5:22 PM, Friday, January 29, 2021, we FINALLY had possession of our new home, a 38’ 2000 Newmar Dutch Star. Now, we needed to return the rental car so we could get on the road toward Denver. The closest return place was Forty-five minutes away and closed at 6:00 PM. I’m not much of a mather, but that math didn’t seem to work out. We found another hotel for our real last night to return the car and get on the road first thing in the morning.
We stayed at the Springhill Suites in Denton, TX. The following day they allowed us to fill our freshwater tank before departing. We returned the rental car and were on our way for real! The winds had a different idea. We weren’t ready to drive this large shoebox in wind gusts up to forty miles per hour. So we did what any self-respecting new RV owner would do. We stopped at the local Cracker Barrel for breakfast then headed over to the Walmart for a few supplies. While at Walmart, we tried figuring some things out and failed. Like how to use the water tank we’d just filled. After a while, we’d had our fill of the Walmart parking lot and exited stage left.
The wind wasn’t atrocious. We were doing pretty well until the dashboard started screaming at us with a STOP light on the instrument panel. Whenever we were under load going up a hill, the dashboard would screech, and the light would warn us to stop. Since we couldn’t figure out the water situation, we ended up in another motel for the night. Waking up Sunday morning, we knew Raton Pass would be a nightmare with our screaming dash issue, and we were not disappointed in the hell it was. 25 MPH with it screaming the entire way. This was definitely not addressed in the inspection. All we needed to do was make it back to Denver, where we would park and remodel in the oldest child’s driveway. And search for a mechanic.
We arrived in Denver with no significant issues on Sunday afternoon. Other than high centering our 38’ home while pulling into the driveway. Two-and-a-half hours later, Tom figured out using the jacks and putting boards under the wheels to create a ramp would help get it unstuck. We parked our home on the street, and when we awoke the following day and went inside to shower, it felt a little too much like street living, so we checked into another hotel. The Residence Inn in Greenwood Village, CO. We found a mechanic who could get us in at 5:30 AM Tuesday, February 2, 2021. We asked at the Residence Inn if we could park our RV in their parking lot overnight to have it to the mechanic at oh dark thirty. The manager wasn’t very friendly about it but allowed us to bring it later that night and be gone very early in the morning. Tom and Liv, in the RV, beat us back to the hotel. When M and I pulled up, they were standing outside looking at the RV. Looking up, it became apparent they were looking at our damaged roof. The back quarter of our roof-line looked like someone had taken a can opener to it. 2020 taught us that in life, you need to pivot. In RV life, there are sometimes big pivots. It was at that moment we named our new home Pivot Big. (our license plates automagically came with BIG as the first three letters.)
Very early Tuesday morning, we met our new best friend, Jack. Jack is a character and storyteller, and you decide where the truth is stretched in his stories. He was very knowledgeable and friendly. We had a laundry list of items to be checked out, including the remarkable screaming dash. We were returning to Oceanside, CA, for a volunteer commitment. Jack would complete the mechanical work then drive it to the body shop for us. What happened to the roof? How did it look like a can opener had been taken to it? None of us had any idea.
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