Minnie arrives, and GreenTwo gets a stay of execution....

Somewhat good news today -- the insurance company didn't total the Jeep, so it will eventually be coming home.  Damage came to about $3800, and it will take about 10 working days to repair.  So now all I have to do is find a rental car for the next two weeks...

When I was struck, I was hit, the BMW managed to get under my bumper but over my tailpipe, so they have to replace the exhaust system from the muffler back.

The rear bumper itself  was pushed back and into the gas tank (plastic, fortunately, so it flexed and didn't rupture). 

The strangest damage was to the rear side panels.  The rear liftgate was pushed upward, and that managed to flex the side panels enough to put a bend in the corner by the window and crack the paint on both sides.

On a more positive note, we took delivery of Minnie today.  The process was somewhat long and drawn out (something we'd never had a problem with at Vogt in Fort Worth), but overall, it wasn't bad.. 

Our walkthru was planned for 1300, however gale force winds and monsoon rains showed up at 1310, so we and the tech from La Mesa RV decided to sit things out for about 35 minutes, which is how long it took for the storm to pass. 

Since this was not our first RV, the walk-thru went fairly quick, and then it was time to start transferring stuff between Jay and Minnie.  In previous trades, we had to empty out the trailer into the garage, swap trailers at the dealer, bring home the new trailer, repack it, and then drive it to the storage yard.

La Mesa has a far better process.  They have a fairly large lot, and keep a dozen or so parking positions available for deliveries.  When we arrived, Jay was parked next to Minnie with the coach doors facing each other, which made it fairly easy to move things from one to the other.  The only downer was that Jay's power cord didn't reach their 30A service box, so we didn't have any AC or any A/C to cool down the trailer during the move.  With the storm having just passed thru, it was a sauna...

Everything from the inside of Jay found a new place in the motorhome.  I wish I could say the same for all the stuff in the outside storage bins... For starters, I have nowhere to put the Honda twins or the satellite dish.  Granted, we have a built in genset, so the Hondas are just insurance, but the satellite dish is a bit motr problematic.  There simply isn't a locker large enough for it, so we may need to invest in a roof mounted dish.  It's not the end of the world, but definitely nice to have when we're stationary for a few days.  Lastly, some of my tool cases just didn't fit into the lockers without a lot of effort, so I'm going to have to rethink just what goes with us, and what doesn't.  I'd really like to find a way of bringing the compressor, but it won't fit unless we bring the Jeep and it rides in the back...

We finally wrapped things up about 1700, which made for a long day for all of us, but the drive home wound up being uneventful. No rear-end collisions, no sideswiping vehicles or bridge abutments, and we didn't go under any low clearance obsticles.

To make things a little easier at the storage yard, Juan let us move from a 90 degree parking spot into a 60 degree spot, which was a lot easier to maneuver Minnie into.  With trailers on either side of our new spot, we were able to get it parked in one approach.  The only thing we needed to do to put it to bed was to put the window covering in place, which simply slips over the doorframe corners, and is secured by Velcro loops around the mirrors and by placing the wiper blades on the bottom edge.  Pretty slick compared to the unhook/move the truck/relevel drill with the fifth wheel.  I won't even mention the disconnect process for the travel trailer....