baby announcement...our new T@B!

catndahats

And the adventure begins---challenges to becoming a T@B owner, and a happy ending:

Excited, euphorically dizzy, blessed--- to say we feel like new parents bringing our first baby home is an understatement!
My wife and I just arrived back at our home in Texas towing our new to us 2014 T@B after a two week, 2300 mile adventure to Florida and back.  It is ours now, new Texas license plate installed yesterday afternoon.  Pinch me, did this really happen?

We joined the T@B groups back in March when we first discovered T@B's, began searching, put a deposit on one (ours) over in Florida sight unseen back in mid May...that is how the adventure started.  We wanted to go to Walt Disney World, so that became a motivator to drive to Florida, and if a T@B followed us home then all the better!

We scheduled our trip to coincide with the T@B's arrival at the dealership (the seller was trading up to a new Airstream and awaiting its' arrival.)  When we arrived in Orlando---there was NO T@B---more delays in the seller's new trailer delayed the T@B's arrival; so it was just us, a tent, and from what we learned Florida's rainy season was in full swing.  We've always been tent campers, but weren't expecting to spend our first week of vacation living in our tent at WDW.  The first night, we arrived back at Fort Wilderness to find our camp a disaster!  While out at the park, a thunderstorm blew through and destroyed our pop up shelter, which in turn collapsed onto our tent filling it with water.  Everything we brought was soaked---clothes, bedding, everything was floating in 3 inches of water inside our collapsed tent. Somehow our new Coleman stove decided to quit working too---meaning no coffee!  There was a moment sitting in the rain late that night that I looked at my wife and asked, "Should we throw in the towel and cut our losses?"  Being the determined trooper she is, her reply was an emphatic "No! T@B or no T@B, we are not going to let this ruin our vacation!"  And she was right (like always).  Each day got better and better-clothes dried, tents and stoves replaced-how could you not have a magical time at Disney World?  And day after day, the T@B still had not arrived  

The week passed, we were laughing and having a blast at WDW--rain or no rain, T@B or no T@B...our little tent in the full connections campsite surrounded by campers of all shapes and sizes.  We relearned that it is not how you go that is important---just going and being together is where the adventure and memories come from!  I won't go into the details, but on the last day of our stay at Disney, we called the dealer and cancelled our order (they still did not have the T@B in their possession).  We still had travel plans and did not want to stay in Orlando hotels or a KOA waiting any longer.  At the 11th hour, we received the call that our T@B had arrived...we drove over to the dealer on our way out of town, paid for it, hooked it up to our car and drove off in amazement. Thank you Lord!

More to come...

Verna

What's the old saying that good things come to those who wait!!  Congrats on the new Little Guy--such a blessed event!

Now, go have camping fun!

Nomad

Cool - Thank goodness for the 11th hour. Hate to see people turn into pumpkins.

skwhee

Beautiful T@B, love your proud smile!
Happy Adventures!

RZRBUG

Congrats!  Enjoy!

Machak88

Congratulations, so happy for you that it all worked out in the end!!! Enjoy your T@B - it is adorable 

RollingLagrima

Awesome

vito

Congrats. As a new T@b owner myself I understand the excitement. Hopefully soon we will actually get to spend a night in it. 

catndahats

Thanks to all for the warm welcome!
Our first days of T@B stewardship have been an amazing, fun, and laughter filled experience!  So far, we have camped 6 nights and covered 1300 miles from Florida to Texas in our wonderful miracle camper.

In very un-Nate-like fashion (I'm a planner, double checker type of guy) we paid for our T@B in Orlando around 2pm, walked out to the back street where it was sitting and commenced figuring out how to drive off.  The only instruction we received was watching the salesman screw the paper license plate on the back.  Thanks to this forum, we had a clue (but sometimes ignorance is bliss)...figured out how to get the tongue wheel off--- a funny beginner story in itself, got the lights working, double checked stabilizers and tongue & chains connected securely--door locked? check!.....by 3:30pm we were off!  But to where?

I'm not a cell phone kinda guy but thank God my wife is, and Google maps sent us on a series of scavenger hunts through back neighborhoods somewhat reminiscent of the Griswald's in Family Vacation with our new baby in tow (that was a character building experience in itself)---until we finally found the interstate . I will admit however that the voice on google maps does not talk back or complain and as rookies, we appreciated that!  So we headed out with the 4th of July holiday fast approaching, and no idea where we would stay.  All we knew was that we wanted to explore the Gulf Coast of Florida from Tampa to Pensacola on the way home.

We quickly found out that the T@B is a very agreeable and happy little trailer to tow...we started searching our paper maps for state parks, and determined that Silver River State Park near Ocala was the only park in a reasonable range that would answer the phone, and the only park that had a camp site available.  As night was quickly approaching and we had no trailer supplies (ie: water hose, wheel chocks, leveling blocks etc...)  again Google gave us the scenic tour of Ocala in search of a Walmart. Silver River was to be our first destination!

So many questions and things to learn...more later!

Nomad

Cool - Setup looks great.

bgualtieri

She's adorable. Love the setup

vito

To Patti: Life has gotten in the way right now, so we have not done any camping, backyard or other yet with the T@b. I think we will test it by going to a full hook up RV park less than an hour from home so if things really go bad we can just go home. With a full hook up we can use the shower and toilet without concern about over filling the holding tanks. I will set it up in the driveway in the next day or two and just hook up the electric line, so that I can halfway see how things work, particularly the lights, a/c unit and fridge. Come to think of it, that sort of qualifies as driveway camping if I then go ahead and sleep in it for the night. 

Nomad

I did a week in my brother's driveway working everything's over - It's a good way to start.