter.
It is ironic that in a few days, we will be taking the new RV to a RV Dreams Boondocking rally in Quartzsite. We will struggle with what we have, then when we get back to Yuma, the 'good stuff' will get installed.
It has been a heck of a winter this year. A new house, car, and RV.
I think we are done now.
Fergs .... out!
