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.