At home in Fort Worth...
You may have read earlier in this rag about our previous
trip to MCD Innovations in McKinney, Texas when we had them install custom
day/night shades in Phannie’s living area.
At the time, we elected not to install shades in the cockpit in
deference to our budget but, as time went by, we couldn’t help but bemoan the
fact that the cockpit looked so shabby in comparison to the rest of the interior of the
coach. The old sliding curtains filled the
need for privacy, but they were becoming faded and droopy, held together by clothespins where they met in
the middle of the windshield. In this regard, Phannie
was sort of like a well-dressed lady who had toilet paper stuck to her shoe.
We knew it was only a matter of time until we returned to MCD for
the full shade treatment, but it was Bubba who actually made it happen. If you’ve read this blog for a while, you
know that longtime friends Bubba and LouAnn often caravan with us on our RV trips. We both owned fifth wheels for years before Sandy and I acquired Phannie, an upgrade in travel comfort that certainly was not lost
on Bubba and whose merits I lorded over him good-naturedly but constantly.
Not long ago, I invited Bubba to drive Phannie on a short
local jaunt, and it was easy to tell that he was smitten; in fact, I thought he was
going to gnaw the door handles off the coach. It wasn’t long afterward, then, that he was flogging the internet
in search of his own “Phannie.”
Suddenly, he located a real steal at the very dealer—Motorhomes of Texas—where
we had purchased Phannie. Within a
couple of days, Bubba and LouAnn were the proud owners of a 2012 Thor Tuscany,
forty-two feet of unfettered luxury with a tag axle, four TV sets and two
bathrooms! As happy as I was for them, I was already hunkering down for what
would be a major payback from Bubba in the gloating department.
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| Bubba and LouAnn's New Coach |
Now in comparison with Bubba's new rig, Phannie began to look
something like an ugly duckling—especially the old cockpit curtains with the
clothespins. I couldn’t help but envy
the Thor’s motorized windshield shade that moved almost silently up and down
with the touch of a button. Frankly, it became more than I could take! I called MCD
for an appointment and drove Phannie up to McKinney on a recent Monday morning. I told them I wanted their best day/night
shades, motorized on all cockpit windows--front and side.
(I knew Bubba’s coach didn’t have power shades on the side
windows. Yes, that’s pathetic, I know,
but I was desperate.) The following Thursday, we picked her up, hardly able to wait to see the transformation. It was everything we expected.
The new shades are wonderful, of course, but what did this
little fit of jealousy cost me? Well, I
won’t be so crass as to mention numbers, but the cockpit shades cost more than
twice the price of all the rest of Phannie’s unpowered shades in the living
area. A good deal of the extra cost was
the installation of custom wood valances to conceal the rollers and power
mechanisms. Am I glad I did it? Absolutely!
The powered feature is really handy; I can’t imagine not having it now. I’m already wondering if Sandy will let me do
a retrofit to powered shades in the cabin…
