Hello folks, maybe you noticed that things have changed with the image at the top of the post.  This has come about because we no longer have a moho, but a toho (towed home) instead.  We changed our home because the 1999 Winnebago Chieftain we had was getting old so not everything worked the way it did when it was new, and it no longer fit our needs.  Which was sad because I'd always thought (and many RVers still do) that a motor home rather than a trailer was, and is, the way to travel for several reason:  Lots of room for friends and family to travel with ya whereas if ya have a trailer, you can't get up and move around in a truck or car pulling a trailer; Your refrigerator, bathroom, and beds are easily available for anyone except the driver while you are going down the freeway without having to stop, get out of your towing vehicle and get in the trailer, only to have to get back out of the trailer and back in the towing vehicle in order to get going again;  Backing into a campsite is much easier than trying to back a trailer into a campsite; And motor homes are always being compared to as the "RV Standard" rather than a trailer.

However, a trailer doesn't have the extra motor, transmission, drive line, etc that a motor home has, and it doesn't make sense to have it if you are gonna be stopped for weeks or months at a time as they just sit and don't get the exercise they need.  A trailer also will give you better space utilization than a motor home will because the area where the driver and passenger are, and any space forward isn't utilized as living or storage as it is in a trailer.  In addition, the engine and transmission, etc take up space as well.  Getting a trailer into a campsite is a learning curve for newbees, but with practice (i.e., doing it over and over because ya can't get it right the first time, or second time, or ...), it can be done easily enough to take much less time than when ya first start backing it.  Needless to say, it can be an exercise in frustration for the neophyte.  Probably best to take the easy way (no guts or glory way, ok?) and opt for the big rig, pull through campsite.  

But now, we have a trailer.  (And a 3/4 ton pickup truck to pull the trailer.  Which has the extra engine, transmission, driveline, etc.  But it's used in the job I work, so it doesn't just sit like it would if it was a motor home.  Go figure...)  It's Highland Ridge's Open Range 3X388RKS.  It has the largest amount of kitchen space that I've seen in any RV, a patio deck that drops down on the curb side so we just have to walk through a sliding glass door rather than walk down steps to get to the outside chairs (...it's an old person thing, ok?), and a 58" TV in the living room.  It has a king size bed so the walking area around the bed is really for sideways stepping as there's not much room there.  Compared to our previous bed, it's longer and wider, which is nice for the doggies when they want to snuggle, but the lack of room to maneuver around the bed isn't the best.  Here is a video of the 3X388RKS from Haylett RV in Coldwater, Michigan.  Although the salesman tells a lot about it, realize that ours has the patio option whereas the one he's showing doesn't.  As with anything that's new and complicated, such as an RV or automobile, there are foibles that come with it.  Ours had an awning that didn't have all the parts so it wouldn't work correctly, an oven that didn't (and still doesn't) want to go to the temperature that we select, and a shower door that leaks on the floor because the door guide on the bottom isn't sealed correctly. The awning and oven have been taken care of (kinda on the oven), and we're working with the shower door.

Floor plan of our new rig, Open Range 3X388RKS.  Bear in mind we don't have the u-lounge on the street side, but two recliners which we move out into the floor area opposite the TV, and that area is where Katie has her painting stuff.

New kitchen that's about four times the size of the galley we had in the moho.  21 cubic foot refrigerator and pantry is off to the left out of site.  

Patio deck with awning.  

58" TV above the electric fireplace, which has been useful when the outside temperatures were in the 20's, as they were in San Antonio.

Because we live in a 5th wheel trailer now, it makes sense to change the name of the blog to something like "where we take the trailer home" or "where the trailer home follows us".  And I tried to do just that.  But since it's been so long since I've explored the workings of a blog, I couldn't figure out how to do what was necessary to start a new blog carrying the same features and gadgets on the side like I have now.  So... you're kinda stuck with it, ok?  Just remember that we live in the 5th wheel now, ok, not the moho.  Good!

