Just picked up our new 16DBS here in Oregon. Been looking at the CLs for a few years and appreciate all I've read on this forum to help make the decision.
Though we're itching to spend a weekend at the beach, we're stuck in the driveway for now, due to "a few things" the service department needs to take care of. Most are small that we caught at the PDI, but the one thing it never occurred to me to check was the stabilizer jacks. The two rear ones are missing completely! Who'da thunk? What a surprise after a nice tow home (I was impressed with the smooth ride, better than the single axles I'd towed before). Of course, now the weekend will be spent going over it all with a magnifying glass. I had a hard time not expressing my utter dismay at this strange occurrence.
Otherwise, we hope all else will be fine and are looking forward to some great trips. The CL is a beauty and seems like a palace compared to the old Chalet, though that was well-loved, too. Hope to see some of you out there.
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Welcome! Nice choice, nice color. i empathize with your dismay about the missing jacks and hope that beautiful camper doesn't have to sit in the driveway too long. It's almost comical how bad the RV industry seems to be with quality control. This forum is a great place to work through all that and then get on to making it your own with modifications. Nice boat, by the way.
Welcome & nice looking rig! We really liked the Chalet we owned, too!
Welcome aboard from Nevada. We previously owned a 16DB and loved it. Sold it and ordered a 21 BHS. I agree with the quality control. Got pictures of my 21 (have a brother in the industry who lives 20 miles from LL) still sitting at the factory and was appalled at issues that needed to be correted after manufacture. Enjoy your new camper and maybe we'll see you up north 1 day. Happy camping!
I'll make sure to look for my stabilizer jacks now too.
The jacks are pretty standard part used by, oh, everybody in the industry. I would expect the dealer to possibly have them in stock or immediately available and not have to wait for LL to send it. They may even be able to pull them from another unit on the lot while waiting for LL to reply.
How long of a delay did they say ?
Welcome to the board and sorry to hear that the factory forgot the stabilizer jacks. If you are keeping the Camplite at home while you wait for parts, you can examine the camper and perhaps start packing. I hope this will be the only bump in the road that you have!
Thanks for the welcome, everyone. Pinstriper, thanks for the heads-up about the jacks. I called the dealer and requested a rush and expect to hear later today about ETA. I don't mind waiting on the smaller items, but this is almost comical, indeed. I tend to look on the bright side of things for as long as I can, so, as long as I don't get the runaround, I'll use the time to set things up and check the rest out, as Leslie suggested. .
In the meantime, there's always something fun to take my mind off the wait. FYI, Merlin, the boat is a cherished possession. It's a Vermont Fishing Dory from Adirondack Guideboat, the first and only boat I ever got brand new. It rows like a dream. I wrote an article on my blog about it, if you have interest:
http://sauvieislandimages.com/index.php/a-sauvie-island-journal/
It's All in Who You Talk To
Jack Update: I called the Sales guy, who called the parts gal, who called me and said, "Why, we have those here in stock! How soon can you come in?" Of course, I said "tomorrow"!
Great attitude, helpful, on it. So who was the strange-o I talked to the first time who could barely give me the time of day? I can't imagine how people like that wind up in customer service. I hope she was just having a bad day.
But I have a smile on my face now. Life is good!
[font size="3"]Welcome from a fellow Oregonian! Maybe we'll run into each other sometime ...... figuratively only, of course. Always keeping an eye out for another CL. [/font]
I know this forum is about LL's, but the boat caught my eye and I see my intuition was correct, it is something very special. I built a kit boat, the Jimmy Skiff, from Chesapeake Light Craft a few years ago and would love to make another boat someday. Yours and your blog have inspired me to greater effort. I need to get off this forum. It's a bad influence; I already don't get enough sleep for all the cool things there are to do.
High Kath, just had to jump in again with a huge welcome even though we've already met without even knowing it. Maybe we will have enough of us for a big old happy Oregon meet up somewhere during this beautiful Northwest camping season. Glad everything is working out so well for your new RV adventures.
