Our RV Adventures

Many of you are sharing our blog with others using the “Share this:” buttons at the bottom of each blog. Again, Thanks.

It seems like about this time every year the whining starts, both in print and online. The articles, from places like AAA and DOT, all hammer at a common theme – people are traveling less this summer due to the high cost of gas . .  . or diesel.

And now I’m seeing Facebook posts about people aren’t going to travel in their RV near as much this summer, or maybe even not at all. All due to the increased cost of diesel. But when I run the math, this never makes sense to me.

Let’s say a family had been planning a vacation this summer, driving 300 miles to a resort area, and then of course, 300 miles back, for a trip total of 600 miles. Now most family cars these days get at least 20 mpg, so let’s use that figure.

So with a 600 mile trip and 20 mpg, that gives us 600/20 = 30 gallons of gas used for the trip. Now the most recent low gasoline price I remember in the Houston area was $1.93 per gallon last August. And today’s price around here is $2.53, so that’s a rise of 60 cents per gallon.

Then with using 30 gallons on the trip gives us 30 x .60, for an increase of $18. That’s an extra $18 in the total cost of your vacation. If there’s a problem with an additional $18 in your vacation budget, you probably shouldn’t be going on vacation at all.

On the diesel front, I’ll just use our upcoming trip next month up to Illinois and then back down through Alabama and finally home, for a total of about 2200 miles.

Now our rig averages between 8 and 8-1/2 mpg. So let’s use 8 mpg. 2200 divided by 8 gives us 275 gallons used for the trip. And around here, diesel’s gone up about 30 cents per gallon, so that’s give us a total increase of about $83. Or about 4 cents per mile more. Certainly not enough to cause us to cancel our trip.

Or whine about it, either.

Jan and I headed out about 1:30 this afternoon with a first stop at our new storage room to drop off some more storage stuff. Jan also went through the genealogy stuff to pull out some things that she wants to take with us up to her sister’s in Illinois.

Then it was up to Webster to have lunch at East Star Chinese Buffet again. Just as delicious as always. And they keep the place spotless, even the restrooms. Jan said that someone was scrubbing the floor with a big soapy brush, and I noticed that they had even scrubbed down the diaper changing station in the men’s room.

Then it was on to my client’s to pick up an Amazon package, then WalMart, and then home.

Another nice day.

Thought for the Day: 

“People demand Freedom of Speech as compensation for the Freedom of Thought, which they seldom use.” – Kierkegaard  

ghdgh

Work today was another of those times when I took care of a bunch of small things, but just didn’t seem to get a lot really done.

I’m making a list (or lists) of all the things I want to have done before we leave on our 3 week trip to Illinois and Alabama  in a little over a month. I’m still hoping to get the two websites moved from an in-house server up onto Godaddy’s servers. We’ll see.

I mentioned yesterday that Brandi and her friend Chantelle are spending the week down in the Dominican Republic’s Punta Cana resort area, staying at the Hard Rock Resort & Casino.

And for free due to the sales contests that Chantelle has won.

And for a going-away present, Landon built this Mother’s Day artwork for her.

I swear the kid can build pretty much anything from Lego’s.

Recently the AC blower in our truck became intermittent and then died. At first I thought it was the motor itself, which I had already replaced in 2015. But when I tried to pull apart the connector to check for 12vdc coming in, the motor roared to life . . . for a few seconds, anyway. And when I pulled the connector apart, I found that it looked like this inside.

So it was off to AutoZone to get one of these

to replace the burnt one.

I had planned to splice the new one in using crimp connectors, but didn’t have enough slack on one side so I had to solder those wires and cover them with heat-shrink tubing. Then I sprayed it with Strike-Hold and it was fixed.

This past Friday afternoon we had our RV Mobile Lube visit for our biennial (triennial?)RV servicing.

I asked for the:

Full Engine Service:
Change oil and filter, lube chassis and driveline, replace all fuel filters on diesel & correct tire pressure

Full Generator Service
Change oil and filter, change air filter, and change fuel filter

Coolant Test
Using Cummins Test Strips

And A Possible Air Filter Change
I was hoping I wouldn’t need a new filter due to the cost.

All of this took about 90 minutes. One thing new is that now I don’t have to run the RV and the Generator for a while to warm the oil up so it will drain properly. They use a vacuum pump that just sucks it all out. The tech appreciates it since he doesn’t have to work under a hot engine and  generator.

On two previous visits I had the transmission fluid changed out using Transynd synthetic fluid. This extended my next transmission service out to 185,000 miles. Since we’re presently at 147,000 miles, it’s very possible that we’ll never need it serviced again before we hang up the keys, or they drop from my cold, dead fingers, anyway.

Richard, the tech, said everything looked good, and the coolant tested good, too. He did replace both the engine and the generator oil drain plugs since they were getting a little chewed up.

When he pulled the air cleaner out to take a look at it, I was happy to see that the output side that goes into the engine was clean and white.

But then he turned it over and banged the input side on the ground, and it looked like two or three ‘bird’s nests’ fell out. A lot of grass, twigs, bits of paper, etc., and the inside was brownish-black. So it had to be replaced.

And here’s what it looks like installed.

So now it was time to crank the engine to be sure that the engine was primed and ready to go. So I turned the key …and nothing. Just silence.

Richard said he could hear the lift pump starting up, so it was getting power. After trying a couple of more times, even using the AUX Start switch, we still got nothing.

Talking it over, Richard asked about a disconnected plug he had seen while he was replacing the air filter.

Having nothing to lose, I had him plug it back together, and . . . rumble, rumble, vrooom!. He said that the lock on the plug is apparently broken so it won’t stay together. I’ll ty-wrap it in the next few days.

So the cost worked out to:

$400 –  Full Engine Service
$200 –  Full Generator Service
$  20 –  New Drain Plugs

and the one that hurt –

$250 –  New Air Filter

That totaled up to:

$870

But I’m good for at least another two years, maybe more, depending oh how much we travel. The last time I had it Full-Serviced was 2015 so that averages out to about $250 per year for routine maintenance. Not bad.

Thought for the Day: 

“No power gets exercised more vociferously than small power.” – Mark Twain

ghbdgh,