Goodbye to Mammoth

 Thu 9 Nov 2023

Yesterday, Wednesday 8 November 2023, we said good-bye to dear old Mammoth and bought the new thing.

 

We knew it was going to be weird, but had no idea just how weird. First they took us on a walk-through of the new motorhome and demonstrated the features (not nearly all of them) and explained the operation of stuff (not nearly all of it). One significant thing they missed was the engine operation--after all this time, Ed still had never started the thing--let alone driven it--until on Thursday.

While we did the walk-thru a mechanic did a detailed inspection of the old one and noted all sorts of faults we didn't even know about. Some of which weren't faults at all, but just things he couldn't get working. It appears we'd been gradually putting up with idiosyncrasies over time and didn't hardly notice how bad some stuff was.  It was too decrepit for the dealer to put it on his lot--beneath his standards.

But the salesman really wanted to make a sale (of course), so he did some magic with a $10K rebate and applied it to the trade-in value and told us we could go ahead at the stated price. Which only goes to say they were making a significant killing off us with the first price, and only slightly less after they found out that Mammoth was not in saleable condition. Not our problem.

Then they took it over to the camping area and parked it next to the old one. And then we signed a whole lot of papers.  And we were left to move in and spend the night in "the campground", aka a small fenced off parking lot with hookups. The water was probably okay to drink but since the faucet was right next to the sewer faucet, we chose not to hook it up. We were able to flush our toilets, though, and wash dishes from the water in the tank.

 

Since we'd already cleaned everything out of Mammoth and staged our single-night's needs in the Jeep, it was a pretty quick job to load everything into the new one. Then Molly and I took a long walk while Ed started testing all the stuff.

Then we slept.  The bed was nowhere near as cozy and comfy as Mammoth's--it will likely be a long time before I get used to it. Every time I climb on I'll heave a deep sigh of regret.

Next morning it was starting to rain. I made a quick McDonald's run.  Note to self: I don't like the sausage burritos anymore. Go back to the Egg McMuffins or else do the oatmeal.

Then we ate and met with the sales guy again. Went over to get the DEF topped off. And headed out. We'd barely gotten onto I-35 when the driver's windshield wiper started going whackydoodle--flopping all around.  Ed tried to fix it and on the second try, got it put back together.  But we went on back anyway and got a new one, and also discussed the procedure for warranty work.  As expected, we found a couple of little issues. Too bad we didn't find them on Wednesday.

Good-bye, dear Mammoth. I loved you much, but grew to mistrust you so severely...it's a relief to say a sad good-bye. But so it goes.