I don't know, maybe it's taking longer to recover from the epic adventure than I thought, or maybe I just don't want to go back and re-live all the dumb problems...but it's been hard to get motivated to finish this...but anyway, here goes.
I guess it all starts with heading to Las Vegas in the heat. We're riding in a big tin can (well OK fiberglass and aluminum and stuff) with a driver's compartment that is like a big, I mean HUGE greenhouse. Really big windows. There is no way the dash air conditioner is going to cool that joint when you are rolling down a highway in 110 degree heat. I imagine the surface temp of the road is 130-140. So we were hammer down and trying to stay cool. But we were miserable. In fact Joni was so overheated she couldn't even eat dinner that night. I seriously had thoughts of turning around and calling it off. (which, of course, I wisely kept to myself) It must have been the 2nd or 3rd day when I finally did the smart thing- run the generator while traveling down the road. That way you can run the 2 house air conditioners on the roof. Well, that was brilliant. We nearly died of heat stroke before we realized it was ok to run the genny. For God's sake there is a generator start/stop switch right on the dash!! So we learned to set the A/C units to cool and just start the genny whenever it got too hot in there.
Day 2 was pretty mellow. The only thing we remember not working was the driver side window shades wouldn't go down. Of course you don't realize this until 10PM when you want to go to bed. One of us is more concerned with "privacy" than the other...so we spun the seat around to block the window and called it good. The next day the shades worked fine! Gremlins.
I think it was day 3, on our way from Zion to Provo, when we lost power to the cigarette lighter, and all the USB ports on the dash and co-pilot station. Doesn't sound like too big a deal, until you realize that cig lighter powered the Garmin navigator. The Garmin is important because of well, the obvious, but also it is RV specific and has the height/weight/length of our RV programmed in- that way it (hopefully) keeps you off of roads you shouldn't be on. Like the ones with low overpasses and really important stuff like that. So, we had to resort to running Waze on the phone for navigation. Waze is really effective for finding you the quickest route from point A to point B... but it doesn't give a hoot about what you are driving. One day we ended up taking a Waze recommended detour to avoid a major mess on the interstate. So we were about 2 miles into this detour when the road got more and more rural...then came the signs no vehicles over 5 ton...or something like that. We literally had to turn around and go back the way we came, get back on the interstate and sit in the traffic jam. Anyway, I was trying to find out where the fuse box was that contained a fuse for the cig lighter and USBs, and that turned into an entertaining web surf, as EVERYONE has had the problem but NO ONE can tell you where the stinking fuse is located. Turns out there are at least 5 fuse panels and a residential style circuit breaker panel in this coach. Most of the fuse boxes I can't even get to. Most of the stories I read on the web were people who still haven't found the fuse. When they call the manufacturer, they usually say "you just have to look for it because the engineers move them around all the time"- different models, same models-different floor plans, blah, blah, blah. So today, as I type this we still have no power up there.
Also day 3, in Provo UT, we had our first of many "issues" with the wheelchair lift. It was late evening. We had just had a glass of wine outside at the picnic table...under a tree...whispering wind in the trees and darkness falling...all that. We were beginning to get attacked by mosquitoes and darn good and ready to hi-tail it inside, and the lift would NOT unfold. So we are sitting there going, crap, it's late it's dark, and we are stuck outside. What the?! I look at the remote control that runs the thing. The lights are NOT illuminated. No power to the controls. Houston we have a problem. So I am trying to figure out how this thing works. Unscrew the controller. Screw it back in. No power. Do it again. (because why believe it the first time) No luck. OK, we're screwed. Really. Somewhere around this time I think I closed the door and started over by opening the door and the control lights came on. Everything worked so we got in as fast as we could and called it a night.
The next morning-same problem. But putting 2 and 2 together I realized the culprit was a little button that pops out when the door opens. Actually smart engineering because that way you can't try to unfold the lift with the door closed. Makes perfect sense. Except for when the button doesn't do what it is supposed to do. So I lubed it up with some olive oil (you read that right) and that seemed to do the trick. At least the next time it happens, we'll know where to look.
I think it was Casper WY but I can't really remember, when Joni plugged in the blow dryer in the bedroom and tripped a circuit breaker. I kind of just blew it off, told her to use the bathroom outlet because 1. it still works and 2. It's on a GFI, so at least it will trip where we can easily re-set it. So when it came time to go to bed, I realized that the whole bedroom was off line. None of the 110AC outlets work. I need power to run my CPAP! So I go through the circuit breaker box and find no tripped breakers. I'm looking everywhere for fuses/gfis, anything! No luck. So I go out to the basement and get a 50 foot (cause that's the shortest I had) extension cord and run it from the bathroom to the bedside. Cool. We're just about to get in bed when I realize we have a completely deflated sleep number bed. IT NEEDS Power. Now I am really on a mission to find the problem. I think it was about 1 AM at this point, and suddenly it occurred to me that the bedroom outlets are all fed by an inverter. In the infinite wisdom of Newmar they designed this coach with inverter power to the entertainment systems so that even if you are boondocking you can still watch jeopardy and the wheel. And the bedroom entertainment center is on the same circuit as the rest of the bedroom outlets. The inverter lives outside in a basement compartment and sure enough, I found a tripped breaker there. one push of the button and we're back in the saddle. Learning more stuff I didn't know I needed to know.
