Busy Week

    This was funny – the Ford dealer delivered the truck with 1/4 tank of gas. Ken used most of it up test driving the motorhome and never put any more fuel in it. On the day we picked it up from Ken’s shop ,we had to drive a few miles to the gas station. We just made it- flat on empty as we stopped at the pump!

We’ve been running around town getting the process started on everything that still needs to be finished – graphics designed and made , cushions measured to be sewn , new water tank ordered ( Ken installed one that is much too small) and bits and pieces bought to finish the inside.  I’ll post some more pictures as we get things finished but for now -

MERRY  CHRISTMAS !!!!

New Motorhome Delivered!

All settled and paid for. Ken agreed to honor our original contract. It’ll cost us a few thousand extra because of the lawyer’s fees and we’ll be fixing some of the poor finish work but at least we finally have it. A few more weeks of work , some graphics applied and we should be ready to go and find some warm weather!
  Pictures of the sloppy work:


I’ll post more later as we add the finishing touches.

The Good , The Bad and The Ugly

First the Good. Here’s our motorhome. It’s almost finished. It’s drivable. All of the systems work. It looks pretty good.

Then the Bad. Ken has decided that we owe him almost $8,000 more and he is holding the motorhome hostage. This is completely outside of our original contract.  Some of the charges are for parts that are essential to the proper construction of the motorhome plus we never agreed to any additional charges as the build was progressing.
And the Ugly. Ken is angry and is retaliating in more ways than one. In an effort to get the motorhome finished as quickly and cheaply as possible , he has been cutting corners everywhere that he can. This is the completed interior.It looks nice in photographs.

However when you start looking closer you’ll see things like this. This is the dinette seat with material wrapped around a piece of foam and stapled to plywood instead of a real cushion. The cord snaking up the wall is connected to  a power strip which was supposed to be hard wired with the wires running inside the wall.

So that’s where we are now. We are not paying any additional charges but we’ve decided to stop trying to get him to fix any mistakes. We’ll just deal with those after we get possession of the motorhome. Since he refuses to honor our original contract ,we’re going to have to take him to court. Updates soon!

Two More Weeks

Not much to say about the motorhome yet. Ken told us that he was planning on answering the complaint that we sent to the Attorney General but since we haven’t heard anything about that most likely he hasn’t done it. Our attorney sent him a letter on Friday detailing our case against him and asking for a response which hasn’t happened either. We went to the shop today and nothing had been done since our last visit a week ago. We only stayed for a few minutes , just long enough to see if any work had been done. Ken ignored us. It looks like this is going to be ugly.

   Pictures of the interior

WE’VE HAD ENOUGH !!!

We had high hopes that this motorhome would be finished by now and we would be back on the road. Ken put a lot of effort into it for a couple of weeks but that didn’t last. The final straw came on Oct.23. He called us the 20th and said that they would be working on it all week and by Friday , the 23 , it would be ready for an inspection and for completing all of the finishing touches. When we went to his shop on Friday , it looked almost exactly the same as it had looked the previous Friday! We’re baffled by his behavior – why lie? We just can’t deal with this any longer and have started legal actions. The first step was filing a complaint with the Washington Attorney General’s office. Ken was not happy about getting that notice. We have also contracted with our own attorney to force Ken to honor our contract. Updates to come…
In the meantime summer is long gone from Washington state and the rainy season has begun. Our solar panels don’t work without the sun so our strategy for free and inexpensive camping which involved bouncing back and forth between Eden’s street , casino lots (every Indian tribe in Washington state has a casino) and state parks is no longer possible.  We’ll be hunkered down for the duration in a private campground. It’s actually not bad for a private campground but not the sort of place we normally chose to spend our time.

View from our widow..

  The other side..

It’s Been an Entire Year!

September 17 was our 1st anniversary of the start of this motorhome project. We never would have believed that we would still be waiting for it to be finished a year later. The picture at the top isn’t Ken’s pickled remains but he’s pushing it !  We gave him an ultimatum-work on it every day or we will remove it from his shop.  It’s to the point where that is possible so we have a lot of leverage.

