Even More Quilt Shops!

Now that I think about it, almost all of our camping trips are centered around whether there are quilt shops nearby. This weekend was no exception. We had a reservation at Keyser Pond Campground in Henniker, NH, which is in Henniker, which is home to Quilted Threads quilt shop. Who knew?

This is in southern New Hampshire so it wasn't a bad drive. So we wouldn't have to break camp to go to the shop, we stopped in before we got to the campground. Deb did her thing while Skip and I chilled in the rig. When she was done, we headed over to Keyser Pond. This campsite, like the last one in Maine, was just a tad shabby but it didn't feel as "icky" as Green Valley. It was predominantly seasonals - trailers with built-up porches of every type. As with most seasonals, they tend to get pretty grimy from all the tree droppings and such so the whole place just felt a bit "used".

The spaces were nice though and we had a ton of room to pitch the screen porch thingy. We relaxed Friday night and then on Saturday, got on the tandem for a trip to yet another fabric store. Just before we got on the bike Deb realized that she had forgotten her bike shorts. She ended up using my gym short which worked fine actually. We had a really nice ride along a river and up and down some rolling hills. Her quilt shop iPhone app showed the shop at a certain place but when we got there after about 10 miles, it wasn't there. I did a quick google search on my phone and found the proper location. It was really hot - did I mention that we also forgot our water bottles so we had to buy some small ones from the camp store? Anyway, I waited in the shade while Deb looked at fabric and then we headed home via another route. We ended up doing about 21 miles.

When we got back to the campsite, we just took off our shoes and walked straight into the pond to cool off. We had a nice rainstorm Saturday evening followed by our neighbor coming over and telling us about the slide-out seal that was hanging down about half-way along the left side. It looked like it had just pulled out as the slide came out. I tried getting it back on but towards the top, it was a really tight fit between the slide and the rig. It actually looked like the whole slide section was canted in the hole since the top left was much closer than the top right.

I struggled with it for awhile and then just got tired. I thought that maybe the rig was twisted slightly due to being on the jacks kind of funny. I figured I would drop the rig off the jacks on Sunday as we were getting ready to leave and try to fix it then.

So, on Sunday, with the rig off the jacks, it was no better. I finally ended up spraying Pam cooking spray onto the rubber so that it wouldn't stick to the side and be pulled in as the slide came in. I'm not really sure how I'm going to fix this...

Dumping involved the usual leaking of the RhinoFlex hose and coupling. Can't figure out why that leaks so badly.

The drive home was pretty easy with just some moderate traffic at the NH tolls.

Maine-ly Meh

Deb got wind of another quilt show earlier in the year so we booked a stay in Augusta Maine so she could check it out. The drive up to Green Valley Campground was rather long - about 4 hours altogether - so we were pretty tired when we finally got there. The Waze GPS app on the iphone took us for another crazy route again. It wound us around some back roads to get to the campsite - taking us about 5 miles out of our way to get there. I'm really going to have to double check routes and not just blindly rely on the GPS to get us wherever we are going like I'm want to do.

When we got to the campground, we were less than impressed. It's hard to put your finger on it but it just seemed a little run-down, and cramped. We had a pretty nice site actually - compared to the others that we saw. The only trouble was that it had a pretty good slope to it.

One problem with the jacks is that the front jacks are pretty much on the ground when they swing down. There's really no way to put anything under them to give them more extension. The result is that if the site is sloped forward too much, they aren't able to raise the front of the rig enough to level it out. Well, this site had just enough of a slope that I could not get the front end up enough to get us level. After jockeying the rig around for about 10 minutes, I finally gave up and pulled in frontwards. This, of course, puts everything on the wrong side but, since we had to head to the quilt show the next morning, we said "screw it" and just lived with it.

The entertainment that night was a DJ playing music and a huge bonfire with about three people around.

Next day, we unhooked and headed into Augusta to find the quilt show. It was a good distance from the campground so rather than return and then go back to get Deb, Skip and I found a place to park and I took a nap.

I evidently slept better than i thought because I missed Deb calling me telling me she was done and to come pick her up... She ended up having to wait for about 30 minutes. Sorry Deb!

We headed back to the campground and this time, I had the bright idea to back in but run the front wheels on some blocks and then put some additional blocks under the front jacks. This gave me enough lift get the front end high enough to get the rig level. Should have thought of this the day before...

One problem with having to break camp to "go somewhere" is that we end up not putting up the porch tent thing so we never really "settle in" to the camp site. This, coupled with the run-down feeling of the place made us just not really enjoy the stay very much. We did get a kick out of some of the signs and "backwoods Maine"-isms that we found throughout the campground.

Another issue with the site was the sewer hookup. As you can see, the pipe was well up off the ground and, in fact, was just about as high as my dump valve. Since, my hose has to drop down below the compartment, it seemed like I was not going to be able to dump. I could just envision pulling the valve and having the dump hose simply fill up with gunk and not being able to get it to flow down the drain.

Luckily, I was able to pull off the riser pipe and get enough drop so that the eff, fluented - so to speak.

This was the first time I used my new 90 degree connection to get the hose to go out the port in the bottom of the compartment and I was hoping it would work well. Unfortunately, the connection to the hose leaked as well as the hose itself. I'm really confused about this. I spent some money on this setup and it is supposed to be the best. Strange.

When Sunday came around, we were pretty much ready to go so we packed up and headed home. I don't think we'll be going back to Green Valley Campground.

On the Level

During the Great Circle trip, the Right Rear leveling jack started acting up. The way the system is supposed to work is this; After getting the rig where you want to be and setting the Parking break, you press the On button once to turn on the system. A second press of the button swings the jacks down from being tucked up horizontally, into a vertical position. A third press of the button extends the jacks and automatically levels the rig.

Well, what was happening was that after the second press to swing the jacks down, the Right Rear LED on the control panel was not lit (like the other three were). A visual inspection of the jack showed that it was fully swung down just like the other three. A third press of the button simply turned the whole system off. Apparently, not getting that LED from the jack told the system that it couldn't do anything more and it quit. Luckily, I could turn on the system again and use some other buttons to manually extend the jacks and raise and level the rig. Not a big deal but something I'd like to get fixed.

Another thing I noticed was that when the RR jack was swung down but not "officially" extended, it was still extended a few inches anyway. None of the other three jacks was extended at all until I manually extended them from the panel. Strange.

I posted my problem on my favorite RV Forum asking if anyone had any ideas on what the problem could be. The general response was "Call the Manufacturer - they are usually pretty good at helping you out". Hmm, okay. I'll call.

