Our RV Adventures

We should be parked at the Colorado River Thousand Trails, and we’re really looking forward to seeing all the kids, and our friends.

What with our doctor visits on the 20th and 27th, and a couple of things our son Chris is going to fix on the truck, along with a couple of repairs on the rig, and some general maintenance getting us ready to travel, it’s going to be a busy time.

I’m going to take a break for a couple of days recounting our first year on the road. I’ve found out over the years we have a lot of readers who aren’t RV’ers and I don’t want them to get bored.

Besides I hate ‘theme’ issues. You know, that’s when your favorite magazine does every article relating to the same theme one month. Now that’s great if you happen to like the theme.

But I seem to get ones like “Underwater Water Polo. Everything you need to know about the sport.” Or “Climbing Mt. Everest. Where to Start.”

Or even “Climb inside the new M1 Abrams tank and take it for a spin.” OK, I probably would read that one. But you get what I’m saying.

I like to break it up a bit.

Jan and I have been trying to figure where we want to travel this year. Or at least the first part of this year. Because we have to be back in Houston for a big family reunion the end of June, that means we have about 90 days of travel time starting the 1st of April after the Tucson Escapade.

First off, we want to do our usual Verde Valley and Las Vegas Thousand Trails, then Jan said she wants to the Rapid City/Deadwood area again, where we haven’t been since 2008.

So that gives us this route so far.

Then we’re trying to decide if we want to go west or east.

If we go west then it will be at least as far as the Bend/Sunriver TT in Oregon, and maybe as far as the Long Beach TT.

But Jan’s also thinking about going east after Rapid City, over to the Elkhart area. So that would give us this.

Strangely enough, with the two completely different routes, there’s only a little over 100 mile difference between the two.

One disadvantage that I see to the east route is that we once again bypass Kansas and Nebraska, the last two states we haven’t RV’ed in. But not a big deal.

I don’t know what it is about gates and sunsets, but we always seem to have to have some good ones.

Thought for the Day:

An Oldie, but Goodie.

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First, I’ve finally got a date and a time for our Seminar “Oil Field Gate Guarding for Fun? and Profit” at the upcoming 57th Escapade starting March 19th in Tucson.

It’s going to be Wednesday, March 22, at 11:30am in Old Pueblo Rm 4. That’s really a great time for us since it backs up into the lunch period, and people can hang around and ask more questions without us having to vacate the room for the next speaker.

Since I had so many positive comments about yesterday’s blog about our first year on the road, I thought I’d continue on with it.

After finishing lunch at Monterey’s and resolving our airbag issue, we hit the road for real, heading back to the Canyon Trail RV Park in New Braunfels once again. We wanted to visit our now-late long-time friend Gina Ellis who lived nearby and show her our new RV.

Our next stop was the KOA in Junction, TX, and then on to Las Cruces, NM. The trip from Junction to Las Cruces was 487 miles, a distance that we drove regularly in our first few years. But we’ve slowed down over the years, and now try to limit our daily trips to around 250 miles or so. After Las Cruces, our next stop was the Pinal County Fairgrounds in Casa Grande, AZ to attend our now-good friend’s Nick and Terry Russell’s Gypsy Journal RV Rally.

We had actually met Nick and Terry the year before when we rented a CruiseAmerica Class C and attended a Life On Wheels seminar in Tucson in March 2007. Although we had already started working toward full-time RV’ing, we did the Class C thing to be sure that we really liked it, since we had never done it before. Turns out we were hooked. And, of course, still are.

After learning an amazing amount about RV’ing, making a lot of new friends, and Nick making Jan cry in his The Reluctant RV’er seminar, our next travels took us through a stop in Gila Bend and finally onto the Chula Vista RV Resort where we stayed right on the Pacific Ocean, our fanciest (and most expensive) RV park so far.

At this point our next ‘hard’ date was back in Tucson around the middle of March for our 2nd (and unfortunately, last) Life On Wheels seminar. So we spent a lot of time in the San Diego/Los Angeles area, taking in the San Diego Zoo and Wildlife parks, the Queen Mary, the Aquarium, and many other sights, and staying in places like Escondido, Temecula, and Tucalota Springs.

Finally, by the first week in March, we were at the Boulder Oaks RV Park in Boulder City, NV, overlooking Lake Meade, which was our base to do Las Vegas and the Boulder Dam. Then on March 11th, leaving Boulder City and heading for the Meteor Crater RV about 40 miles east of Flagstaff, we encountered our first major breakdown.

Cruising along on I-40 about 40 miles or so west of Flagstaff, I hear, and feel, a large ‘WHOOMP!”. Quickly pulling over, and assuming I’d had a blow-out (on brand-new tires??), I got out to check. And found nothing wrong.

Both the rig and toad tires were just fine, and the engine, which I had left running, sounded fine, so what caused the noise? Well, getting back into the rig, and starting to pull out again, I then saw the problem. In the few minutes I had been sitting there, the engine coolant temperature was creeping in the red.

Rut Roh!

Turning off the engine and going back outside, I opened the engine compartment and took a look. The radiator on our Cummins 350 ISC is on the driver’s side of the coach, and looking to the left at the radiator fan, I said to myself, “I’m sure there used to be blades on that fan.”

But the 24” diameter fan had been reduced a few jagged stumps sticking up from the hub. And even worse I could now see antifreeze leaking from a gash in the radiator. So we weren’t going any further today. At least not under our own power.

Before I came inside I went ahead and unhooked the truck to get ready to be towed. Then back inside, and through the miracles of cellphones, GPS, and the Internet, I got busy.

My first call of course was to Good Sam Emergency Road Service to tell them I needed a tow into Flagstaff. The GPS told me exactly where I was, so I was able to give Good Sam the mile marker where we were, and the exit they would need to turn around at to get back to us.

Next was a hotel reservation in Flagstaff, and with that information I was on the phone to Spartan, our Eagle’s chassis manufacturer, to have a new fan blade overnighted to the hotel. They said it would go out that afternoon.

I love it when a plan comes together.

A  little research on the Internet gave me an idea of where I wanted the coach taken, but I thought I’d check with the tow driver first. And he showed up a little over an hour after I called Good Sam. Great response time

With the driver confirming my choice of repair places, and that that was where he was planning to take us, I put in a call to them to let me know we were coming, what the problem was, and that I would have a new fan for them tomorrow morning.

The driver spent about an hour prepping the coach, disconnecting and securing the driveshaft, and then plugging his truck’s compressor into our rig to supply air pressure to release the brakes. And we were off.

From the time I called Good Sam, it was about four hours until we were parked in the shop’s yard. They let us plug into 120v to keep the fridge running and a heater going to keep rig cat’s Mister and Emma warm.

By time I got over there the next morning, they almost had the radiator out. I told them while they were at it to see if it needed cleaning.(it didn’t). They called the next afternoon and said it was ready to go, so I went over and settled up, and told them we’d pick the rig up the morning.