Current Location: Phoenix, Arizona

Special shout out to Al’s RV and Marine, where we’ve been camped for the last 24 hours or so. Even though they won’t end up doing the service on our rig, they have been great at providing us power and water while we wait through the weekend. We returned the favor in a way by purchasing several items from their store yesterday and today.

This morning we got up, fixed our coffee/juice/breakfast and relaxed for a few. Malcolm had noted that there was an RV Show this weekend at the University of Phoenix stadium just a few miles away. We decided to do what any bored RV’er would do – go check out the inventory. We walked through our favorite floorplan, then wandered around a few other rigs.

One thing led to another and we ended up signing paperwork to trade our current trailer in on a new one. We are purchasing a 2015 Heartland Big Country 3950 FB. The FB stands for “front bath”. This is a really cool floor plan that puts the “master bath” in the front of the trailer, with the bedroom behind it towards the middle. Another nice feature is a half-bath (sink and toilet) on the main level just inside the front door.

Floor Plan

It was the last day of the sale and the dealer, La Mesa, was running some really good deals. We paid less for a nicer trailer this time than we paid for our current one two years ago. Part of that is because we’ve learned a lot in the last couple years and knew what to look for price-wise. They also gave us what we were expecting for a trade-in, as well, including them fixing the current bearing/axle/tire problems.

Our new home

They indicated we would be responsible for moving our rig to their location, about 15 miles from where we are now. We moved it about 5 miles with the axle strapped up, but that was really dicey, plus we had to do that moving very slow with an escort. When we got back to the trailer, Malcolm worked on checking on the axle to see if it would be possible to put new bearings and a new hub on it to at least let it roll on four tires.

As Malcolm got the axle successfully cleaned up, the gentleman from the RV parts store that we are parked behind came out to let us know what was going on and to let us know the store was open until 4:00 today. That worked out well, as they had the bearings in stock that we needed, but not the hub. Malcolm got the old bearing races knocked out of the hub and installed the new ones. Within an hour or so, he had the hub, bearings and tire mounted onto the axle. That should at least get us to the dealer safely.

Cleaned up axle

Hub mounted

Wheel back on

We also started the tedious process of removing our stuff and putting it in boxes. It will take a few days to get done, but the new trailer won’t be ready to take delivery until the end of the week. Tomorrow we need to move our current trailer from behind the building where we’ve been all weekend. We looked at a couple of campgrounds between here and the dealer and found one that will work for a few days, unless the dealer will let us pull in and hook up at their location (which would be better). We’ll call them in the morning to check on that possibility.