Called HWH in Moscow, Iowa of all places and told them my issue. They said they would have a Tech call me back. After a few days, I got a call from Frank who asked me a few questions and had me do a test. He had me disconnect a connector at the jack and connect a jumper wire between the two wires on the harness coming from the control box. If the LED came on in that situation, he said that hopefully that means it's just a Warning switch going bad on the jack.

I did the test and sure enough, got the LED to come on. Back on the phone with him, I told him the results and, after charging my credit card for $27, shipped me a new one. Installation was easy. I just unscrewed the switch and screwed the new one in. I turned on the unit and all four LEDs lit up. Whoo Hoo!

I had Deb come out and swing down the jacks while I looked underneath so that I could make sure that I had enough slack in the wire before I zip-tied them up.

Job Done.

Bees and Kites

This trip got off to a rather ignominious start but ended up being pretty fun. On the advice of a friend, we booked a campsite at Melville Ponds Campground in Portsmouth, RI - just north of Newport. She stressed that it was a no-frills place which suited us fine since we usually don't use the pool or play Bingo or whatever. Since it was close to Newport, we figured we'd bring the tandem and use it to head into town on Saturday.

We headed out on Friday afternoon and made the easy, 55 mile trip down. We had a bit of a bobble finding the place. We spotted the road that the GPS said to turn on but it looked like a school parking lot so we didn't turn. The next light had a sign for the campground though so no big deal. The road leading to the entrance was abysmal - we basically inched along for quite a ways so as not to destroy the rig. We pulled in and I went in to register.

I had a reservation and I guess I paid half the rate - hmm, was it really $45 per night? As I pulled out my wallet and got ready to hand the lady my credit card, she said "we only take cash or checks". Oh.

Seriously? Is that even possible?

I guess we must have mailed a check for the deposit too. Of course, I didn't have enough money so I thought I was going to have to go find an ATM. As I was heading back to the rig I thought, hey, Deb still has those things called checks! Problem solved!

So we register and head to the site. As I'm getting the rig situated in the site, I realize that we don't have sewer - just water and electric. Really? $45 a night for just water and electric? Dang!

I get situated where I want and put the jacks down - going through the process of manually leveling since the auto-levelers don't work. I did put some bubble levels on the wall earlier in the week so that I wouldn't have to keep using the level app on my iPhone to do it. I put the sliders out and then went out to hook up water and power. Well, I was close to the power post but then realized that there was no water spigot to be found. I finally spotted it - a tee feeding my neighbor's site and mine - all the way up by the road!

So, the power post is at the extreme rear of the site on the left side, and the water is diagonally across from it at the front of the site. No way is my hose going to reach from the road, all the way to the back of the site and connect to the inlet on the left side of the camper.

So, up with the jacks, in with the slides, jockey the rig forward and to the right - and try to split the difference and guess if my hose will reach. Luckily, I guessed right on the first try and got the hose connected. Back down with the jacks, level the beast, out with the slides. 


Then I went to connect the power.

Wasps in the power cover. Lots of wasps.

I gingerly lifted up the cover just to see... Crap! Yup, they sting! One got me on the arm before I could even react. I went and got the awning pull-down pole and tried to whack the little nest they were building off the post. I managed to get it off but they were still swarming so I went up to the office and asked them to bring a spray. Half an hour later, the guy showed up and blasted the box. It's a week later as I write this and my arm still hurts at the sting site.

Anyway, we finally got situated, fired up the grill and broke out the cocktails. After some Rumicube we called it a night. Sometime during that night, we lost power. Luckily, it had cooled off considerably so the lack of A/C wasn't a killer. I figured someone just tripped a breaker somewhere but casually asked Deb, who had gotten up to look around, if everyone else was out too. She said "No, just us". Crap.

I got up and grabbed a flashlight and went to the power post. I gingerly opened the cover door, expecting to find that the wasps had come back with friends and had re-wired the post into some sort of doomsday device - set to detonate when some hapless fool lifts the cover. Maybe I've seen too many Gary Larson cartoons?

Well, no bang, just the cord pulled out of the plug. Hmm. It then dawned on me that since I had moved the rig so far away from the post, it had invited everyone heading to the restrooms up the hill to cut through our site. Someone had evidently tripped on the cord during a midnight potty break and cut us off.

After breakfast on Saturday, we hemmed and hawed over whether to make the effort to bike into Newport. It's our usual inertia - we love the bike once we are on it but getting off our butts in the first place is sometimes a challenge. We finally overcame the friction and got moving. We did have one problem though. Over the last year or so I have proceeded to lose all of our biking water bottles - someplace. I think I usually leave them at soccer games but regardless, we had none. Oh well, it was cool and we'll find a bike store in Newport...

I looked at a map and plotted our route into Newport - staying off the main road for as long as possible. The route took us along the bay and we had some beautiful views of boats and water and glorious vistas. It looked like a fleet of old America's Cup 12 meters were playing on the bay - fabulous!

There are all kinds of Navy facilities on the bay and we passed a bunch of them. Then, we came upon a massive aircraft carrier being scrapped at a dock. I later found out that CV-60 is the USS Saratoga. Kind of erie seeing that there and thinking of what she had been through.

We got to the end of the coastal route and had to take the main road for the rest of the way in. Traffic quickly built up as we entered Newport and we soon found out why - the Hall of Fame tennis tournament was going on. Newport has some swanky grass courts which is where all the mansion owners played back in the day. 

It was fun cruising by the stalled traffic heading into town but I wanted to head down by the harbor so I turned off the route to the mansions and then on to Thames street. Big mistake.

Thames is a quaint little *cobblestone* street. Yikes! We inched along - hoping that my front wheel wouldn't catch in a rut and pitch us over. It was a jarring ride - one I hope to never do again.

We headed back up to Bellview street, which is the main drag out to the mansions. We'd been by these before in the car but they are still very impressive. We never have toured any of them though.

Bellview ends and turns into Ocean Drive and then it gets really pretty. There are some absolutely amazing houses out on that point. Pictures really don't convey the wealth that oozes from those places.

As we continued along Ocean Drive, I spotted what looked like kites in the sky. We've seen them before, being flown over a popular park at the end of the peninsula.

Then we started seeing a *lot* of kites.

Big kites, triple kites, lots of kites. Turns out it was the Newport Kite Festival that weekend - who knew!

We stopped and watched, grabbed a bite, and took pictures. Very cool!

The route back seemed longer than the one out and it was getting really hot. And we didn't have any water.

We made a feeble attempt to find a bike store but had no luck. On the way out of town, I pulled into a convenience store to buy some sports drink. I only had one dollar left and they wouldn't take a credit card for less than a minimum $5 purchase. In hindsight I should have bought 5 bottles of Powerade but they guy spotted me the 6 cents tax on on $.99 bottle so that's what I got.

