For Work and Play
Dear New Friends,
Just wanted to take a minute to say hello, thank you all for the wonderful resource you have created, and to introduce myself. Looks as if many of you will be at the POG Rally in Nevada starting tomorrow. Hope you all have fun and learn a lot.
My family and I decided to buy a Prevost because of a tour I have coming up next season. I am a musician... half of a touring musical duo called Pianafiddle. No doubt you have heard of us. (Just kidding... but if you want to learn more about us, feel free to visit our website: www.pianafiddle.com) I couldn't bear the idea of being without my wife and two kids for an entire season, hence the Prevost. We have over 200 concerts throughout the 2008-2009 season and will be traveling nearly 50,000 miles. At times we will be in cold places during the winter and warm places during the late spring/summer. So this should be a really interesting trip. We will be full timers for 9 straight months... which is, in my opinion, a big deal since before we bought our bus, we had never even stepped foot in RV, let alone a Prevost. Nevertheless, I did a ton of research (somehow I missed the POG site) and quickly realized that there really was only one good choice... plus, I didn't feel like flushing our money the drain... again, hence the Prevost.
We bought a beautiful 1996 Marathon. Besides Marathon's excellent reputation (they do make one of the better conversions, no?) it had a number of features that I was looking for. It appears to have been VERY well maintained, it has the big rear carousel closet (which now has a really nice full sized memory foam mattress on the floor for my 2 and 4 year old), a series 60 engine, Allison 6 speed transmission, Asko stacked washer and dryer, auto reals for electricity and water, and an automatic sewer line with air seal. It does not have slides, nor did I want any. We will not be in any one place for more than two days during the tour so slides seemed to be unnecessary. For this same reason, we do not plan to tow a car. (Feel free to try to convince me otherwise.) We will almost always be parking at the venues, Wal-Marts, Flying J's, etc. Not to say we won't hit an occasional park during the rare day off.
Since I bought the bus, four months ago, I have encountered a few problems; some minor, some a little bigger. Nothing really major thus far, and I hope to keep it that way. I will be happy to post all of my problems and fixes in a separate posting. I am relatively handy... even for a violinist. I still have a few issues I hope to work out... with your help if you will all be so kind. I'm not sure that I'll ever got to the point where I can reciprocate, but if any of you need help with a fingering on a hot fiddle tune, just let me know.
So, until those future posts, I leave you all with my gratitude for this place to share and learn, my best wishes for a wonderful rally, and a few pictures of our new bus.
Sincerely,
Adam DeGraff and family
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