We had a general plan that when we got back to Vegas, we would look into replacing Colectiva. At well over 12 years old, lots of stuff no longer worked, and wear and tear had taken their toll on some of the structural integrity. In addition, all of our technology in the coach was over a decade old. We were also running into RV parks that had instituted a 10-year-old age limit on rigs staying in their park, So, even though the idea saddened us, we agreed it might be time to see her go.
Little did we know that
we would make the switch in Florida. We visited a dealership outside Daytona
that carried Forest River FR3 products, which we had focused in on as our
likely replacement coach. They actually had our unit, the 30DS, in stock, and were
discounting it over $40,000 from its list price. When we described Colectiva to
them, they offered us nearly 5 times what we had generally felt she was worth.
So, I set off on a marathon project to actually get a copy of Colectiva’s title
from the Nevada DMV, which included a flight to Vegas to show up in person at
the DMV office because of their unwillingness to make any attempt to help us do
it by mail. In the end, we got the title, registered and insured Colectiva II
in Florida, and made the trade.
Lots of stuff to deal
with. When I pushed the tow bar for the Equinox into the receptacle of the FR3,
the holes for the hitch lock didn’t quite align – I could not push it in.
Luckily I found a lock designed for a 5th wheel connector that you
wouldn’t otherwise use for a tow bar – but is was just a bit smaller, and
actually fit quite snuggly in the space we had – bonus! Also, this rig is not set up for a theater system. I bought a Blu-ray DVD player and tried to set it up, with cables to allow for external cable connections. I bought cables at Target and completely struck our - nothing worked. I went to Amazon and ordered their basic cables - when I got them, both the cable connections and the DVD player worked - another bonus!
Now we’re well into the
process of trying to fit all of our stuff into a coach that is 8 feet shorter –
meaning 8 feet less storage. Not only has the storage space shrunk, but we have
gone from living in about 300 square feet I Colectiva to only about 100 square
feet in Colectiva II – sheesh! 
It is a good thing that we still had a couple of
weeks to spend in Beverly Beach because it was clearly going to take that long
to figure out how to make everything fit. After several visits to Goodwill to
donate things we knew wouldn’t fit, and several visits to Home Depot for
storage boxes and other supplies (like this huge sewer pipe to store our sewer hose), we managed to fit it all in. Santa watched
over us as we worked.
We have kept up our
daily walks somewhere near the Atlantic. Sometimes the walks are actually on
the beach, and other times they are on nearby walkways. We are used to seeing
certain emergency equipment available in public spaces, such as defibrillators,
lifesaving buoys near the water, etc. But only in Florida have we seen this
kind of emergency equipment!
Talk to you soon.
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