As Deb and I stood outside the store gulping it down, two sketchy-looking guys walked past us. One of them was wearing a tank top and we could see a massive bandage covering his entire chest. I wonder what the other guy looked like...

We managed to make it back to the campsite but I was cooked. It's really embarrassing too because the ride was only 30 miles total. I should not have struggled like that - sucks to get old...

On Sunday, we broke camp and headed up to the dump station to do the dirty deed. After a wait behind another guy, we were on our way.

All in all, it was a good weekend. I think the campground is a little pricey but it was a nice place and we had plenty of room. We had a great ride and enjoyed the festival so I'm glad we went.

Fridge Contortions

Another topic that comes up occasionally on the RV forums is the fact that spiders love to spin webs around LP Gas burners. There are typically two gas burners on an RV that are exposed enough for spiders to find them - the water heater and, oddly enough, the refrigerator.

When the Fridge does not have AC power - like when you are driving down the road - it runs on a little bit of battery combined with a propane gas-powered science project that actually cools the fridge.

Well, I read a story about an RV that caught fire and they trumped out the usual suspects of bugs in the burners so I figured I should check mine.

The water heater looked fine and when I opened the fridge panel, it looked fine also. It was a little dirty so I vacuumed it out just to be safe. On the side of the panel I noticed a little drain port that looked like it was for some sort of overflow drainage. When I followed the tube up, I found that it was just floating there - it was broken in two with the other end running up to a connection into the fridge.

You can barely see the connection in the second picture. Two bad things; 1) The tube appears to be cracked right where it makes that connection into the fridge and 2) I can't get my hand up in there to take it off to replace it. Dang.

Another post to the RV forum and they basically said "You gotta take the fridge out". Well that sounds fun. I'm not sure what, if anything, I'm going to do about it at this point. I've mended the main break with electrical tape so it's really just the "potential" problem with the connection into the fridge. I never get frost in the freezer so I might just hope this is not an issue. How's that for a plan?

Off to Vermont

As hinted in the Radio Redux entry, the weekend right after we returned from the Great Circle trip was the Vermont Quilt Festival. Deb goes every year - I wait back at the campsite and pick her up when she's done.

It's about a 4-and-a-half-hour trip up there but it's through some pretty scenery so it's not all bad. I didn't do a formal measurement but, with all the hills/mountains, the gas mileage was pretty bad...

Anyway, not much to report on this trip. We had a nice site and set up the screen porch, cooked dinner and played Rumi-cube. The next day, we disconnected water and power, retracted the awning and took Deb to the Champlain Valley Exposition Center where the show is held. Skip and I just go back to the campsite and chill until Deb calls us and we go get her.

There are a couple of times where having another vehicle would be helpful so we didn't have to use the rig but I hate the idea of towing a car (and what that would do to the mileage) so we just deal with it.

When we left Sunday, Deb said she wanted to stop in a quilt museum just down the road. Turns out this is the Shelburne Museum which is apparently very famous. Not only are there quilts but also paintings, costumes, tools, antique snowmobiles and even an actual steamship in a field. Skip and I waited in the RV but Deb had a great time.

The drive home was uneventful so it was another successful trip under the belt.

Radio Redux

All during the Great Circle trip, we were frustrated by not having a good source of music to listen to during our long drives. Before the trip, I hastily burned a couple of MP3 CDs to play on the Nav/Radio/CD unit but neglected to test them before pulling out. You guessed it - the stupid system refused to play them at all. Thus, we were reduced to listening to radio stations that sounded crappy and  would fade out after a few miles anyway.

I've been spoiled by having Bluetooth in the car and was longing for it in the rig so I could play songs from my iPhone. So, for the upcoming trip to Vermont, I decided to replace the Nav unit with a new radio. Of course, no decision is ever easy for me so I hemmed and hawed over what kind of radio to get.

I also have satellite radio in the Fusion and we've really enjoyed it in the couple of long drives we've taken in the car but adding yet another monthly subscription payment didn't really seem like something I wanted to do. After a lot of research, I finally settled on a JVC Bluetooth unit that had good reviews in Crutchfield. I figured I could get almost the equivalent of satellite radio by using something like Pandora on the iPhone.

Of course, I reached this decision mere days before we were to leave for Vermont. On Thursday, I went to Best Buy on the way home to pick up the radio. While there I found a "Universal Ford" mounting kit that looked like would be good to have to help mount the new radio in the dash. Luckily, I happened on the car stereo installation guy who took me back into the shop and got me one that was specifically designed for the Ford Econoline chassis that the RV is built on.

After dinner, I set about the task of taking the old radio out of the dash and installing the new one. I really wish I would have taken pictures of the mess in the front of the rig during this process. I started with taking off the doghouse - that cowl that sits between driver and passenger and covers the engine. With that off, I could see under the dash and grab the radio and wiggle it a bit but I couldn't get it out of it's pocket and saw nothing that looked like it was holding it in. I finally realized that the dash trim panel was partly holding it in and managed to pry it up and away from the dash. I then saw that the radio was held in by a bead of some sort of black goo that bonded it to the top of the radio pocket. It was kind of like that glue that they use to stick your new credit card to the paper with when it comes in the mail but black and much tackier.

I tried slicing it with a utility knife and finally got a corner to come free. Grabbing it with a pair of needle nose pliers allowed me to rip it out and free the radio. Well, the radio and the nest of wires that came out with it of course.

There were about four separate wiring harnesses attached to the unit - GPS antenna, Radio antenna, power, speakers, and other stuff, and cables for video in and a CD changer that weren't connected to anything. I detached them from the back of the radio and then found that the power and speaker cables ran to another connector and detached that.

I took the radio back into the house to try and figure out how to match up the wires on the new radio. I ended up using the existing power and speaker harness from the old radio and soldering in the connector to the new radio. Luckily, I had the manuals for both radios so I could figure out which wires went where. With the new harness made, I took it out to the camper and plugged it into the connector just to see if it would work.

Sound! Yahoo! I got a nice connection to a radio station and it sounded pretty good. I couldn't stop there though. With the radio just sitting on the passenger seat, I got my iPhone and went through the Bluetooth pairing process. In about 10 seconds I had tunes thumping on the system.

This thing rocks! The old radio sounded so bad that I figured I'd eventually have to get new speakers but with the new radio going, that need dried up fast. I went inside to have Deb come out and give a listen but when I got in she said she could hear it from inside. Yeah, I guess I cranked it up a bit... I also had her call me on my phone and I was able to talk through the radio and hear her through the speakers - just like in the Fusion. Woohoo!

