Anticipation

As I discussed in the post "The Plan", we had to order our 'forever rig' back in May, before the house sold.  The whole process took place over the phone and with exchanges of option sheets and engineering orders by email.  But it is not like we had done this blind, far from it.  Cyndee and I had years invested in window shopping and tire kicking before we picked a manufacturer of our dream rig.

We attended RV shows in Georgia and surrounding states with the RV Supershow in Tampa, FL being a favorite that we returned to a number of years.  We found Tampa to be the place where key people from the manufacturers were.  You could go one-on-one with them and really get a good feel for a company's approach to building a coach.  Tampa is where we met Phil Brokenicky, owner of New Horizons.  Phil is a former banker that turned manufacturer of RVs with a different business model than most in the industry.  His business was based on custom-built, made-to-order only.  He had no dealers, no middle men, no sales lot, no distributors.  Everything - manufacturing, marketing, sales, service was all done in one place, Junction City, Kansas.  A rig is not built until it is ordered.

This is Hillsboro River State Park Campground.  It is our favorite when attending the Tampa RV Supershow.

The Tampa RV Supershow is held in January.  The weather is usually pleasant, which is good to help get through the thousands of displays.

In the early years of our search we were not too crazy about the styling, especially the exterior, of New Horizons.  They were obviously built rugged and well engineered coaches, but they were just so darned "boxy" with insufficient window size and quantity.  And the interior decor looked dated the day it rolled out of the factory.

The manufacturer we were most attracted to for the first nine years of the 'the plan' (Teton Homes) unfortunately succumbed to the economic crash.  They had got themselves stretched too thin when the RV business was booming right before the crash and did not have a chance of surviving the downturn in discretionary spending that the crash brought on.  Lucky for us that as the years went by New Horizons styling caught up with the times and they made some great advancements in engineering too.

Our decision to switch to New Horizons put an extra dent in the financial part of our plan, but I think it will be well worth it.  We will start finding out in a few weeks, we should get the call to come pick it up the first of August (2012).

Regardless of placing the order, specifying options, writing custom engineering changes and securing financing over the phone there were some things that we did not feel good about doing long distance; picking colors.  Cabinet stain color, tile color, carpet color, furniture color, valances and exterior paint.

It is a long way to Junction City, KS from Johns Creek, GA.  Roughly 940 miles and almost 16 hours of driving time.  But we packed Putt-putt (Cyndee's PT Cruiser which gets double the mileage of Big Gulp (the F-550 truck)) and headed West on Memorial Day weekend.  We needed to be at the factory first thing on Friday morning so we headed out on a Wednesday.  Our first night we laid over in Paducah, KY.  Pretty nice place.

There is a park near here that is called Land Between the Lakes.  It is a strip of land between two river lakes formed by dams on the Columbia and Tennessee rivers.  The area is gorgeous and we plan to put this on our list of places to visit.

Thursday's drive had us going through St. Louis and Kansas City before finally making our destination.  We settled in at the Marriott Courtyard and got a good nights rest.  Friday found us at the factory door first thing in the morning.  We met Drew, Phil's son and New Horizons' sales manager and got down to the business of working out the last details.

Even though we were there to make final choices on options for the rig, the construction had already started.  We took a break and did a factory tour to see how these big rigs are built and actually see ours in various stages of construction.

The chassis was nearly done.  Axles were on and the slide-out hydraulic drives were in place.

This part of the tour was kind of ho-hum for Cyndee but the engineer in me was doing back-flips with excitement.  I was getting to look at every fit, every weld, every joint, it was great.  I was really impressed with all the gusseting, this thing is solid!

Another thing I really like is the suspension and brakes.  The suspension is a high-tech rubber-coupled device that is independent for each of the six wheels.  The brakes are better than anything I have ever had on a any trailer of any kind that I have towed.  They are electric/hydraulic disc brakes.  Most trailer brakes are traditional drum brakes and actuated by large, powerful magnets.  Not these.  These use an electric signal to actuate hydraulics just like your car does it (the hydraulic part).  But unlike your car, these discs are big, plenty big enough to haul down 20,000 lbs all by themselves instead of depending on the truck to do the bulk of the braking. And there are six of them.

From the chassis shop we walked into the next area where the side-walls get their insulation and laminate lay-up.  Right there in front of us stood our wall.  It was rolling in on the cart as we were entering the area.

So again I got to see all the fits and welds.  The craftsman did not seem bothered by me doing all this "inspecting", I think they were proud of their work.  I would be too, it looked great.

Next was the cabinet shop and once again there was construction of cabinetry specifically for our rig.  Remember, each rig is custom built, they do not have standard cabinetry built up just waiting for a rig to come along.  Our entertainment center has doors and drawers to our specs, the kitchen cabinetry accommodates a flip-up counter top extension in a location different than most people choose and special dimensions and plumbing must be allotted for the Fisher and Paykel drawer dishwasher.  We also designed (actually borrowed the design from another full timer) for a shoe garage.  I will post pictures of these when we pick up the rig. But for now here are some cabinets that are underway.

This is the galley counter where the sink, dishwasher and utensil drawers will be.  Everything is faced in oak.

These cabinets span the width of the rear of the coach, just above the big picture window.  They are laying on their back and if you click on the picture and enlarge it you can see where our name is written on it.  The cabinet shop was running about three jobs concurrently, each customer's name is clearly marked to keep things straight.

Here is the large cabinetry for the bedroom.  That is Cyndee standing there to the left so you can get an idea of the scale.  Up high on each side is a wardrobe, the center is the make-up table/dresser.  The notch up high is where a flip-down LCD TV will live.  And in the center bottom, between double drawers will be a cedar lined hamper.

As I write this all these should be finished and getting installed.  The chassis is long done and the sidewalls and roof are on, the rig has already made its first road trip; to Indiana to be painted and then back again to finish all the countless little details inside and out.

Just a couple, maybe three weeks to go before we get the call to come get our new home.  We are getting fidgety with anticipation but we will have to hang on a little longer.