Brenda and Christina, it would be fun to "run into each other" up here in the Great Northwest. Or maybe even meet up on purpose. For now, we're planning a few trips to the beach and maybe one longer one to somewhere we haven't been (I so want to see Yosemite and then Yellowstone and...). But I also have my eye on the Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival in September. What trips do you have planned?
[quote source="/post/11202/thread" timestamp="1432261111" author="@sandroad"]I know this forum is about LL's, but the boat caught my eye and I see my intuition was correct, it is something very special. I built a kit boat, the Jimmy Skiff, from Chesapeake Light Craft a few years ago and would love to make another boat someday. Yours and your blog have inspired me to greater effort. I need to get off this forum. It's a bad influence; I already don't get enough sleep for all the cool things there are to do. [/quote]I know, right?
How do you like the Jimmy Skiff? I was signed up to build the Annapolis Wherry last summer, but they canceled the class. I built a skin-on-frame kayak a while back and really enjoyed it. I keep eyeing the CLC Northeaster Dory class. I'd like to replace my catboat-with-gasoline-motor to a sailboat I can row, and that one looks like it would fit the bill. But I'm an absolute boat addict. It's never ending...
[quote source="/post/11208/thread" author="@kath" timestamp="1432272343"]Brenda and Christina, it would be fun to "run into each other" up here in the Great Northwest. Or maybe even meet up on purpose. For now, we're planning a few trips to the beach and maybe one longer one to somewhere we haven't been (I so want to see Yosemite and then Yellowstone and...). But I also have my eye on the Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival in September. What trips do you have planned?[/quote]Don't ya love how the beach is always there for a quick getaway! We live less than two hours away from the ocean and visit a lot! In case you get to Cannon Beach (one of my favorite beach towns) we found a good campground there. Cannon Beach RV Resort. We've also stayed at the Thousand Trails campground in Seaside and the one just south of Newport ..... but aren't currently TT members. Plus we've stayed just north of Yachats at the state park. All very nice. (And we found a GREAT seafood place in Yachats ..... Luna Sea Fish House. It's a hole-in-the-wall sort of place, but the clam chowder is the best!)
Maybe we Pacific NW-ers can band together here and recommend some good places to camp in our own backyard, so to speak. So many people online here are from the east and are camping in places not so handy for us.
Oh, and we also plan to visit Yosemite. Never been there. And I LOVE Port Townsend..... especially when we're boarding a ferry to sail over to Victoria! We've done Yellowstone and it was really nice, but not my favorite..... however, that was where I fell in love with camping.
Okay, I'll stop rambling now. :)
[quote source="/post/11224/thread" timestamp="1432314817" author="@brenda"][quote source="/post/11208/thread" timestamp="1432272343" author="@kath"]Brenda and Christina, it would be fun to "run into each other" up here in the Great Northwest. Or maybe even meet up on purpose. For now, we're planning a few trips to the beach and maybe one longer one to somewhere we haven't been (I so want to see Yosemite and then Yellowstone and...). But I also have my eye on the Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival in September. What trips do you have planned?[/quote]Don't ya love how the beach is always there for a quick getaway! We live less than two hours away from the ocean and visit a lot! In case you get to Cannon Beach (one of my favorite beach towns) we found a good campground there. Cannon Beach RV Resort. We've also stayed at the Thousand Trails campground in Seaside and the one just south of Newport ..... but aren't currently TT members. Plus we've stayed just north of Yachats at the state park. All very nice. (And we found a GREAT seafood place in Yachats ..... Luna Sea Fish House. It's a hole-in-the-wall sort of place, but the clam chowder is the best!)
Maybe we Pacific NW-ers can band together here and recommend some good places to camp in our own backyard, so to speak. So many people online here are from the east and are camping in places not so handy for us.
Oh, and we also plan to visit Yosemite. Never been there. And I LOVE Port Townsend..... especially when we're boarding a ferry to sail over to Victoria! We've done Yellowstone and it was really nice, but not my favorite..... however, that was where I fell in love with camping.