So, with the radio working, I moved on to the harder job - mounting it in the dash. The old radio was a double-DIN system which means that it was twice as big in height as a normal radio. Although I had considered getting another double-DIN system as a replacement, I saved the money and got a single. The mounting system I got had a pocket and frame that fill in the resulting gap.

The mounting instructions for the new mounting system were pretty comical. It basically just said "Mount this in your dash somehow." Cool.

It actually fit pretty well but I quickly realized that it wasn't going to hold the radio very securely as we were bouncing down the road. I needed to attach the radio to an existing radio bracket in the dash and that would hold the radio and the trim frame more solidly. By this time though it was late Thursday night and I needed to hit the hardware store to see if I could cobble together a mounting system. Nothing for it but to wait until tomorrow and see if I could get it done before we left that morning.

I woke up early Friday and ran down to the hardware store to see what I could come up with. I got some tiny bolts that would screw into the radio and then picked up a couple of angle brackets as well as  two strange brackets that are used somehow to hold downspouts in place. Took me about an hour of pondering and designing in my head before I left the store.

Back home I tried fitting the various pieces into something that would hold the radio and wasn't having much luck. Nothing would line up with the slots in the existing bracket and the clock was ticking. I was looking at some left-over pieces that came with the trim kit - parts that are used when installing in a different Ford I guess - and realized that those parts had slots in them. Slots are essential when doing this kind of thing because they give you the adjustability you need to make things line up.

I got out the Dremel and sliced off some tabs and wings that were in the way and fit them in the dash. I attached the downspout tabs, bent them into place, screwed them into the radio and I was done. One more test to make sure the harness was still working and we were golden.

I think it came out looking pretty good and it sounds great.

The Great Circle of the Summer of 2012

After last year's vacation at the lake in Georgia, we wanted to do it again this year. And then we got stupid and decided to add in a visit to Mom and Dad in Florida, and Shell and Jeff in Kentucky and make one big, massive driving test of us and the camper.

Here's the route we planned. About 3,000 miles altogether. We figured we'd break up the trip down to Jacksonville into three days with stops in Maryland and North Carolina, then stay a few days in Jacksonville at M&D's, then up to the lake in Georgia, then over to Shell & Jeff's, then back home.

The first place we stayed was Cherry Hill Campground in College Park, MD. This was a pretty big place and was very much geared for sight-seeing trips into Washington DC. When I went in to register, they asked me if I had any discounts - Good Sam, AAA, or anything else. I said "No" but the guy said "Oh well, I'll give you the discount anyway." Kind of glad he did. It went from being a $60/night spot to $35.

Cherry Hill Campground - College Park, MD

It wasn't much of a spot either as you can see from the pictures to the left. We didn't bother setting anything up since we were just going to be there for the night. One problem we encountered (which is still causing problems as I write this) - the jacks didn't work properly to auto-level the rig.

Cherry Hill

Normally, when I do the leveling, as the jacks swing down, 4 red LED's light up on the panel when each leg gets down. Well, the right rear LED did not light. When I hit the "auto-level" button, it refused to level - presumably because it didn't think that jack was down. I got out to look at the jack and it was down just like all the others but something was telling the system it wasn't ready. Oddly enough, I could manually work the jacks so that's what I did. I used the front/back/side buttons to adjust the level and got things pretty good. Frustrating though because it should just all happen automagically.

We got on the road the next day for the leg down to Fayetteville, NC. For navigation, we were using a combination Waze on the iPhone and the Nav unit in the system in the dash. There wasn't much navigating needed since the route was pretty direct but the dash nav was particularly funny. As we were driving down 95 with no turns for the next 100 miles or so, the unit would randomly pipe up and say "Proceed...on 95...South" in this kind of syrupy, strange voice and delivery. That thing is just plain weird.

Lazy Acres Campground - Fayetteville, NC

We got to Lazy Acres Campground outside of Fayetteville, NC in the evening. It was located down a very long, sand road and was really quite nice. The manager led us to our site in a golf cart and chatted with us for a while - asking why we couldn't stay longer. Turns out he was a Work-Camper who was in his second year there and was going to head to Florida at the end of next year. I got to learn all about his health and plans for going from place to place - friendly place.

The next day was the final leg to Jacksonville. Again, no issues, just long days of driving. And pumping gas. Each fill-up was close to 50 gallons at $3+ per gallon - you do the math...

We got to Mom & Dad's right as a gully-washer came down. We dropped off our clothes and fridge contents at their house and parked the rig in a parking area - getting pretty much soaked in the process.


We had Skip with us of course so this was his first chance to meet Sam. Mom said Sam was looking forward to Skip's visit so he could have someone to play with. Skip took one sniff of Sam and was ready to do other things - explore, pee, sleep, etc.

Sam was having none of that. When his nose wasn't in Skip's butt, he was biting his hind legs as he walked or jumping up on Skip and then running away when Skip growled at him. He was doing his best to get Skip to play with him but it wasn't working. Every once in a while, Skip would look over at us with a look that said "Who the Hell is this, why is he bothering me, and can you please make it stop?" It was actually pretty funny.

We had a great visit with the 'rents of course. Dad was feeling better than he had in a few weeks coincidentally and we were able to go out to eat at Red Lobster for Mom's birthday. We went to a bike shop for a new tube for Dad's trike which he was able to ride around for a bit as well.

Of course, I did the usual computer troubleshooting - working off the list of issues Dad had compiled for the visit. One of the trickier ones was that their printer was printing everything really, really slowly. Couldn't figure out why it was acting like that until I found that it was set to print to Photo Paper. Evidently, it thought it was printing photos and therefore being very detailed. Once we set it to the Normal paper that it had in the tray, it started printing fast again.

With a teary goodbye, we set off on the next leg to Chatuge Lake in Georgia. Hiawasse is in the middle of nowhere and there are a couple of ways to get there. The short route was to go around the east side of Atlanta, up through Gainsville, and then over the mountain via Hellen. The problem with this route though is the mountain road through Hellen is very twisty and very up and down. Tim suggested that we take a slightly longer way and go up 575 on the west side of Atlanta. This gave us a straight shot on much better roads. After much hemming and hawing - all the way up to the decision point heading into Atlanta, we opted for the long route - and went through the middle of Atlanta as well! Since it was a Sunday, there was no traffic and we pretty much went through Atlanta just like Sherman did.

As we were going up 575, the GPS kept wanting us to turn onto smaller roads. Deb was feverishly texting back and forth with Tim and Brenda who assured us that we just needed to keep going straight and it would take us right in. Of course, we did and it did. Never did figure out why Waze wanted us to  take a different route.

