Meet Loraine, Our New Van

Our wait for our new tow vehicle is finally over, but as mentioned in the previous post, we did not get the special order Ford Transit Connect van that we've been anticipating for the past six months.  Our last minute acquisition is actually a small step up from our special order van's configuration, so we're happy enough with how that has turned out, but pretty steamed at how long we ended up waiting for an off-the-lot van.  

We're pretty thoroughly disgusted with our experience with Corwin Ford, particularly with our dealings over the past few weeks, during which time the full nightmare of this experience has unfolded before our eyes.  You would think that the worst was over this weekend, when at the eleventh hour we were able to find a suitable replacement van, and we took it in the shorts on our trade-in.  Wrong!  We were scheduled to be at the dealers at 6 pm last night to pick up our new van.  Instead, we get a call from Rob at 5 pm saying that it's not here and won't be here until Thursday afternoon! - after earlier telling us it could be here as early as Monday, but no later than Wednesday!  It was at that point that I finally lost my temper, and I still haven't cooled down from that.  The short version of what happened next is that the new manager at Corwin Ford intervened and we took possession of the van this afternoon.

At a minimum, this mess has cost us thousands of extra dollars out of pocket, due to being left with insufficient time to sell our CX-5 before we leave.  And if we'd had the van by mid-April as we had originally been promised, there was at least a fair chance that we would have come out thousands of dollars ahead on the sale of our house as well.  But on the flip side, the important thing is that it looks as though everything is finally coming together for us to start our adventure as scheduled and our Corwin nightmare is finally over.

Black Canyon Dam, east of Emmett, Idaho.

Above is a picture of our new van, taken this evening as we were adding 100 break-in miles to her.  

We finished packing today and have move into our Camp Inn for the remainder of our time in Boise.  

Our Backyard Campsite

There was sufficient time this afternoon for me to install the drawer pedestal and power inlet in the van.  The movers will be here at 8 am on Thursday.  The 7 pin wiring, battery isolator and brake controller will be installed Thursday afternoon.  The polka dot graphics are scheduled to be installed on Friday.  The FHA appraisal was performed on Monday and we heard today that they accepted our valuation.  With luck, that could mean that we'll be able to close a day or two earlier than scheduled (currently set for Thursday, June 30th).

As we stated earlier, we've come up with a name for our new van, and the following is our rationale for choosing that name.  The polka dot theme for our van is based upon the Tour de France jersey for the best mountain climber, commonly known as the King of the Mountains (in French, the jersey is called le maillot à pois rouges).  Typically, vehicles are given feminine nicknames, so our theme would more correctly be described as the Queen of the Mountains.  And that has led to the name that we have chosen for our van: Loraine.  The name Loraine is more or less a homophone of la reine, which in French means "the queen."  Officially, she is Loraine, Queen of the Mountains, a name that should be appropriate, given her engine's great low RPM torque for towing #531 up mountains and steep hills (while driving this evening, the transmission never downshifted when we'd want to quickly accelerate uphill!).

Hopefully we'll have additional pictures to share as we get items knocked off of our to-do list and start racking up miles toward the engine break-in.  Things should be happening quickly over the next few days.