Perry Lake State Park, KS...

Well, we got around this morning and went to visit a church close to our campground in Lawrence, KS-- Grace Evangelical Presbyterian Church.  It was a great service-- solid teaching and their building was really nice (not that the building should matter- but it was impressive).  This little snapshot doesn't do it justice.  A friend of ours went to school here in Kansas and met his wife here as well.  This was their home church when they were both in college.  This is a new building, but the same church family.  He has been driving down here over the past year to visit with friends and family here in the area.  We had a great time worshiping here together.

Here are a few pictures from the weekend to check out too.  

There were a few hunters camping out in the camp cabins too.  These guys had just shot two turkeys.  They gave a whole turkey tail to our family and the Maynor family.  The kids were so excited!

Here we are going for a walk with the Maynors on one of the hiking trails in the park.  It was such a beautiful day out.  --a little chilly, but not too bad.

Chief Jacob with one of his turkey feathers.  

I did this not once, but four times trying to take this shot of Shannon and Traci...  Sorry about that.  Don't you just hate when that happens?

Here is the new rig all set up with the awnings all out.  It took a little big to figure out how they all worked, but they went up without too much trouble.  They are a nice touch... they allow light in the windows, but not direct sunlight, so the camper stays cool.  We really like the camper a lot!... A LOT!

Here it is from the other side.  There are awnings on both sides and in the back.  The front windows have rock guards on them.  the plexiglass over the window is tinted and lifts up on that front window towards the truck.

Here is our dog... taking a nap after the 7 kids wore her out!  Elijah started each morning by putting on his rollerblades and running Rhoda around the 1/4 mile loop 4-6 times...Rhoda was worn out!-- or waiting for lunch to be served.

On the drive home we realized that Elijah could play on his iPad with his newly fashioned fingerless gloves... :)

What a happy camper!!

Rhoda... worn out from the weekend-- taking a nap as we unpacked the camper and the truck... right at home.  This summer is going to be great!

Here is another picture of the Walker and Maynor Families hiking- Traci is taking this picture.  We had a great weekend!

So, now after a full week... well.. about 8 days with the camper-- we still love it.  We came home tonight and cleaned things all out and got ready for another road trip.  We had a lot of fun making meals and getting things all around this weekend.  We had 30Amp electric service in the park and water at the site.  We were able to use the electric service for the heater and the propane to run the water heater from time to time.  We didn't have any issues with any of the other systems on the camper.  It took a little bit to figure out how all of the systems worked, but everything went well.  

I replaced the kitchen sink faucet.  When we bought the camper the spout had one of those pull out sprayers in it.  the head kept falling off of it, so it needed to be replaced.  I bought a new one through Amazon, but it didn't get there until Thursday.  I had planned to replace it while we were camping, but I didn't have the right sized fitting to make the new one work.  I fixed that tonight though.  It is good as new.  The faucets in the camper are nicer than the ones in the house we are renting now... :)  Did I say we like the camper... A LOT!

Towing-  We were... well, let me correct myself- I was excited about the idea of owning an Airstream camper for a long time.  They are really nice and are about the only campers out there that people are able to keep forever.  Towing is really nice pulling our camper.  Here is a video clip on it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHAaX944xOU

The camper we bought came with a really expensive Hensley Anti-Sway hitch.  They are really expensive devices that are used to connect to your car and the camper.  The device has give in it to allow the trailer to sway some side by side during wind gusta and sudden moves while driving.  This give prevents the movement of the camper from unsafely throwing the camper all over the road.  I had read about the anti-sway systems, but I wasn't planning on spending the money to purchase one as nice as the Hensley.  we were fortunate that it came with the camper.  As a result of having the Hensley hitch, hooking up has been a bit of a challenge for me.  the Hensley has a 2" shaft that you back your vehicle onto for towing.  The challenge I have is that the Ford has a 2 1/2" receiver on it.  Also, the Ford 2 1/2" receiver has a unique shape to it, so regular aftermarket sleeves don't seem to fit in it too well.  The sleeve that came with it moves freely- without a collar in the receiver- making it tough to get the pin through the receiver, sleeve, and Hensley at the same time.  I need to do some more practicing to get it perfect.  It's a challenge.  Once you get it all hooked up, the Hensley is really nice on the road.  The trailer is about 7000 lbs on the road.  When I'm up to speed on the road, I don't really feel the weight at all.

Emptying the waste tanks-  Today was the first time we had to empty the waste tanks on the camper.  That wasn't too bad at all.  I read through the book and a little RV guide book- thinking that it was going to be some kind of rocket science to get the tanks empty and down into the tanks at the dumping station.  It wasn't nearly as difficult as I had imagined it would be.  Traci and the kids got out to be of assistance if I needed it- without touching anything of course.  I donned the rubber gloves and took care of things without too much trouble.  After I got things all put back away and washed my hands really good, I got back in the truck and thanked everyone for their help.  We started driving to the house and LeAnn said that she wasn't going to use the toilet in the camper anymore- because that was the most disgusting thing she had ever seen... Too funny- that's our girl... 

We got back to the house and unloaded stuff.  We went out for some dinner and made our way back home to finish reorganizing stuff.  We had a great weekend together.  Weekend #2- still absolutely no regrets... we should have done this years ago... 

Steve  

Lovin' it!