Campground Location

We got to the campground an the Georgia Mountain Fairgrounds - after pulling into the wrong section and just about getting stuck trying to turn around - to find that the office was closed after 5:00. Luckily, I had an email with our assigned site so we headed to it and registered the next morning.

We were right on the lake in a great spot and just a couple of sites away from Stan's camper.

Of course, the lake vacation is not complete without a Wave Runner. Unfortunately, Stan's had died the week before but we were able to rent one for two days at a great rate so the vacation was saved!

A year later and now Katelyn and Austin are seasoned Wave Runner pros. There was some concern that they weren't old enough to drive it by themselves. Apparently, the law is that you have to be 26 to operate one which seemed to put the kibosh on some of the fun. However, when we asked the rental guy about it he said that "Since it's a rental, the law doesn't apply." What? Whatever.

I had bought a GoPole for the GoPro so that we could get a different perspective instead of just the one using the suction cup mounted on the cowling looking back at the riders. Here are a couple of selected pics from the many Gigs of video we shot during the week. The rest of the shots are on my Facebook album.

Carly and Chris about to get wet

I don't think I mentioned that Carly and Chris drove down to meet us at the lake. This was Chris' first intro to Wave Running (and Moonshine and the Georgia Mountains for that matter). They slept on the couch and dinette in the camper - beds made for 6 to 10 year-olds I think. Their necks may be permanently bent after this experience.

We divided our time between the houseboat and the campsite, eating, playing "Corn-hole", swimming, tubing behind the Wave Runner, and generally just having a great time. We went on a hike to High Shoals Falls - crossing a relatively deep stream in the cars to get there. After a pretty good hike, it was really a beautiful spot.

On our last night, we did a "Low Country Boil" and then played trivia at a little pub inside the  Brasstown Valley Resort. The boil was fabulous as usual and we managed to win a pitcher of beer during trivia - I think due to our creative team name of "The Boston Butts".

On the drive up, Deb and I were listening to a country station and decided we should write a country song called "I Got a Low Country Boil on my Boston Butt".  

Maybe you had to be there...

Angela and Rita

The next day, we pushed off for Kentucky. This was a long day and we were tired when we pulled into the Lampe compound that evening. Unfortunately, the boys were away at a wrestling camp but we had a great night and next day being with the rest of the clan - capped off with a hot hike in the back woods to Tom Wallace pond.

Maria self portrait

Rather than leave early the next morning, we decided to push off that night to get a jump on the long drive home. We drove for about 4 hours and pulled into a rest area outside of Cleveland for a few hours of shuteye - lulled to sleep by the rumble of idling trucks on either side of us.

We headed up towards Buffalo and then across endless New York and to home after about 24 hours from when we started. Amazingly, the only problem we had was the finicky jack so it was very much a successful journey in the rig.

Can't wait to do it again next year!


  

Memorial Day on the Cape

Our second trip in the new RV was to the Cape for a Memorial Day long weekend. I had been in Las Vegas all week and got in Friday morning (after missing my connection in Atlanta on Thursday night and having to stay at an airport hotel...argh!). Of course, Deb had taken care of loading the rig with food and clothes and generally getting things ready (I should probably keep her huh?) so I basically just rolled in and we headed out.

We had a pretty easy drive, hitting a bit of traffic where 495 ends and turns into 25 on the approach into Bourne.

And then there's the Sagamore bridge... Even though this rig is slightly narrower than the old one, it's still a thrill going over that bridge. It's not really the narrowness of the lanes that makes it so fun (though they are), it's the sidewalk/curb on the right side that is about a foot and a half above the roadway. These things are so high that you run the risk of scraping the side of the MH on them if you get too close. It's quite disconcerting. I end up just sticking out into the left lane a bit and making those guys just wait until I get over - screw 'em.

Before we left, I had tried to enter our destination in the newly refreshed radio/nav unit. But, as is typical with these things, the user interface is abysmal and I didn't want to spend the time sitting in the driveway programming a destination that we already knew how to get to, so I gave up. Well, about halfway down route 6 on the Cape, the nav unit pipes up and says "Prepare to turn right" (or something like that). Deb and I looked at each other with wonder. She (the Nav unit, not Deb) hadn't said a damn thing the entire trip and I had never actually told it where we were going so where did she think she was taking us? She never said a thing after that either so I have no idea what she was trying to get us to do.

We had very light traffic to Dennis and got to our usual stay at Shady Knoll Campground. We like this one because it's pretty quiet (since there's almost nothing for kids to do there) and it's almost directly on the Cape Cod Rail Trail. We used to put the tandem inside the other rig but it's a pain to wrestle in through the door and then secure during the drive so we put it on the hitch mounted rack instead. Although designed for single bikes, it worked fine for the tandem which just barely fit within the width of the rig.

We set up camp pretty easily and I hooked up the grill to the extension hose from the main tank - this time I brought the stove regulator! I almost wanted to just leave the gas on to bask in the convenience of not having to use those damn bottles any more.

I did notice that even though the jacks said we were level, there was a noticeable forward pitch to the rig. I never got around to playing with the system so I'll have to take note of it next time. I watched the Tech dude set the reference level at the dealer when we were inside on a concrete (level) floor so I'm not sure why it would be out of whack when raised. I think I can override the auto-leveled state but that kind of defeats the purpose of auto-leveling coolness.

On Saturday, Deb wanted to go into Hyannis to a quilt store she likes so we decoupled from water and power and headed over. We skirted the crowded downtown area and found a parking lot with enough room to maneuver. She shopped while Skip and I relaxed in the rig. When she got back, we walked around town and got an ice cream and then headed back.

On Sunday, we aired-up the tandem and rode the Rail Trail for a bit. This was the first time on the bike this year so we didn't do a long ride. On the way back we stopped at our favorite trail-side restaurant - El Guappos Taqueria. Fabulous soft tacos in a little basket - yum.

On Monday, I checked the holding tanks before getting a shower and saw that the grey water was full. I figured I might as well dump everything so I got on the gloves and went to hook up the Stinky Slinky. One of the things I don't like about this rig is that the Sewer, Fresh water, and power hook-ups are all in one compartment. I don't like mixing the sewer system with anything else because disasters *do* happen.

Have any idea where this is going???

So yeah, I take the cap off the end of the drain port and get a nice splash of black water all over the inside of the compartment. Wonderful! I guess I have a slow leak in the black water valve. One nice design is that there is a hand held shower head also in that compartment and I manage to get that turned on with my one clean hand and rinse the inside of the compartment as best as I can. It would be nicer if there was a low point in the compartment that all the water would drain to but nope it's pretty much flat and the only openings are the entry ports for the slinky hose, the water hose, and the power cord and they all have lips that the water won't go over. Of course, when I do manage to sweep most of the water out with my hand, it lands on the ground underneath and immediately runs to, and pools around, the wooden block that one of the jack legs is standing on.

