Grady, of Beth and Grady here, ready to end our lurker status! :) We have been looking around RV-Dreams for sometime now following Howard and Linda's journal entries and receiving great information on this forum. About a year ago we were in San Antonio for my son's Air Force Basic Training graduation and spent a little time in my parents motor coach. Little did I know an idea had sparked in Beth's brain which she shared with me after our return to cold and snowy Utah. I returned home from work on a Saturday afternoon and she exclaimed she had a great idea! Let's get an RV and be full time RV'ers! My first thought, which I expressed to her, was that I thought she had gone nuts! LoL Well after listening to a little more of her idea from which was fueled by her discovery of the RV-Dreams website I came home from work the next day after chewing on the idea myself and told her I was on board! Beth and I have done exhaustive research and after 1 short year we have pulled the trigger on a 2012 Montana Big Sky and a 2013 Chevrolet Silverado 3500 Dually. We have liquidated a bulk of our household goods and I will be retired from the military in a short two months at which time we will be hitting the road as full-timers. We will be attending the rally in Elephant Butte this spring and are very excited to start our next great adventure!
Lucky Mike said
02:19 AM Feb 19, 2013
Welcome to the Family Beth & Grady!!!!.............judging from your post the hard part is done!!! Fantastic!!
bigboomer said
02:49 AM Feb 19, 2013
Grady,
First thank you to you and son for your service to our Great Nation and to your wife for her support. Second, congratulations on embarking on a wonderful adventure filled with daily surprises. We would not trade it for a minute. We will never look back to that previous chapter in our lives.
Nice choice for the 5er.....we love ours!
Good luck and safe travels on the road...hope to see you out there someday!
Les
VanMar said
03:51 AM Feb 19, 2013
Beth and Grady wrote:
Hello All,
Well after listening to a little more of her idea which was fueled by her discovery of the RV-Dreams website I came home from work the next day after chewing on the idea myself and told her I was on board!
Score another one for RV-Dreams!!!
Welcome to the forum, Beth and Grady. DW and I have been planning this for a year now and have one and a half to go. Your choice of Fiver and TV sounds like what we have planned. See you on the road.
Vance
Terry and Jo said
06:14 AM Feb 19, 2013
I'll also chime in and offer my thanks to you, your son, and your wife for your sacrifices to our country. Also, welcome to the RV Dreams forums as an active participant.
Feel free to ask any questions that you may have, and never think that any question is a "dumb" one. The only dumb questions are those that don't get asked in order to get answers. In addition to answers to questions, you will find this a good source of encouragement.
Glad to have you as members of the "family."
Terry
PIEERE said
06:49 PM Feb 19, 2013
Thanks from one old Veteran to another. I left the Champlain Valley/Adirondack Mtn. area in 1980; with no intention to return but in the Summers. I ended up back there between 1988-1993 and left again. Here I am near The Music City and it has been cold since October!!!! See what happens when we aclimatise to another area. If I live long enough; may find me living near the Equator..LOL!!!
laurly said
02:40 AM Feb 21, 2013
Welcome to the forum, and welcome to this wonderful full-time life :) We've been on the road for about 4 1/2 months, and absolutely love it. I think you'll love the Montana & Chevy too :)
PIEERE said
04:23 AM Feb 21, 2013
I thought Gm quit making the Chevy II back around 1964....Oh...that was the car. My Bad!! Your talking about their new truck and the 5th wheel.
Mark Serley said
04:26 AM Feb 21, 2013
seconds on your choices of 5er and silverado, love the way they travel together, good luck and enjoy the ride! mark
Terry and Jo said
03:40 PM Feb 21, 2013
I missed your choice of truck before, so I should chime back in again with a thought for you. The newer GM pickups have taller bed rails than previous years. Because of that, it sometimes requires that the fifth wheel hitch be raised a bit in order to get enough clearance between the nose of the fifth wheel and the rails and tailgate of the pickup bed.
With that in mind, do some research and see if you need to have the RV manufacturer to raise the frame of your choice of trailer to keep the trailer level. Otherwise, you could be nose-high on the trailer and throwing more weight onto the rear axle of the trailer.
Terry
-- Edited by Terry and Jo on Saturday 23rd of February 2013 08:54:35 PM
Beth and Grady said
08:53 PM Feb 21, 2013
Thank you all for the warm welcomes. Excited to be a part of all this and very much looking forward to getting started. I for one am very happy with our choices thus far even though we do not have physical possession of the rig or truck just yet. We did the walk through last weekend in South Dakota where we located the rig we wanted. I just received notification the truck will be here on 4 March! Woo Hooo! I have always been a Chevy guy so for me it was a no brainer.
Mark Serley said
02:11 AM Feb 24, 2013
great point terry, i have already replaced my bed cap liners because of the shorter space between rig and truck. we have the gooseneck hook-up which made it very simple to extend my mast 2" for proper clearance. especially when turning thru elevation changes into higher or lower drives. mark
Mark Serley said
02:13 AM Feb 24, 2013
P.S. grady, terry is a ford guy so you can see how passionate he is about getting the right info out! thanks again terry. mark
Terry and Jo said
04:58 AM Feb 24, 2013
Well, I'm not sure what being a "Ford guy" has to do with being passionate with doing things right. Regardless of what one uses for an RV, I really want them to do the homework needed so they don't have issues down the road.
Not only would a nose-high configuration on the trailer throw extra weight on the rear trailer axle, it would also wear those tires out faster than the front ones.
