A Trip to Tulsa and a Full Work Week

Last Saturday we drove the 70 miles to Tulsa to look at a fifth wheel and to check out the city. We had a good reason for wanting to look at this particular fifth wheel, because we had actually ordered a similar new one the week before from Freedom RV in Wisconsin.

Now that we’ve been fulltime RVing for almost four years, we had a very good idea what features we wanted in our home on wheels. Our current fifth wheel is very nice, but it is missing a few features we wanted. The three main features we really feel we need are a larger refrigerator, two air conditioners, and dual pane windows.

Our current home is a 2008 Jayco Designer. We have been Jayco owners since 1981 and have been very satisfied with the product. This will be our sixth Jayco trailer. We have ordered a 2014 Jayco Pinnacle 36REQS. The new unit will be about 41 feet, which is 4 feet longer than our current one. We bought the new truck last year with the intention of upgrading our fifth wheel in the future.

There is lots of debate about buying a used unit that is only a few years old. Many feel that all of the kinks are taken care of by that time, and you can get a better price. But, we wanted to buy a new one and order it with the exact options we wanted. We plan on keeping this one for a long time.

Camperland of Oklahoma in Tulsa had a similar unit on their lot. It’s not the same interior color plan, but we wanted to take a look and take some measurements. Here’s a picture of the outside. It comes with the automatic levelers, so that will be nice for Kevin in getting things set up outside.

Here’s a picture of the interior from the brochure. Again, these are not our colors, but you can get an idea of the floor plan.

The interior woodwork is a cherry finish. It’s a little darker than we would have liked, but that’s the way most fifth wheels are now.. I’m sure we’ll get used to it. Otherwise, we really like it. Because of the larger refrigerator, I’m not sure there is quite as much kitchen storage as we have now, but I’m sure we’ll figure it all out. I really like the fact that there are windows on all three sides of the living area for lots of natural light.

We have been researching this new purchase for about a year and negotiated with several RV dealers throughout the Midwest. It took some doing, but we think we got a decent price. We will pick it up in April when we go back to Wisconsin.

While in Tulsa we went to their fairly new River Walk Crossing area. There is a large outdoor area with a few restaurants, shops, an outdoor amphitheater, a large movie complex and apartments and condos along the Arkansas River. Many of the storefronts were still vacant. It looked like it was all quite new.

There is a walking path along the river. The river itself was quite low, and there were old tires and garbage visible down there. I think it would look much nicer if they cleaned up the river itself.

We were there early afternoon, and there weren’t many people around. There was a band warming up for an evening event.

This is a very nice sculpture garden at the entrance from the parking lot.

This River Walk area is near 96th Street and Riverside Drive. We drove all the way down Riverside Drive to 21st Street which is near the downtown area. There are several parks and a biking/jogging trail all the way along this drive. It looked like a very nice place for a bike ride. All along there are numerous bronze wild life statues. Very nice.

Here’s a statue right on the river near downtown.

We finished our first full 40 hour week at Amazon. Working as stowers is not too bad. My back and feet hurt by the end of the 10 hour shift, but that’s to be expected. My biggest problem is lack of sleep, but that’s also to be expected. Kevin prefers the night shift, so I deal with it. If it was just me, I’d work days. But, hey, only seven weeks to go! I’m working for a new fifth wheel. That’s a great incentive :)

Don’t wish upon a star – Reach for one!