After much cursing, dumping, and cleaning, I manage to get things empty and cleaned up using about 50 Clorox wipes in the process. I did a bit of Googling for information about how others have handled this problem and it sounds like it might just be something fouling the valve slightly and a bit of working it open and closed a few times might clear it out. Otherwise, I'll have to replace the valve. I did that on the old rig and it's not that bad of a job once you get the stuff out of the tank.

The ride home was stop and go all the way off the Cape but easy after that. All in all, a fun weekend despite the sewer problems.

Pirate Radio

So, remember how the radio didn't work because I don't have the Nav disk for it? Well, I can't go into much detail but let's just say that the radio is working now...

It's truly amazing what kind of information is available in the internet underbelly.

The Shakedown

For our first trip, we wanted to go somewhere close so that if we forgot anything or had any trouble, we wouldn't be far from home and possible bail out.

We figured we would try Normandy Farms Campground which is in Foxboro. We'd been there years before evidently but neither Deb nor I could remember anything about it. We also chose it because it was open before Memorial Day and we were itching to take this beast out.

I checked the online reservation system and found that even now, nothing was available on the weekends during April. Oh well, let's go during the week.

So we made our reservations and waited impatiently for the departure day to arrive.

The ride over was uneventful. We had a brief hesitation when we realized we were going to have to go under the low bridge in town to get to the highway. We considered going an alternate way because we couldn't remember how low that low bridge actually was. As we got into town and were considering going the long way around, Deb saw a sign saying the bridge was 13 feet, 8 inches.

Plenty of room - I think. After going up on the roof to measure the height and finding the rotted vent covers, I hadn't actually measured the height of the rig. I was pretty sure it was no more than 10 feet tall though.

I think.

We made it through without scraping any assemblies off the top and made our way to the campsite. Of course, we had no radio because I don't have the stupid NAVIGATION DISC!!!!

Got in, found our spot and I did the thing I'd been waiting to do. Yes, I deployed the self-leveling jacks!

It was like one of those Movie Motion rides where they sit you in a pod that bucks and lurches back and forth while they play a movie in front of you. There was no movie on this ride but it was a funky trip as the thing raised us up and leveled us out.

We then put the slides out, extended the awning, hooked up water and electric, and broke out the drinks!

Woot! This was working out perfectly.

A few minutes later, I had to start a list of the things we forgot...

The big thing was the camp stove regulator. A few weeks ago, when I was crawling around under the rig looking for places that mice might find a way in, I found an LP gas line that ran from the tank back underneath and was zip-tied to a strut. I didn't know what it was doing there but it made me wonder if I could use it to feed the camp stove. Our camp stove runs on those little propane bottles that are specially designed to run out while you are in the middle of cooking your steaks. I'd seen gadgets in the RV catalogs that let you connect your stove to your main LP gas tank on the rig so you wouldn't have to deal with those bottles. Maybe that's what this is?


I took this picture of it and posted it on an RV forum and asked if I could use this for my plan. The response that I got back was that this was an Extend-A-Stay which was actually designed to connect to one of those large propane tanks that feed the big BBQ grills. The idea is that if you are parked for a long time in one spot and need propane, you don't need to take the rig to a propane station. You just take one of those tanks to a station, fill it, and bring it back and connect into this hose which feeds into your main tank. Cool but not what I wanted.

But, they also said that the connection has another port on it to which you can connect a hose that will connect to smaller camp stoves - like mine - doing away with the small bottles. Bingo!

I went to the RV store and got a 12 foot hose designed for this purpose. I choked at the $50 price tag but think of the convenience!

Well, at the site, Deb told me to fire up the grill for hamburgers so I opened up my package and hooked it into the tank. I got out the grill and went to make the connection and realized that I didn't have the regulator that connects from the bottle (now the hose) to the grill. Crap!

Thinking back, in the haste to get everything out of the old camper and get it down to the dealers for the trade-in, I must have put it in the basement and not realized it was not on board for the trip. Nooooo!

Well, no grill for this trip. We managed to cook the burgers in an electric fry pan but it just wasn't the same.

The other thing we need is a step stool for getting in and out of the rig. The new rig has an electric two-tier step that automatically deploys when you open the door or flip a switch. It's really great compared to our old one that  we had to wrestle down but it's just a little bit higher off the ground than we were used to. Not a big deal when we were in the driveway but remember when I deployed the jacks just a few minutes ago? Well, guess what, they raise the rig up about another 6 inches off the ground.

Skip found out about this first when he bolted out the door the first time and wound up on his face after plummeting to Earth from the top step. Ouch!

Even for us though, that last step is pretty high off the ground. A little step stool will be just about right for next time.

We also didn't bring a coax cable for the TV hookup. Now we never had a TV in the old rig and never missed it. This beast has two TVs and we really didn't think they would get much use either but it just so happened that the Bruins were playing in a game seven on our first night and I was thinking I wouldn't mind watching the game.

I put up the antenna but couldn't find a station that carried the game. I don't know that I would have gotten it on cable either but not having a cable meant I couldn't even try.

There were a few other things as well and certainly nothing critical so all in all, not a bad first trip.

Please Insert Map Disc

Another cool feature of the new rig is the dash radio. It's an Eclipse double DIN (twice as big as a regular radio) Navigation unit that sounded great at the dealer. The only problem was that the dealer didn't have the Map disc which is what supplies the maps for the Navigation operation.

Okay, no big deal, I have Nav on my iPhone and frankly, it's usually better than what you get on these in-dash radio/combo units anyway. I was psyched about the radio though. It's really nice on long trips and we had come to miss it on the old rig when it stopped working (when all the other random electrical problems started surfacing).

I went out to the rig one day to do something and went to extend one of the slide outs. No dice. Wouldn't move. Since the ignition has to be in ACC mode to operate the slide, I turned on the engine figuring it just needed a little more juice.

Click, click, click (that's the sound of the engine *not* starting due to a dead battery).

Awesome.

Pulled the truck battery and brought it inside for an overnight charge. I put it back in the next day and she started up just fine.

But.

I looked at the radio and it had a big message saying "Map Disc Not Found".

Yeah, I know, I don't have one and I really don't need to do any navigating here in the driveway. Please ignore this state and let me play the radio.

I said this in my head but I'm not stupid. I know the radio can't actually hear my thoughts so I pressed the menu button to let it know that I wanted to get to the radio part.

He ignored me and kept asking for the Map Disc.

