ESAD wrote:
On 12/28/12 8:55 AM, iBoaterer wrote:
In article , says...

On 12/27/2012 5:21 PM, GuzzisRule wrote:
On Thu, 27 Dec 2012 16:37:35 -0500, iBoaterer wrote:

In article ,
says...

On Thu, 27 Dec 2012 13:36:57 -0500, iBoaterer wrote:

In article ,
says...

On Thu, 27 Dec 2012 12:18:23 -0500, iBoaterer
wrote:

In article ,
says...

On 12/27/12 11:01 AM, wrote:
On Thursday, December 27, 2012 10:15:18 AM UTC-4, ESAD wrote:
On 12/27/12 8:59 AM, Eisboch wrote:





"GuzzisRule" wrote in message

...





Here ya go!



http://www.rvwholesalers.com/resourc...aptor_2012.pdf




Everything you want in one place. Keep clicking the down
arrow. This is

what's called a 'Toy Hauler'

fifth wheel.



---------------------------------------------------



Looks familiar. We had the 377-SE version. Went
"camping" once with it

and had the most miserable week of my life.



My daughter started it all. She and her husband were into
camping and

were purchasing a new travel trailer. She convinced Mrs.E
and I and my

older son and his wife to get a trailer as well for
"family" camping.

I saw it as a good excuse to get a new truck, so I bought
the Raptor Toy

Hauler along with a Ford 350 Diesel and had the fifth
wheel hitch

installed. I had a Harley at the time and figured the toy
hauler would

come in handy. My son bought a slightly smaller fifth
wheel and a Ford

250 with the V-10. We all picked up our new RV's the same
day at the

dealership.



My daughter made reservations for all of us for a week at
a campground

in New Hampshire that they visited often. I forget what
the name of it

is. I call it "Marty Moose Land". We all had sites
beside each other.

The trip to the campground was uneventful. The Ford
pulled the Raptor

with no problem and I thought this was going to be pretty
cool.



Well, that particular week in the mountains of New
Hampshire was the

hottest, most humid week I've spent anywhere. Big
thunderstorms every

afternoon kept us all huddled inside our respective RV's
with the AC

units running at full blast. When it stopped raining and
we ventured

outside, the mosquitoes were waiting to draw blood.



One humid, sultry afternoon, we were sitting at my son's
site trying to

have a beer while swishing away the bugs and mosquitoes.
His young

daughter was playing inside his fifth wheel. As we sat
talking, I

looked up and saw water seeping out of the storage area
door under the

master bedroom of the RV. Got up, opened the door, and
gallons of

water started pouring out. His daughter had plugged the
vanity sink in

the bedroom and had the faucets turned on full. It had
filled the sink

and was overflowing everywhere, soaking the carpets and
draining into

the storage area. I took off to find a hardware store to
get a wet

vac while the rest started sopping up the water.



Gracefully, the last day of our camping adventure
arrived. My son and

his family left, and then us by early afternoon. My
daughter and her

husband wanted to stay a little longer, so we said goodbye
and hit the

road.



By 8pm, I had just arrived home and backed the fifth-wheel
into it's

spot at our house when the phone rang. It was my
daughter. They had

just left the campsite, got a mile down the road and
their vehicle

snapped a tie rod. They were sitting on the side of a busy
road with a

broken SUV, their new, 28' travel trailer and two crying
kids.



So, dear old Dad heads back to the New Hampshire mountains
in his truck

to rescue them. Finally got back to their house by 2am,
towing the

trailer.

Their truck was put on a flatbed and taken to a repair shop.



The next day I listed the Raptor "For Sale" in a couple of
the RV

classifieds. Sold it a few weeks later to a buyer in
Canada.