Enough of the new rig.  We've been busy working in order to get our financial ducks in a row so we could get the new rig, employed by Southern Cross, a company that contracts with utilities, gas utilities for our purpose, to survey natural gas lines and meters.  It's mandated by the US Department of Transportation to be done on a regular basis between 1 to 5 years.  They've been good to us paying us a good wage, in addition to mileage and paying for our rent in an RV park.  We did the survey for Salt Lake City last spring, then moved up to Logan for the summer.  It wasn't uncommon for us to walk between 5 - 8 miles every day with some days being even longer.  We carried a specialized instrument which detects hydrocarbons to let us know that there was something flammable in the area where we were surveying.  Here's a video of it in action on youtube.com (watch as much of it as ya feel like watching, ok?)  If the leak was above ground on the pipes, we'd spray it down with soapy water and note where the bubbles were, and report it.  If we couldn't find it above ground, we had to use another instrument to find it under ground.  We also carried a tablet computer which had maps showing us where the gas pipes were (supposed to be) located, and always had other related gear in our vehicles.  The gas lines for the gas utility for most, if not all, of Utah, are conveniently located in the streets and front or side yards making the survey easy to do, allowing us to go to more than 120 houses a day.  

We took a break beginning October 1st to go see family for a few days, and then pick up our new rig in southern California.  About a week into October, we were asked by our manager in Salt Lake City if we'd go to Houston to help out in a new survey there.  I'm thinking that we just didn't quite feel at ease about not working since we'd been hard at it for seven months, so we said "Sure!  Let's do it!"  As a result, we had very little time after we picked up our new rig to travel back up to Salt Lake City to move stuff from our moho into our toho (we still haven't found places for everything!), and start our four day journey to Houston.

The job in Houston was similar to what we did in Salt Lake City and Logan with the exception that all the utilities for 99.99% of the houses are in the backyards.  So a lot of time was spent knocking on doors to let folks know that we were needing to get into their backyards to check the gas main running along the fence and the gas service line to the meter.  If someone wasn't home, we did the best we could to let ourselves into the backyard, and we were usually successful in doing that.  There were a few times when folks didn't answer the door and we made our way into their backyard, but the homeowner was home and discovered us when we were in the backyard, which produced an awkward situation.   Most folks were ok with what we were doing after it was explained to them what was being done, but one woman told me to leave and called 911.  I met with the police officers after they left the lady and told them what I was doing, and what had happened, and they were totally ok with it.  Made my day much better after they left with smiles on their faces.  Turns out there've been folks (bad guys really) that had a uniform like UPS, or the gas company, and had gotten into houses as a result, and either looted the house, or inflicted damage to the person at home.  And the fact that it was prior to Christmas when there were Christmas trees with presents under them, deliveries made with packages left at the door, etc., only exasperated the situation.  So I can't blame anyone there for being cautious about someone lurking about in their back yard, even though I had lots of identification to prove who I was.

Right now, we're awaiting orders on when we're to arrive in Salt Lake City to start the survey there again.  Spending most of the time in the Parker, Az., area with short trips to southern California to see our son, Jeff, and Katie's family.

Although our time in Houston was mainly spent working, we were able to check out a couple of touristy things.  One of them was the Battleship Texas, BB35, which is now a museum and moored near the Houston ship channel, right next to the San Jacinto Monument where the decisive battle for Texas independence took place in 1836.  The battleship is now a museum which shows what life was like on a ship during the time from WW I - WWII.  I found it interesting because it served near Okinawa in World War II where my father was serving in the Army Air Corp.  It was also the only ship to serve in World War I as well as World War II.

The Battleship Texas, BB35

Just to the southeast of where the battleship is the San Jacinto Battleground State Historic Site where the Republic of Texas won the battle for it's independence from Mexico.  There's a 570' tall monument there that's 15' taller than the Washington Monument that has an elevator to the observation deck

San Jacinto Monument

It was very interesting to find that we were that near the battlefield where Texas got it's independence, and a lot of the rest of our time in Texas had to do with it's history, or figures of it's history.  More on that in the next post.

Until then, as they say in Texas,
                                                    That's all she wrote!