Hmm. Let's try the Source button.

Nope.

Let's try pressing (and holding) every other button on the radio. Let's try holding combinations of buttons. Let's try actually cursing out loud.

Nope. Give me the Map Disc or go play somewhere else.

Sh|t!

Okay, maybe I'm just going to have to break down and buy a map disc. It might not be all that bad to have built-in Nav too.

Oh look. Eclipse has map discs for a mere $300. Are you kidding me!!! I could buy a whole new radio for less than that. Arghhh!

I search high and low for people selling map discs and the cheapest I could find were either shady guys on eBay or scary downloads from Russian bitTorrent sites.

I can't decide what to do. On the one hand, I could get a new radio and get one that has Bluetooth that will pair with my iPhone so I can play music from it as well as take calls. I have that in the Fusion and it is fantastic.

Or, I could pay for a map disc and get Nav on this thing but still no Bluetooth.

Meanwhile, I think I'm going to put black tape over the radio face so I don't have to hear (see) him keep asking for that damn disc.

Spit and Polish

One of the things that became a source of irritation on the old MH were the wheels. We had hub caps which made them look okay but somewhere in Maine, many years ago, we lost one off of the left rear. This, of course, exposed the ugly steel wheel and, with the peeling decals on the sides, added to the emerging trashy look of the rig.

We (I) half-heartedly looked for a replacement but just never found one and didn't feel like paying for a whole new set.

Well, on the new rig, one of the many subtle selling points was that it had aluminum rims that gave a certain classy look that I had always admired in other people's rides. Unfortunately, the rims had not been cared for over the years and they were seriously tarnished and oxidized so I set about the task of shining them up.

I had some spray-on, wash-off rim cleaner in my arsenal of car washing goop that I figured would do the trick.

Sprayed on. Washed off. Nuttin'.

Hmm.

Back when I had the Goldwing, I had gotten some metal polish called Bombs Away that was highly recommended so I found that, grabbed some rags, and started polishing a spot. I started rubbing which brings up black "residue" which I swirled around for a bit and then buffed off. Wow, getting shiny but still a little dull. Another round of polishing and buffing in that small spot. Oooh, now we're talking. One more time and it was like a mirror - practically blinding me when the sun hit it just right.

Awesome! - except that I had just spent about 20 minutes on this and completed about 5 % of one wheel. At this rate, it would be winter before I was done.

Time to bring out power tools!

Well, time to drive to the auto-parts store to find something to put on my drill to add some mechanization to the process. This is what I got. Yes, it looks more like something you might use for an entirely different purpose but trust me, it's made for polishing rims. Oh yeah, this is going to be great!

I get home, attach it to my drill and get ready to buzz through this job and make these rims sparkle in no time. I bet you can guess where this is going can't you?

Well, it spins. It brings up the black residue, but it just doesn't bring out the shine very well. I try it again and again but the rim just doesn't have the full polish effect that I got when I hand-rubbed it. Plus, although it's designed to get into the nooks and crannies of the rim, the wide taper prevents that from being all that effective.

My conclusion is that the material is too spongy to be able to put enough pressure on the rim to really get all the oxidation and tarnish off. It will probably be good for on-going touch ups but for now, I have to go back to hand polishing.

This, of course, is agony.

• I have to hunch over or sit on the ground to get to the rims which kills my back.

• I jammed/broke the middle finger of my right hand a week ago playing soccer so now it aches whenever I use my right hand to polish.

• I continually ram said finger into the holes and the lug nuts on the rim - causing the neighborhood animals to scurry for cover on the ensuing diatribe of curse words.

I stretch this process out over many days. Polish a section. Hobble back inside and consume Ibuprofen and rest for a day or so. Go back out and do another section.

On the rears, which are concave, the bottom half of the rim is easiest to work on since I can press *down* to polish. One the fronts, which are convex, the top half is up. So, I go around doing the sections I can press down on and then move the MH forward to bring another section facing up.

Through it all, the only thing that keeps me going is the fact that the rims are looking really good. I wish I would have taken the before pictures but this is what they look like after.

Allow Me to Vent

One of the things that's always worrisome is going under low bridges. There's one in town that I've seen trucks get stuck under and, after that incident at a New Jersey turnpike toll booth where I ran the air conditioning unit into the "Cars Only" sign, I've been rather paranoid.

So, I went up on the roof to get a measure of the highest point on the rig. As I walked to the A/C unit, I noticed that the roof vent looked cracked. I reached down to see if it was actually cracked and it basically disintegrated in my hand. Wonderful.

I looked at the other vent, touched it, and it too, fell apart. Super!

I had Deb go inside the rig and open one up so I could see how to take it off. Hmm, all I could see were rivets that did not look like they were made to come off. The hinge had no apparent way that it would let loose of the vent cover. What the heck? Do I have to replace the whole vent - scraping off the caulk, replacing and re-caulking?

To the Internets!

I found vent cover replacements but no mention on how one actually goes about replacing them. I finally found this video on YouTube that unlocks the secret.

I quickly detached the vent covers, determined which of the several varieties it was - they are not interchangeable, and went down to the RV parts store. It was an easy job to do the replacement.

Extended Problems

In preparation for our upcoming shakedown trip, I went out to check the air on the tires. Who knew that something as critical and seemingly simple, could be so difficult.

The fronts are no problem. Put my digital gauge on them and get a reading. The rears? The rears are another thing all together.

The rears are duals of course so it involves checking the inners and the outers. The outers, which seem like would be easiest are difficult. The valves actually point inward so getting my digital gauge on them is impossible. You need a gauge that has an angled head so you can put it on and pull back to get the reading. Okay, fair enough.

Much to my delight, the inners have a valve extension on them that brings the valve right through the outers and easy to check. Simple right?

Wrong.

I put my gauge on the valve. Press. Nothin'.

Hmm.

I use the cap to press on the valve core to see if I can bleed any air. Nothin'.

The tire isn't flat so I know there is air in there. Why won't it come out?

I finally unscrew the valve extension and put a screw driver through the outer hole to press the valve core. Air comes out.

So, there's something wrong with the valve extension. I check the other side. Same thing. WTF!

I know there are airless valve extensions - extensions with a core that goes the length of the extension. When you press on the extension core, it presses on the valve core to open the valve. The benefit of this kind of extension is that the valve at the tire remains closed normally so if the extension breaks, the tire doesn't go flat.

An internet search indicates that there is an adjustment that needs to be made to make sure the extension core engages the valve core properly when the whole contraption is put together. Cool, I'll just make the adjustments.