We pulled in right before God's lights went out. I made some awesome salsa for dinner. I put a can of black beans, a can of corn, 5 Roma tomatoes, 1 orange bell/sweet pepper, 1/2 bunch of cilantro, 2 green onions, juice of one lime, salt and pepper and served it with tortilla chips. Yum!
I enjoyed using the kitchen tonight with all my cool tools. I was really careful about conserving water. Then, Steve used the water to put the fire out. I dried all the washed kitchen items and put them away immediately! I don't do that at home. I leave everything in the dry rack (sometimes for days)! It was a good feeling tonight with the simplification of keeping the small space we have, tidy. The pets aren't driving me too crazy, yet!

After the First Week... Still Loving it!

Well, we have really enjoyed our camper here for the first week.  We have taken a few turns sleeping outside in the camper through this first week.  I was able to get the camper parked in the front of the house and backed it up to the house.  That was great!  We hooked up the camper to the 20amp GFI plug on the front of the house with the adapters in the back of the trailer.

I was able to take the tub faucet apart and fix that with a new water mixer from Home Depot.  It's nice that it was a Delta faucet- they are always easy to get repair parts for!  I ordered a new kitchen sink faucet too.  The sprayer hose was broken off so it would have leaked water.  We got the new faucet in the mail today from Amazon  http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002VKSKTK/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 .  That should do the trick.  I had to finish some homework tonight so I'll fix that this weekend on our camping trip.

Traci is going to run over to Lee's Summit tomorrow to get a Leer truck Cap installed on my truck.  That is going to be great.  We have debated getting one of them for a long time.  Traci says that it will make me look 15 years older... ha!  We are excited about the additional storage space though.

So far, this has been an adventure with some ups and downs.  I was mostly disappointed with the dishonesty on the part of some of the sales folks during our quest--the individuals selling Airstreams on eBay- look out!  Other than that, people seem to be very helpful.  The Air Forums site is very helpful on a lot of different subjects.  I was able to reach the second previous owner to get some questions answered on the phone this week as well.  I'm optimistic about what the future looks like for us with the camper.  As excited as I was looking at the campers online and at the dealer in St Louis, the one in the drive way is exceptionally exciting.  I'm excited about our summer plans.

Here's our plan so far:



View Larger Map

Word to the wise: Book early for National Parks in the Summer.  They are crazy busy.  We are excited about our adventure.  We're continuing to sell different extra "stuff" from around the house.  So exciting...  We will get some pictures from our next trip for on here.

Take care,
Steve

It's The One!

We decided to work out the details to purchase the one in Ft. Worth. We asked if the owner would haul it to Lawton and meet us over the weekend. He agreed and on Friday afternoon we were on our way South. We stayed in a La Quinta and had a really relaxing evening and morning there. They were Rhoda Dog Friendly and had a nice breakfast bar, pool and hot tub. We enjoyed our Executive King room. Saturday at 10:30 we met up with the owner of the 2007 31' Classic in the Wal Mart parking lot. After going through it with a fine tooth comb we decided to go for it. The camper was now in our hands after about 2 hours. I am glad we looked at so many campers online and in person to learn how to go through and check things out quickly. The only regret was that we didn't have him run water through it and turn on the electrical, etc...

We camped in it that night at Great Salt Plains State Park in Jet, OK. After hooking the electrical and water up we were a excited as could be, until about 2:30am. I got up to go to the bathroom and heard water running. It turns out the faucet in the shower was broken and dripping water for I don't know how long. Steve took care of it right away and shut everything off. I had a hard time falling back to sleep. I was just worried about possible water damage to the floor, walls, etc... My prayer is that there is nothing wrong. Steve is going to fix it tomorrow. He pulled it all apart tonight (Sunday) an is confident in his plumbing and fixture repairing ability. I am so thankful for my "Handy Hubby"!

Another really nice one!

We checked out another nice camper tonight. It was only about an hour from home. It was conveniently located and unlike the other Airstream we checked into which was 3 hours away, this one slept our family comfortably.

We were pretty set on heading back to Bill Thomas in Wentzville, MO that weekend because they had been great to work with and had what we wanted! We highly recommend BT and hope to do business with them in the future.

This camper an hour away in Ottawa, KS was found on EBay and it looked like a very nice deal. We checked it out top to bottom/ front to back. After settling on this one even though it really wasn't the Classic we were hoping for, we figured we could save a lot of money and make this one work. Well, it turned out to be a sketchy deal and we are thankful now that we didn't get tied into that mess.

At the same time that we were bidding and putting an offer on that one we never stopped looking for Classics on the Forums and Classifieds along with Craigslist, EBay and other sources. We came across one located in Ft. Worth, TX and asked a few questions about it. We started getting better vibes about it than the one in Ottawa. We decided to forget the 2004 25' Flying Cloud Safari in Ottawa and pursue the owner of the 2007 31' Classic Limited 75th Anniversary model in Ft. Worth.

Camper or No Camper?

Steve has been researching the camper for awhile now. It may not seem like a long time, but with the hours that he puts in and the fact that he is the most efficient man I know, it is apparent that he has learned a lot. There is obviously always more to learn and he/we will continue to do so with this camper adventure, but for now we are going to take a house on post when we get to our new duty station. This means we won't be "full timers". There is a bit of relief with this news, mostly considering our pets in my mind. Laundry, showers and rainy days are the other concerns on my mind.
We still want to get a travel trailer. We still have ideas of being full timers. We still want to take a month off when we leave KS and vacation with the kids on our way to WA. So, will we do this by truck, tents, cap and bed? Or by travel trailer? We still believe we will get a ton of use out of an Airstream and Steve is definitely set on Airstream. Will we get one or not? Now or Later?