Mini Taco Tour!!

[GDeen]

One of the POG original Dirty Dozen trades in his steed today.....

Arrives in Austin on the final drive with Marathon 0674, which has served he and Rae well...Notice the co-driver???
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In proper celebratory form, we head over to El Mezon on S. Lamar for some fine Mexican food before making the trade
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Sorry to do this to you.....
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Rather than go back to the office and work, I decide to go hang out with the boys during the transfer. Much more fun seeing the new bus than working.

Loc and Gordon approve of the new JDUB mobile....Marathon 1051, 2007 double slide.
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Porter (Loc) installs the proper plates. Notice the matching Cowboy colors???
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Training on the Creston screen.....
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Proud new owner at the helm....
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Drop me off in the HEB parking lot in Bee Cave TX, and on the way back to Houston.
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Unfortunately, I did not get any shots of the interior. It is a beautiful coach though both interior and exterior. Very very nice. Congrats JDUB and Rae!

[jack14r]

Congrats Jerry,I know that the family will love the extra room.It looks like that your new bus has the "no pin slides"or am I not seeing the pin holes in the pictures?

[ajducote]

Jerry,

Congratulations on the new ride. If the inside looks as nice as the outside it must be beautiful!.

We want to see interior pictures.

Now put a bunch of miles on it and enjoy the ride.

[truk4u]

Duuuddde, that's one great looking bus! There's no doubt the OK orange put it over the top.:rolleyes:

[Sawbonz]

I'M jealous!

[jack14r]

The Marathon site has interior pictures-looks great Jerry

[phorner]

Great looking bus, Jerry!

Congratulations and wishing you safe and "uneventful" travels!

[rfoster]

Looks Super - I didn't know CC made one like that.

Congrats to you and Rae. I know the girls will love those slides! & so will you.

Go burn some diesel and kill some bugs!!

[garyde]

Its a beautiful Coach. The slides will definately add enjoyment and comfort to all of your trips. Congradullations Jerry. Where you heading next?

[JIM CHALOUPKA]

Very nice, ENJOY!!!!!!!

JIM :)

[Jerry Winchester]

Many thanks to Loc "Lake McMuffin" McNew and Lawn Jockey Boy Gordon Deen for all the help getting this deal done. Gordo sniffed this coach out a few months back, but the owner and I couldn't get connected on it. And I really didn't want another coach with red accents and a light interior.

So here is the real lesson - never believe what you see in the pictures on the Internet. We go look at the coach after Christmas and guess what? The exterior isn't red and the interior isn't white.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_ch5CDcwwvqk/TUeE12nnIKI/AAAAAAAABGU/-zsOmLoMkO0/s1600/photo-794961.JPG

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_ch5CDcwwvqk/TUeEzBhPifI/AAAAAAAABGM/3fuqwy3BE2g/s1600/photo-783746.JPG

And the new bus looks at home in the hanger amongst the plethora of Pantone 166 stuff.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_ch5CDcwwvqk/TUeE4jOBUkI/AAAAAAAABGc/et4XrxMmSXw/s1600/photo-706562.JPG

First trip should be spring break with the annual POG Oysterfest bolted onto the end of the trip.

And it was hard to leave the '01 coach in Austin. We drove it over 50K miles in the 3+ years we owned it and it got us easily to the east coast three times and the west coast twice with a side trip to the Canadian border and two runs to OSH. A great bus that was a pleasure to own. I can only hope this one is as good.

[Gary & Peggy Stevens]

Beautiful Bus JDUB. You will be happy you moved into slides, at least most of the time. ! ???

Gary S.

[Jon Wehrenberg]

Great looking coach, and someone is going to get a great coach in the previous one. A report on OTR, or more precisely the lack therof is expected.

[dale farley]

Beautiful bus Jerry. Hope you and the family enjoy it for a long, long time.

[rickdesilva]

JDUB
Ain't America Great! Drive it in Health.
Obama now has pictures of your Hangar.

