How an Overnight Trip Took a Week to Complete

As I have chronicled we have been on an odyssey trying to sell our tired, worn out class A motorhome. We set out for Houston on a Wednesday and promptly broke down (see my previous blog). That took almost two days to resolve and I arrived, (Missy had gone on ahead), in Houston late Thursday evening. Friday morning we took our first look at the RV that the salesman had reserved for us. While Missy seemed fairly happy with her choice, I automatically knew it would not suit our needs. This RV dealer will finance the nearly dead and their bread and butter is refurbishing and reselling FEMA trailers, so 5th wheels are always at a premium on their lot. We took a quick look around and I settled on a 37 foot Fleetwood with three slide outs. As it turns out, that 5th wheel was missing two of its slide out motors. It had come from a repo auction in Florida and folks seem to like picking through them for parts and pieces. The dealer also offered to rip the interior out and put new carpet in and give it a deep clean inside and out. Upon further review...(where have we heard that before)?!? The slide out motors were no longer manufactured, the refrigerator wouldn't work, the water system leaked, etc. Late Saturday afternoon I decided we were not going to sit around while they resolved the issues and called the boss and asked to be put on a gate. In the meantime the arduous task of moving our stuff from RV to RV continued. This in the heat and humidity of Houston. When we had set sail on Wednesday (remember?) we had left our campsite behind thinking we would be back the next day-or Friday at the latest. We also had put some stuff in storage at the same campground. Additionally we had left the animals with a friend to keep an eye on them. Now the pet sitter and the campground were starting to get a little antsy. Since Friday was fully booked; we completed the purchase of the 5th wheel and dashed out to have the hitch installed in our pickup, we couldn't retrieve the animals till that evening. So late Friday we dashed off to San Antonio to retrieve our pets, returning to Houston early Saturday morning. Sunday was an off day at the dealership so we continued the move. Our plan was to leave sometime Monday for the gate, but we were unable to arrange for a trailer rental till Tuesday morning. So Tuesday off we went with the dogs and cats in tow, stopping briefly to strike our campsite in San Antonio, and then heading out to the gate. Nothing is ever simple and one of the cats escaped, delaying our departure. Once underway we resolved we were thirsty and hungry and decided to stop at a truck stop for lunch. The cat that had escaped (and I believe his comprade) had figured out not only how to lower the windows but also how to deactivate the window lock. You guessed it, when we walked out into the parking lot the windows were down and both cats were gone. The roundup was comical, to say the least, and took at least a half hour. We finally arrived on the gate early Tuesday afternoon. And that is how the overnight trip took a week to complete.