Wednesday, June 8th Tom and I were scheduled to leave for Florida to pick up the Navion –There was some excitement as we prepared to leave. Susan lost power ½ hour before we left (a tree was down and took wires with it on Saint Peter’s Road,) and Chris Gibson, Tom, and Scott rushed to Scott’s house to start up his generator before heading to Philadelphia Airport. The flight to Orlando and dinner, and shuttle to the Ramada Wyndham Orlando Airport went smoothly this time.
On the morning of the 9th – delivery day – Steve picked up Scott and Tom at the Ramada and had an almost-smooth trip to La Mesa RV (Steve entered the wrong address or something, but Navigator Tom fixed that.) We had an appointment for 11AM, so we showed up hours early. Nonetheless, La Mesa had bearded “Marc” give us a pretty good and intense lesson on the workings of the RVs plumbing, electrical, slideout, awning, seat adjustment, shower, etc. Since all three of us were sorta trying to keep up – and Tom was actually absorbing most of it – we did OK. The paperwork was screwed up and their transfer people were very busy, so we left for lunch at Hollerbach’s German restaurant in Sanford. Steve must know every good restaurant in central Florida. Back to the La Mesa to finalize the deal.
A few days prior, Steve had mentioned that the RV needed a name and proposed Marco Polo, but we quickly realized the Toad would need name too and decided on Ghenghis Khan, or Khan for the RV, and Marco Polo for the yet to be procured Toad. So, with Tom driving Kahn and Scott navigating we set off for Ridgevale. Steve followed in his unnamed pick up.
Upon arriving, we discovered that the treework we had done a few months before to remove overhead branches did not reach all the way to the barn where Scott’s RV hookups were. We scraped, broke, and dragged a few branches, but Steve does not think permanent damage was done to Kahn. Steve retrieved Scott’s manual pole saw in the punishing heat to remove the offending branches – a difficult job.
Scott found his 30A to 50A adapter, but the genders were the wrong way (designed to plug a 50A cable into a 30A socket) – we needed the other way. Scott asked Rick Holborn, our next door neighbor, if we could borrow one. He had one he said he didn’t need – we could keep it. We love the Holborns.
For dinner, we went to the Publix for food and an E-Pass for Khan. We ate at Don Pepe Taqueria, then bought extensive food for breakfasts and snacks for Khan. We forgot the E-Pass. Scott and Steve brought back half of their food, Tom threw his away.
After our initial hookup, we went through the materials we saved from the Van Hool Bus and started an extensive list of items we needed to buy at Wal Mart. After the long day (much of which in the 90 degree plus heat,) we retired for the evening. Tom decided to spend the night in Khan; Steve and Scott slept in real beds in Scott’s house.