More pictures here – http://cid-4ce32117b0082fb8.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/It%5E4s%20Been%20an%20Entire%20Year!!

Pow Wow

We went to our first pow wow a few years ago. We were at one of our favorite free camping sites , an Indian casino , and they just happened to be having a pow wow so we stayed to see what is was all about. We enjoyed it so much that now we check to see if there are any where we happen to be. Lucky for us – there was one close to Tacoma!

  The main things are the dancing and the outfits. Everything has a meaning and most of it goes back for generations. Dances may have originated from season rituals ,religious ceremonies or social gatherings. The dances are opened to the general public although  the audiences at the ones that we’ve attended have been predominately Native American.

More pictures here  -  http://cid-4ce32117b0082fb8.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/Pow%20Wow

A Little Bit of Progress

  Still here in Tacoma. The only way that we can keep Ken working on the motorhome is to go out to his shop twice a week so that’s what we’ve been doing. It moving along but still very slowly.
                                                                 We’re getting very frustrated!

More pictures here –  http://cid-4ce32117b0082fb8.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/A%20Little%20Bit%20of%20Progress

We Have Some Cabinets!

   Well, we have some cabinets started which is better than nothing.
   Here’s the shop where the motorhome’s been living for nine months. Finally sunshine!

   The beginning of the bathroom vanity

  Some of the upper cabinets-standing on their end for now

  The kitchen countertop. It looks better in person!

  Sorry about the boring post. It looks like we’ll be here for awhile but at least we’re getting   some work done.  Happy 4th of July!

Waiting and Waiting…..

  Almost everyone who reads this already knows the whole story of the building of our new motorhome but just in case someone  missed it here’s the short version. We contracted to get this motorhome built way back in September.  Ken , the builder, told us that it would be well on it’s way to being done by Christmas but as soon as we weren’t around he stopped working on it.The only way we could get him to do any work  was by putting constant pressure on him so when we went back east for our niece’s wedding we were concerned about leaving him on his own. Still it was kind of a shock when we came back to Washington state and saw that he had done NO work on it the whole time we were gone – six weeks!
  We finally took a good look at our contract , something we should have done a long time ago , and noticed that we have a clause concerning holding shop time. We paid a few thousand dollars extra up front so that our project would have priority.  We confronted Ken with this , along with all of the other complaints and problems that we’ve been having with him and he  has finally started back to work on it. Not as much as we would like though. He has one other big job that’s almost done and then ours should be the only job that they’re working on. Here are a few pictures of the latest work. Not a lot done for two weeks of work!
This is Kevin , Ken’s cousin ,finishing up on the wiring

  They have all of the panels up on the ceiling and most of the walls. They’ve started planning how the cabinets will be built.

   The only type of paneling we could find was this white stuff so Eden is going to do some subtle sponging after they’ve primed and finished the walls a bit more.

  Updates in a week or so!

On Our Way West

  That was a fast trip back east for Krisi’s wedding! We’re so glad that we got to see everyone even if it was way too short of a visit. We’re almost a third of the way back to Washington  state so more motorhome updates shortly.

More pictures here-  http://cid-4ce32117b0082fb8.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/On%20Our%20Way%20West

The House on a Rock , Wisconsin

   There’s no way to adequately describe this place. Supposedly Alex Jordan wanted to work with Frank Lloyd Wright , the famous architect. But when Jordan showed Wright his building plans , Wright said " I wouldn’t hire you to design a cheese crate or a chicken coop. You’re not capable"  An angry Jordan then preceded to design and build his own house and later, with his son’s help , added many more rooms to display their ever growing collection of miscellaneous bits and pieces.  Many of the creations were built on site , almost exact copies of antiques and items like Tiffany lamps. Others are sheer fantasy , assembled from whatever they could pick up cheaply when buildings and factories were being demolished. And some are actually real.  So what is The House on a Rock? Not a museum , more like a huge work of art , partly totally tacky , partly complete genius. We spent five hours just going through all of the rooms!