Terry
Beth and Grady said
05:16 AM Feb 26, 2013
Thanks for the heads up Terry but actually we are having a custom bed from CM Truck Beds installed. I am still concerned about level travel for the Montana so I am hoping everything works out. I have been relying on information from the dealers with all the measurements but we truly won't know until we get it hitched up. If it is not level then we will do our best to jump that hurdle if we come to it....Thanks again for the advice. :)
Mark Serley said
03:16 AM Feb 27, 2013
terry, what i meant about you being a "ford guy" was most people research their own personnel choice of vehicles and not as much of the other brands, that's all! mark
Terry and Jo said
05:11 AM Feb 27, 2013
Mark Serley wrote:
terry, what i meant about you being a "ford guy" was most people research their own personnel choice of vehicles and not as much of the other brands, that's all! mark
Sorry, Mark. I just didn't understand the meaning of the reference.
I did do quite a bit of research, I had looked at just about every type of truck except the HDT's. I didn't consider the HDT's because I used to drive both 18-wheelers and bob-tail trucks that were almost as big. The semi-trucks just didn't give me enough area of being able to see around me.
We looked at some 4500 GM models, Dodge and GM 3500 series, some MDT's known as SportsChassis that were somewhat customized M2 Freightliners, as well as the Fords. Being one that believes in have more truck than I might need, it didn't take long to rule out the F350/3500 series trucks.
I narrowed down to a used SportsChassis and a new F450 as my choices. The used MDT's were priced in the range of $90,000 and a new F450 would have been $65,000 to $75,000. When we found the used 2008 F450, we jumped at the chance and bought it the day we found it. $30,000 sure seemed a better price than the others, especially for having only 46,000 miles. I had figured that any used F450's that I would find would be REALLY well used because of being in the "oil patch."
Hello All,
Grady, of Beth and Grady here, ready to end our lurker status! :) We have been looking around RV-Dreams for sometime now following Howard and Linda's journal entries and receiving great information on this forum. About a year ago we were in San Antonio for my son's Air Force Basic Training graduation and spent a little time in my parents motor coach. Little did I know an idea had sparked in Beth's brain which she shared with me after our return to cold and snowy Utah. I returned home from work on a Saturday afternoon and she exclaimed she had a great idea! Let's get an RV and be full time RV'ers! My first thought, which I expressed to her, was that I thought she had gone nuts! LoL Well after listening to a little more of her idea from which was fueled by her discovery of the RV-Dreams website I came home from work the next day after chewing on the idea myself and told her I was on board! Beth and I have done exhaustive research and after 1 short year we have pulled the trigger on a 2012 Montana Big Sky and a 2013 Chevrolet Silverado 3500 Dually. We have liquidated a bulk of our household goods and I will be retired from the military in a short two months at which time we will be hitting the road as full-timers. We will be attending the rally in Elephant Butte this spring and are very excited to start our next great adventure!
Score another one for RV-Dreams!!!
Welcome to the forum, Beth and Grady. DW and I have been planning this for a year now and have one and a half to go. Your choice of Fiver and TV sounds like what we have planned. See you on the road.
Vance
I'll also chime in and offer my thanks to you, your son, and your wife for your sacrifices to our country. Also, welcome to the RV Dreams forums as an active participant.
Feel free to ask any questions that you may have, and never think that any question is a "dumb" one. The only dumb questions are those that don't get asked in order to get answers. In addition to answers to questions, you will find this a good source of encouragement.
Glad to have you as members of the "family."
Terry
I missed your choice of truck before, so I should chime back in again with a thought for you. The newer GM pickups have taller bed rails than previous years. Because of that, it sometimes requires that the fifth wheel hitch be raised a bit in order to get enough clearance between the nose of the fifth wheel and the rails and tailgate of the pickup bed.
With that in mind, do some research and see if you need to have the RV manufacturer to raise the frame of your choice of trailer to keep the trailer level. Otherwise, you could be nose-high on the trailer and throwing more weight onto the rear axle of the trailer.
Terry
-- Edited by Terry and Jo on Saturday 23rd of February 2013 08:54:35 PM
Thank you all for the warm welcomes. Excited to be a part of all this and very much looking forward to getting started. I for one am very happy with our choices thus far even though we do not have physical possession of the rig or truck just yet. We did the walk through last weekend in South Dakota where we located the rig we wanted. I just received notification the truck will be here on 4 March! Woo Hooo! I have always been a Chevy guy so for me it was a no brainer.
Well, I'm not sure what being a "Ford guy" has to do with being passionate with doing things right. Regardless of what one uses for an RV, I really want them to do the homework needed so they don't have issues down the road.
Not only would a nose-high configuration on the trailer throw extra weight on the rear trailer axle, it would also wear those tires out faster than the front ones.
Terry
Thanks for the heads up Terry but actually we are having a custom bed from CM Truck Beds installed. I am still concerned about level travel for the Montana so I am hoping everything works out. I have been relying on information from the dealers with all the measurements but we truly won't know until we get it hitched up. If it is not level then we will do our best to jump that hurdle if we come to it....Thanks again for the advice. :)
Sorry, Mark. I just didn't understand the meaning of the reference.
I did do quite a bit of research, I had looked at just about every type of truck except the HDT's. I didn't consider the HDT's because I used to drive both 18-wheelers and bob-tail trucks that were almost as big. The semi-trucks just didn't give me enough area of being able to see around me.
We looked at some 4500 GM models, Dodge and GM 3500 series, some MDT's known as SportsChassis that were somewhat customized M2 Freightliners, as well as the Fords. Being one that believes in have more truck than I might need, it didn't take long to rule out the F350/3500 series trucks.
I narrowed down to a used SportsChassis and a new F450 as my choices. The used MDT's were priced in the range of $90,000 and a new F450 would have been $65,000 to $75,000. When we found the used 2008 F450, we jumped at the chance and bought it the day we found it. $30,000 sure seemed a better price than the others, especially for having only 46,000 miles. I had figured that any used F450's that I would find would be REALLY well used because of being in the "oil patch."
Terry