Great Faces, Great Places

El Tigre is now officially a South Dakota resident.  We paid sales tax and got it titled and registered, all for a few hundred dollars.  The "Great Faces, Great Places" state makes if very easy for full-time RVers to give them money.  Admittedly, we slipped a few notches down the cool factor scale by getting rid of the old Colorado plates.

South Dakota license plate:  "Great Faces, Great Places"

After we picked the truck up in Pagosa Springs, and visited our friends in Denver, we drove to Scott's brother's house (Skip and Amy) in Indiana.  Here, we started the laborious process of making El Tigre "our home".  Skip spent countless hours refacing our kitchen cabinets and making new drawers and doors.

Skip and Scott burning the midnight oil in Skip's workshop

Along with all the interior work, Scott ordered $1500 in auto parts that were delivered to my parent's house.  He's working on making El Tigre a lean, mean, cool machine.  He's also becoming an expert on the mechanics of the GM 6.5 L diesel engine -- at least I hope so, as the drive shaft, radiator, water pump, oil cooler, and fan clutch, all of which are sitting in my Dad's barn, probably need to go back in.

One of many auto part deliveries

Van Update. It's not a Van!

So much has happened since we last checked into the blog.  So much, and yet, so little...  The exciting news is that we did in fact find our 4x4, diesel, Pan-American dream mobile on eBay, and the transaction went better than anyone could ever dream.  It is a a Provan Tiger Camper built on a 1994 Chevrolet K2500 Silverado Truck.

 

When we flew to pick up the truck, Gary, the previous owner, drove over an hour to pick us up at the Durango airport. Then, he drove us back to his home, where we were greeted with the sight of our new (old) truck and the high-altitude beauty of Pagosa Springs, Colorado.  Gary and his wife opened their home to us for the next couple of days while we got the truck ready to drive back to Michigan.  Kelly fed us salmon, asparagus, and roasted potatoes for dinner with homemade raspberry pie for dessert!  If we ever sell the truck, I hope we can make the buying experience for the next person as pleasant as they made it for us.

Scott, Gary, and Kelly pre-yumfest

People have asked why we wanted a 4x4 or a diesel.  The reason we wanted the 4wd is a little more obvious. We plan on driving it from here to the tip of South America.  There will be roads and beaches that would be off-limits for a traditional 2wd van.  As for the diesel question, diesel fuel is a bit easier to come by south of the border, the engine has a longer life, and it gets better gas diesel mileage.

It's been 3 weeks, but we still can't stop calling our new truck "the van".  Every vehicle we've ever traveled in has been a van...Toyota LE, Toyota Previa, Ford E350, Toyota Hiace, and a Ford Transit.  We've never been the type to name our vehicles, so it's been hard not to call it "the van". We're still trying to get used to calling it "the truck" or "the camper", but it's definitely NOT A VAN!

Van Shopping: Strike Two

by Scott

What is it with 1998 Coachmen Starflytes? Soon after our first deal fell through, we found two more Starflytes in Florida, one on ebay and one on AutoTrader. The one on ebay, despite being 13 years old, looked like it just rolled off the showroom floor.

From the start, I had my reservations about Bill, who sells RVs on ebay under the username belmar13. He has excellent feedback, but his personality was that of the stereotypical used car salesman. What concerned me most was his attitude toward my request to have the van checked out by a mechanic. He acted like it was a personal insult, claiming it was the first time anyone had ever requested such a thing. When I insisted that I wouldn't be spending $20k on a sight-unseen vehicle without a mechanical inspection, he relented, but he took it to his mechanic--the guy that does all the work on his RVs before he sells them. Before the mechanic finished inspecting it, somebody hit BuyItNow for $21.9k. The van was gone. Bill called the next morning to tell us that it sold, and that it was out of his control. Fair enough. That was actually kind of classy. Maybe I was wrong about Bill.

We were a little bummed about missing out on the showroom van, but what could we do? We kept searching. Every day, I would search Craigslist for Starflytes. Every day, both ebay and RVTrader would email me with any new Starflyte listings. Imagine my surprise when RVTrader found yet another showroom Starflyte. It was just like the other one. It was in Florida, just like the other one. It had 4 new tires, new brakes, and a new timing belt, just like the other one. The VIN number was 1FDJE30L5VHB78959, just like the other one! It was the same van! But, instead of $21.9k, it was now only $13.8k!

What the hell? Did the mechanic find something catastrophic? Did Bill "buy" his own van to take it off the market? Did Bill sell a lemon that someone else is now willing sell at a $8k loss? If that's the case, why did the ebay buyer gave Bill excellent feedback, "A +++++ Seller - Great RV - Thanks for throwing in a Keylime Pie." Whatever's going on here, I'm soooo glad we're not part of it...though I do like keylime pie.

Carpenter Ants Eat More Than Wood

It took 2 weeks in my parent's barn for our favorite Slingshot Rev kite to get completely destroyed by a colony of carpenter ants.  After a search on Google, I found that they primarily nest in and around wood structures.  Why did they choose our nylon kite and polyurethane bladder?  We spent a couple of hours repairing the massive holes in the nylon and the 20 or so holes in the bladder.  It seems to hold air but we haven't taken it on the water yet.  There were no other ants in the barn, and this is a big barn.  We are completely baffled.  This was a VERY expensive lesson.