Okay, I'll stop rambling now. :) [/quote][p]The TT south of Newport was dated, but better than their Pacific City campground. Mostly on the basis of the fenced area for off-leash dogs. And the fact that everything worked instead of sparks coming out of the pedestal. But these places are absolutely infested with children, and children run amuck at that ! Many/most of the sites are older, short, not paved, and/or un-level. They did, however, have cable TV, a fish cleaning station, and OK showers.[/p][p]
[/p][p]+1 on the Luna joint in Yachats. [/p][p]
[/p][p]We pretty much stay with the state parks. We're at Beverly Beach next weekend, South Beach 2 weeks later, then Ft. Stevens 2 weeks after that. Stop on by. We like Champoeg and Stubb Stewart (he was a logger, OK ?) for real short haul getaways. We'll be hitting those and probably Milo McIver over the summer/fall as well.[/p][p]
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More recollection of the Luna seafood place. When the "what's fresh ?" board actually shows the name of the boat that brought in that particular fish, you know you're at the real deal.
But the Newport Cafe in...eh...Newport....has the best chowder in the state. Sorry.
+1 for our State Parks. I've been enjoying them ever since our tent camping days. Though it seems everyone else enjoys them too! I can remember the days when we would just wake up on a Saturday morning in the middle of summer and say "Let's go to the beach!", jump in the car and easily find a spot anywhere. I suppose that's still possible with many of the tent sites, but with more amenities comes more "competition" and some loss of spontaneity. Guess I'll have to become more of a plan-ahead kind of camper. Good for you, Pinstriper, for staking out your sites at those great beach SPs. We've enjoyed them a lot.
I've only tried a commercial campground once but would like to branch out a bit and see how they match up. Anybody been to the one in Neskowin? Their brochures look great, but I've read some bad reviews.
If you can get by without hookups, and if your rig is small enough, one of my favorite places in the world is a tiny Forest Service site along the Umpqua River. Nothing like it! That gorgeous river cascading over rocks ten feet from your campsite is spectacular, in the middle of "nowhere". We're so lucky to live in such a beautiful part of the world.
[quote source="/post/11246/thread" timestamp="1432346958" author="@pinstriper"]More recollection of the Luna seafood place. When the "what's fresh ?" board actually shows the name of the boat that brought in that particular fish, you know you're at the real deal.
But the Newport Cafe in...eh...Newport....has the best chowder in the state. Sorry.
[/quote]Oh, well, if we're talking Newport ..... it's Local Ocean. Hands down. Except ...... come to think of it, I haven't tried their clam chowder, but their fish 'n chips is, as they say, to die for.
[quote timestamp="1432402424" author="@kath" source="/post/11279/thread"]+1 for our State Parks. I've been enjoying them ever since our tent camping days. Though it seems everyone else enjoys them too! I can remember the days when we would just wake up on a Saturday morning in the middle of summer and say "Let's go to the beach!", jump in the car and easily find a spot anywhere. I suppose that's still possible with many of the tent sites, but with more amenities comes more "competition" and some loss of spontaneity. Guess I'll have to become more of a plan-ahead kind of camper. Good for you, Pinstriper, for staking out your sites at those great beach SPs. We've enjoyed them a lot.
I've only tried a commercial campground once but would like to branch out a bit and see how they match up. Anybody been to the one in Neskowin? Their brochures look great, but I've read some bad reviews.
If you can get by without hookups, and if your rig is small enough, one of my favorite places in the world is a tiny Forest Service site along the Umpqua River. Nothing like it! That gorgeous river cascading over rocks ten feet from your campsite is spectacular, in the middle of "nowhere". We're so lucky to live in such a beautiful part of the world.
[/quote]
I've never camped at Neskowin. If you try it, let us know what you think.
Umpqua River? Googling it now! Thanks! Do you have more details on where the site is that you like?
Brenda, can't give you the details on the Umpqua sites because I only know it on my way down from Crater Lake. It's VERY primitive, so no reservations, last I knew. Googling the Umpqua Scenic Byway will help. Here's a link to a nice little video about it.
I grew up back East, moved to Oregon over thirty years ago, and just can't imagine living anywhere else.
http://traveloregon.com/trip-ideas/grants-getaways/umpqua-river-byway/