Our RV Adventures

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!â€. 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.â€

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.

Today, February 6th, marks 9 years since Jan and I embarked on the wild and crazy life of Full-Time RV’ing. And it certainly has been a wild ride.

We’ve made a lot of great friends, and unfortunately lost a few along way. We’ve RV’d in every state, except Nebraska and Kansas (and Hawaii, of course). But we plan on taking care of NE and KS in the next few months.

We bought our American Eagle December 27th, 2007 from Roman Holiday Motorhomes on I-35 between New Braunfels and San Marcos. Mr. Roman bought up high-end coaches, checked them out, detailed them, and put them on his lot.

We had narrowed our choice down to the 1999 American Eagle and a 2000 Tiffin Zephyr, but finally went with the Eagle. It had about 65,000 miles on it, just about perfect for an 8 year old rig. Not too much, not too little.

We came back to pick it up January 6th after they had fixed a couple of things and put on new tires. We spent about three hours on the walk-thru going over every system with me watching and Jan taking notes.

As it turned out, our first RV trip was just to the Canyon Trail RV Park, about 8 miles up I-35. We figured we would stay there for a day or two going over the rig ourselves to be sure we understood everything, and could ask Roman Holiday about what we didn’t. But we didn’t find any problems so the next day we headed back to the Houston area.

We had already picked out Oasis RV Park down in La Marque to stay for a month or so until we headed out, so we left Canyon Trail about 10am for the 220 mile trip back to La Marque.

Although I had driven 36 foot U-Hauls before, and even a diesel tanker out at WSTF (White Sands Test Facility) during my NASA days, they weren’t MINE, so to avoid traffic I decided to take Hwy 6 down to Dickinson rather than the 610 Loop or Beltway 8. But this turned out to be not so good an idea.

I had never driven on the upper end of Hwy 6 where it turned out to be miles of stop and go traffic, only the end down towards toward Alvin where it’s more wide open. But we made it with no problems, with Jan was following me in the truck since we didn’t have a towing system set up yet.

We spent the next month getting ready to roll. I ordered a Blue Ox tow bar for the rig and a Blue Ox baseplate for the truck, and spent a couple of days installing the baseplate on our Dodge Dakota. I guess I did a good job because it hasn’t fallen off yet.

Finally, Wednesday, February 6th 2008, we headed for Fairbanks, AK. Well, not directly. But it was our ultimate goal. However our first stop was actually the Monterey’s Mexican Restaurant in Dickinson. It was a favorite of ours, and with their large parking lot, an easy stop. And a tradition that last the next 6 years, with us always stopping there for lunch on our way out of town for the year.

But in making the 9 mile trip from the park to Monterey’s, Jan almost decided to call it quits. The ride was extremely rough, much rougher than I remembered it being coming down from New Braunfels. And Jan said, “If it’s going to be this rough all the way to Alaska, I’m not going.â€

So when we got parked at the restaurant, and before we went in, I put in a call to American Coach Tech Support.

When I told the young lady my problem, she kind of chuckled and asked me if I could see the top of the front tires in the wheel wells. When I told her I couldn’t, she said my airbags were turned off.

Now our Eagle has the optional switch that let’s me manually dump the airbags without having it done automagically when I lower the levelers. And I remember playing with it right after we got parked at Oasis.

So I went inside to look and told her that AIR RELEASE switch was in the OFF position. She then asked if the rocker switch was pushed in at the top or the bottom?

I told it was pushed in at the bottom, and she again chuckled and said that’s the OFF position. I then ask her why it says AIR RELEASE at the top of the switch, You would think that you would push the switch in at the top to ‘release’ the air.

She said, “Beats me. You’re not the first person to get it confused.â€

Seems it would make more sense to have just labeled it AIRBAGS ON and OFF. But they didn’t asked me. They don’t seem to ask me about a lot of things, and I think the world is worse off for it.

Coming out from lunch I cranked up and the coach came right up on the airbags, and now I could now see the top of the front tires below the wheel wells.

So of course it was smooth sailing after that.

Well, not exactly.

But we did end up in Fairbanks, AK on April 26th, two and a half months later, only to have this two days later.

But more of our Year One adventures in tomorrow’s blog.

Thought for the Day:

Sad, But True.

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