Except that my extensions don't seem to have any kind of adjustment mechanism. When I press on the extension core and look at the other end, nothing is moving so nothing is going to be able to push on the tire valve core to open it up and let air in.

The picture shows the extension core removed from the extension. You can see that it doesn't go the full length of the extension so there's some sort of something that is not going on properly at the end. The fact that both of them work (or don't work actually) the same way is perplexing.

The other thing with these extensions is that they are not supported in any fashion. They are simply screwed on and come through one of the holes in the outer. This means they are basically flopping around as the wheel spins going down the highway. The centripetal force pushes them out and indeed, I see scratches on the outer rim where they have rubbed.

On the internet, there are large debates over the merits of valve extensions. Some people swear by them, and some people swear at them.

For the shakedown cruise, I ended up leaving them off. I need to find some sort of solution though because I can't reach the tire valves to check the pressure. I can't even get the cap on or off without laying on the ground and wedging my arm between the tires. This will not do.

It Started with a Hot Dog

This blog is going to (hopefully) chronicle our new adventures in our new (to us - hence old) RV. It's actually not that old but I liked the way the title sounded so just roll with it.

I toyed with just using the old blog or just posting short notes and pictures to Facebook but both of those options sounded lame. I wanted something specific to the RV - which the other blog isn't, and I wanted a little more depth than a Facebook post.

Like most blogs I think, I'm enthusiastic getting started. We'll see how long I can keep this up.

So let's start back at the beginning.

I was born in a small town... Wait, that's too far back. Okay, how's this. We had purchased our first RV back when the kids were little and we were camping with other couples and their kids. We were tired of tents and didn't want to have a truck to drive around when we weren't towing a trailer. That first RV - a 25 ft. Coachmen Class C - was a blast. The other families called it "The Enterprise" because it looked so big in their rearview mirrors when we were caravaning to a campsite.

That RV served us well but as the years went by, it started to get a little long in the tooth. We fought with the airconditioning (the one in the dash) off and on for several years. I'm pretty sure the mice reworked the ductwork in the engine compartment because when the dash vents weren't blowing mouse hair and who knows what else in our faces, they pretty much didn't work at all. I would take it in, pay some ungodly amount of money for the fix, and then on the next trip, it would stop working again.

The fridge hadn't worked when on propane (like when traveling down the road) for years. We would cool it down on shore power at home before a trip, stuff it full of cold food and drinks, and then not open it until we got to power in the campsite - hoping things would stay cold during the drive.

No, we don't know what the Hell that is.

The sidewalls were bubbling - presumably from water leaking in somewhere. The window in the cab-over section had a gasket that had shrunk somehow and was only going about 90% around the window - and presumably leaking.

Oh, and the brakes would randomly seize up going down the road and pull the wheel to one side or the other. We stopped one time after one episode and the left front wheel was smoking.

Other than that though, it was in good shape...

There is an RV dealer just down the road from us and through the years, we would occasionally go down and just browse the new units and talk about what we liked and what we didn't. I always looked in envy at all the storage the bigger models had. Ours had virtually no outside storage compartments. Okay, there were some but we couldn't even fit our camp stove in any of them. It, like most things we took, had to ride on the bed or the cab-over bunk.

It was fun to look but we were putting kids through college and we always got back to "ours is good enough".

Well, in late January, Deb saw an ad in the paper for an Open House at said dealer. "Free Hot Dogs!" it said. We looked at each other and Deb said "Wanna get a hot dog?" So we hopped in the car and headed down to see what they had.

The pattern for these trips is pretty much always the same. It's fun to step into a new unit and look at all the spiffy stuff and, in the high-end ones, the bling. But, after looking at a few, they start to all look the same. And, since I'm not going to get one anyway, I'm quickly ready to leave.

This time though, the second one we went in, had something different. The layout was perfect. It had a dinette and a couch that was across from it. Others had the dinette and the couch on the same side so you felt separated from the other. The back bedroom had a bed that you could walk around (instead of crawl over like ours) and it was in a slide out with side windows. It also had little shelves at the head for books and iPads and such.

Then it started to get good.

It was a 2006 model with only 3 thousand miles on it. It had a backup camera.

It had auto-leveling jacks!

Sold!

Okay, we didn't jump right then but basically it "spoke to us". We went into the indoor showroom to look at others and to find the promised hot dogs. Nothing else really interested us and the hot dogs we got were still frozen - blech!

We ended up finding a salesman and he offered us a test drive. Why not?

It was eerily like our current one. Same Ford chassis - although a bigger motor - and same dash and overall sound. It drove well and stopped on a dime. It was amazingly quiet too. I'm sure the squeaks will come soon enough but it was blissfully quiet.

At this point, we were tumbling down that slippery slope that seems to surround everything we do.

We talked with the manager and he gave us a crazy good price. He also gave us a price on our trade based on the year and mileage - pending actual inspection (crap). So we raced home and started jettisoning everything out of our beast. Wow, there was a lot of stuff in there! All the time we were unloading things and trying to clean it up as best we could, we were hoping against hope that they would not see all the problems and scuttle the deal.

At one point during the discussion earlier, the salesman had said that we would have to list down all the things that were wrong with it. I thought "I don't have that much ink in all the pens in the house to list all that!" and was wondering what I could "forget about".

We drove it back to the dealer and a guy came out to look it over.  I had made a counter offer since I didn't want to just take their price and our hearts were in our mouths as the guy did the inspection. I was hoping he wouldn't see the hole I had poked in the paper-thin, rotted wall when I was vacuuming it out 10 minutes earlier.

The inspector dude huddled with the salesman and then the salesman came over. "Okay, deal",  he said.

I think Deb peed her pants but I was perfectly stoic.

He never did ask for a list of issues with it and I never offered one.

We couldn't actually drive it home since they had to transfer the registration and do the final prep.

We came back the following week, hoping that they hadn't done a further inspection of our trade-in and  decided to cancel the deal.

We did a walk through with a guy who knew less about it than I did. I wanted to verify the jacks were working but neither he nor I knew how to deploy them. He got another tech to come over and do it and we found that they didn't all deploy correctly. The tech played with some adjustments and finally got all the jacks working. It sounds like a Transformer transforming when those things are deploying. I'm looking forward to arriving at a campground late and sounding like a trash compactor as I deploy my legs.

The salesman was getting antsy to leave so we wrapped it up and Deb followed me home.

This thing is big! It's 31 feet which is about 6 feet longer than our old one and it's a big difference. The good thing though is that it's narrower. Our old one was a "wide-body" to try and make up for not having slide outs. With the slide outs "in", this one is a bit slimmer.

The only downside is that we bought it in February and we won't be able to camp in it until April so it's  going to be a long wait for our first trip.