More pictures here- http://cid-4ce32117b0082fb8.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/The%20House%20on%20a%20Rock%20,%20Wisconsin

Black Hills , South Dakota

   This sculpture is actually in Montana at the location of the Battle of the Little Bighorn. In 1876 Montana, South Dakota and Wyoming were still territories and the Lakota and Cheyenne Indian tribes roamed throughout the Black Hills and the prairies. Conflicts with miners and settlers (who ignored previous treaties) during the 1800s eventually led  to this battle. Twenty one companies of soldiers ,including the men in Custer’s command ,were planning to surround the Indians camped on the plains by the Little Big Horn River. The Indians would then be forced back onto the reservations in western South Dakota. At least that was the plan! But Custer and his men were all killed and the Indians fled towards Canada. While most were captured ,Sitting Bull and about 200 of his people made it to Canada. In 1881 , due to lack of food and supplies , they returned to the US , surrendered and were placed on reservations.

More pictures here: http://cid-4ce32117b0082fb8.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/Black%20Hills%20,%20South%20Dakota

Heading East

We’ve started on our trip east through some of our favorite scenery in Montana. It’s way too cold to live here but it sure is beautiful in the spring.

More pictures-click here: http://cid-4ce32117b0082fb8.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/Black%20Hills%20,%20South%20Dakota

Sleeping in Seattle

  Seattle has been more living up to it’s reputation this spring – not only has it been exceptionally rainy , it’s also been cold!  Our motorhome is not near being finished so we’ll be going back east with the Scotty. Looking forward to seeing everyone!

More pictures in the slide show above or click here: http://cid-4ce32117b0082fb8.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/Sleeping%20in%20Seattle

Where’s our New Motorhome !!??

We took the coastal road through Oregon – beautiful scenery!- and now we’re cold and wet in Washington state. Our motorhome builder is overwhelmed with work and he’s hardly been working on our job , maybe one day a week. We’re giving him a few more days then we’re moving into his driveway ( he has a place out in the country with a lot of room) so that he has to look at us every day! Updates to come – hopefully!

More pictures in the slide show above or click here:   http://cid-4ce32117b0082fb8.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/Where|4s%20our%20New%20Motorhome

Death Valley National Park , California

Death Valley is the lowest , hottest , driest place in North America but the weather is great in February! It’s also very beautiful with a lot of interesting history. We kind of hate to leave but we have to start heading up north soon ,into the cold and wet, to check on the motor home progress.

More pictures here: http://cid-4ce32117b0082fb8.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/Death%20Valley%20National%20Park%20,%20California

Las Vegas

Wow, it’s been a long time since I posted anything! We’re still down here in the southwest , trying to stay warm. No more news on the motorhome although it was supposed to be getting it’s outside shell and insulation last week. Hopefully we’ll have more pictures soon.

More pictures here:  http://cid-4ce32117b0082fb8.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/Las%20Vegas

Quartzsite , Arizona

  It looks like we didn’t have to rush across country because our motorhome build is progressing very slowly. We finally hit beautiful weather so we’ve decided to hang around in Arizona for awhile. Here are the latest pictures of the motorhome. It doesn’t look very different but the frame is now completely assembled and the cab area has been cut out.

More pictures here:   http://cid-4ce32117b0082fb8.skydrive.live.com/browse.as /Quartzsite%20,%20Arizona
 
They’re pack saddles from China.

Roswell , New Mexico

   What happened in Roswell? Did a UFO crash or was it a weather balloon? It will probably always be a mystery. Most likely it was some sort of top secret government experiment that went wrong. Still it’s fun to speculate about other possibilities!

More pictures here:  http://cid-4ce32117b0082fb8.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/Roswell,%20New%20Mexico