BTW, that wasn't our first attempt at trying the camping
scene. When I

first retired and we wintered in Florida, we thought it
would be fun to

make the trips back and forth in a RV. We tried a 37'
Pace Arrow class

A motorhome, a Chinook Glacier and a Dodge Sprinter RV. Of
the three,

I liked the Sprinter the most and we owned it the longest,
but we

eventually sold the Florida house and rarely used the
Sprinter. We

ended up selling it to a guy in Missouri who flew out and
drove it

home. He and his wife still send us email pictures of
their travels in

it.



Camping is great for some people. It's just not for me.
I'd much

rather live on a boat.









We've been to Maine a few times. On one of those trips, we
rented an RV

and loaded it onto a ferry to take us to an island
campground for a few

days. The RV, the island, and so forth were fine, but the
island was

infested with biting bugs. They weren't mosquitoes, they
were much

bigger, and it was hot and humid, too. Misery most of the
time.



The next time we went to Maine, we stayed he



http://mainestayinn.com/



No annoying insects indoors or outdoors, beautiful rooms,
great

breakfasts, and within walking distance of lots of sights
and shopping

and the waterfront. My wife was *much* happier! We ate too
many meals at

Mabel's Lobster House, purportedly where President and Mrs.
George H.W.

Bush had many meals when he was healthier. Lobsters at the
dock were

about $2.50 a pound. I braved walking into the water at a
local beach

and got in about halfway up to my knees before the cold
chased me out. I

love the Maine coastline.



On the way back, we stayed at a B&B in Cambridge,
Massachusetts, to see

relatives and old friends. Nice enough place, but no match
for the Maine

Stay. No bugs.

That spot looks nice. I've always wanted to get down to the
Seashore Trolly Museum in that area. I was serious in the
summer of 2011 but after contacting the museum found out
that the main attraction for me (Birney Safety Car) was
judged too run down to put on display or even to fix up in
the immediate future.
The birney car was the only streetcar used in Halifax from
about 1921 until 1949..the year I was born.


Kennebunkport can get a little crowded with tourists (like
us), but when
we were there, in the height of the tourist season, it wasn't
that bad.
There's lots to see in that part of Maine. LL Bean isn't that
far away,
and it is worth a day's visit.

Yeah, that's what I want to see and do when I go to explore
somewhere,
shop and go to a mall.

If you've not traveled to Maine and seen the sights, you're
missing a lot. Kennebunkport is well
worth a stop, with campgrounds right outside of town (and at
least one, that we were in, allows
tents!). http://hemlockgrovecampground.com/photo-gallery

If you visit Kennebunkport and you *don't* visit the LLBean
store, then you're missing out on a
great treat.

I've been to Maine on two different occasions. I sure as hell
didn't
spend my time holed up in a hotel and shopping.

And you didn't visit the LLBean store?

No, I can buy LL Bean stuff from their catalog. I had better
things to
do than shop.

The LLBean store has much more than just shopping.

But, I understand your reluctance to engage in such a thing.


Care to enlighten me?

They have a lot of touristy things to get you there to shop.



First, the L.L. Bean flagship store ain't in Kennebunkport. The
flagship store is huge, and there are other L.L. Bean stores in the
same town, including hunting, fishing, boating stores. If you like
what the stores sell, the flagship store in Freeport is a great place
to visit.

Second, it is a very large, very interesting store with lots of
displays and merchandise that isn't necessarily in the catalog.

Third, if you are interested in what L.L. Bean sells, and you still
have questions, you can see the actual merchandise at the big store
and ask questions. Sure, you can also do this at any of the L.L. Bean
retail stores, but none of the retail stores has the variety of
selection and sizes on hand as the "home" store.

Fourth, visiting the flagship store of L.L. Bean is an interesting
experience.

I like the L.L. Bean stores. In fact, on our infrequent visits to
Northern Virginia, it is one of three stores there I'll waste time in
at the big Tysons shopping mall while my wife shops. The other two are
the Apple store and Restoration Hardware.
Keep shopping with OUR money, Krause. Until you settle with the IRS,
it's not your money!