[Loc]

Congratulations JDUB, Rae, Leigh and Abbie!

What a fun way to spend a Monday. JDUB's bus is beautiful. The pictures really don't do the paint job justice. We had a great time with Gordon picking up the bus. I just wish the bus had been located farther away than Austin.

Jack,

It has no pin slides. I was impressed how smoothly and quietly the slides extend and retract compared to my 02.

[Alan__]

JDUB -

Nice to see a stimulus package created by the capitalistic private side. You earned yourself a great bus. Congrats!

PS: Does having a generator qualify for the $7500 hybrid tax deduction?

[Jim Skiff]

Sweet looking coach Jerry! Congratulations to you and your family! The close-up of Loc scared the hell out of me though!

[jack14r]

Loc,I thought that it had the latest technology that Prevost has to offer.Those slides are so smooth and quiet,I have not heard of any failures since Prevost changed to this slide.

[merle&louise]

Beautiful bus Jerry, glad to see that you moved up to a slide coach you won't regret it. Can't wait to see it at Oysterfest.

[Pete]

Jerry, great looking coach. I know you must be proud of it. I know I'm just happy to say I know you and Loc!

[michaeldterry]

Wow! All I can say is - BEAUTFUL!

[Neal&Carla]

Perfect!! We can't wait to see it live. The world is a better place with more orange in it.
Neal and Carla

[rmboies]

JDUB and Rae, congrats on the new bus! It's fabulous and love that it is color coordinated with you plane! Hope Bob and I get to see it in person sometime this year!

Debi and Bob

[Denny]

Congratulations Jerry. It looks great!

[Jerry Winchester]

Jon,

You pose an interesting question. Here is my rough estimate at the cost of no OTR. I drove the old coach some 50k miles, so if you say I averaged 50 mph, then that's 1000 hours of driving. If you estimated half the driving was with the OTR air running that's 500 hours over three years. If I were to use the generator only (not inverting power and using the engine gen to charge) and it was running at 50% max load, then the fuel burn is roughly 1.2 gph. The math works out to about $630 per year in fuel to cool the coach this way. Subtract the cost of the 25 hp I was told the OTR siphons off - brake specific fuel consumption for the Series 60 is .379 lb fuel per BHP per hour or +/- 1.7 gph - so in Obama math, I'm making money by not having OTR.....

[Jon Wehrenberg]

You've got the right attitude. Crank up the genset and enjoy all the coach has to offer.

When I ran my genset when we were in OSH I put about 165 hours on it, and my fuel burn amounted to about .4 GPH. I don't know how many of the cruise airs was running at any one time, but I suspect it was 2 to 3 of them depending on the outside temps and where the sun was shining. That's cheap comfort.

Based on gut feel from recording every gallon of fuel I have ever put into my coaches I'm guessing OTR costs about .3 MPG. That's not a proven number, but my best guess so it is about .25 gallons per hour which is close enough to the cost of running the genset to call it equal. I suspect running AC units through the inverters and loading the alternator will produce fuel burns within that same range but might not provide the comfort level you will achieve by having the ability to run as many of your 4 AC units as needed.

Keep us posted on how you compare the two approaches to staying comfortable. BTW running your genset hard and often is going to be the best thing you can do for it. Those things will go 30,000 hours or more, something few of us will ever subject our gensets to.

[aggies09]

Way to go. Gorgeous bus. Hope you and Rae enjoy thoroughly...............................I feel like Pete, I'm just glad to know you guys in the Houston contingent.

[BrianE]

Jerry, Ain't capitalism great? Very, very nice. Hope you and the girls put many happy miles on it.

[charlesebrownjr]

Boy, now would be a good time for JDUB to pull that new bus out of the barn and hit the Beltway to ck his traction and stimulate the Webasto. Always want to make sure the heat works. Does anyone make 315 studded snow tires.:confused:
Beautiful bus, enjoy:)