On day 5, when we stopped for gas, I noticed that the generator was leaking oil. So next day I made some phone calls to local mobile RV repair guys. Most were booked out a week, and I left a message on a couple voice mails.
So this evening we got back and we're having a cocktail when there's a knock on the door. Joni opens the door and there's 2 guys standing there, and the one guy says "I'm Brian, you called me about repairs, and I just got the message that you're here at the Elks Lodge, and me and my buddy here were just pulling in for opening night of league dart throwing".
You can't make this stuff up! So the one guy dives into my generator compartment and finds a loose oil filter. He cleaned it, re-installed it and topped up the oil. The other guy says I'll call you tomorrow to come back for the fuse issue but we gotta get in for Darts. So I give them a 20 for the first bucket of beers and they go on their way! I'm serious when I say I've never seen nicer people than South Dakota! Anyway, the generator is back in service for whenever we need it. Oh, and Brian called me back 2 days later when we were heading out of Rapid City to see if he could come look for that fuse. I said too late we are already gone. Then he related to me that he spent 4 hours yesterday looking for the same fuse on another coach and never found it! LOL.
2 days later we were about to leave out of Chamberlain, SD, when the toilet seat broke. The screws that hold the seat on the bowl stripped out on one side. Suffice it to say that no one likes a toilet seat that slides around on the bowl! So somewhere around Sioux Falls we stopped at a Home Depot and I ran in to get a new toilet seat. No biggie, except, who knew the bolt spacing on the RV toilet was different than residential. By like 2 inches. So faced with the prospect of trying to find an RV store, or keep moving, I opted to just go up one size in the attachment screws. That worked great, except that the screw head was a little larger and didn't quite counter sink. So I put a little piece of blue tape over the screw heads to keep them from scratching the porcelain. All this stuff can get fixed for real when we get home, right?!
That night, or was it the next day, I'm not sure. We were at On-Ur-Wa RV Park in Iowa and Joni was coming back from the laundry room. I was in the coach and when she tried to unfold the lift it wouldn't budge. So there we were- me stuck inside, she stuck outside and no idea what the hell was going on! After noodling out what seemed like the obvious possibilities with no luck, I just grabbed the lift and shook the dickens out of it. Which worked! So, apparently there is another really smart/safe limit switch somewhere that senses where the lift is and apparently the hydraulics are relaxing enough to drop out of contact with that limit switch. So after another momentary panic, all is well again.
I'm not sure if it was Columbus, OH or Bedford, PA where we arrived after bouncing down some horribly dilapidated interstate, but that night I began to extend the bedroom slide on the driver's side and it hung up. Now these slides have manual "locks", basically a hinge joint that you can lift up into the locked position or pull down into the unlocked position. These are designed to keep the slides from "rattling" around when you're going down the road. Some people use them. Some don't. Me, I like to lock the big slide up front, but the bedroom locks are nearly impossible for us to reach so we don't ever lock them. Anyway, I ran the slide back closed and tried again. About the time I noticed that the rearmost top corner was not moving with the rest of it I heard a snap!. I closed the slide back in and thought- the only thing possible is the slide lock got locked. I climbed on the bed and hung off the other side and felt around the corner and sure enough the slide lock was locked! It rattled into the locked position- which seems impossible because it actually takes pretty good UPWARD force to lock it. While over there I found the source of the snap I heard. The night stand was laying on the floor. It used to be attached to the slide wall, but apparently when the top hung up it tilted the slide enough to knock it off. Add to repair list.
Well we made it the rest of the way to Florham Park without incident. We were beginning to think our troubles were behind us!! HAHA!
When we arrived in Florham Park and parked in Mom's driveway, I texted my nephew Eric who is an electrician (and a caring, capable and trustworthy helper to his Nana) and asked him if Mom's electric service at her 62 year old house was up for me plugging the coach into it. He replied it was fine, in fact he had upgraded her service a few years back. So, we ran an extension cord up to an outdoor receptacle and called it good. Early the next morning- shortly after I turned on the coffee pot- I get a call from Mom saying "I was just sitting here reading and my light went out"! Uh-oh.
No A/C power in the coach either. Sooooo….It looks like we tripped a breaker. Mom's breaker box is downstairs. I can't get to it. She can't get to it...so it will have to wait. I can't remember who was the first one over, but whoever came by got to go in and re-set the breaker and all was good.
The next day, a bunch of my college buddies came by to hang out and we were sitting out front having drinks and snacks and yucking it up. We were in and out of the coach and the lift was out on the ground. At some point Joni was going to use the lift and when she got on she saw that the door was closed up against the side of the lift. Um. That ain't right! So upon further inspection, it appeared as though some dummy (me) unwittingly activated the remote door closer and the door closed against the side of the lift and was stuck. Oh, and the remote would no longer open or close the door. It was big time stuck. Well, we did the only thing that could be done. Take off the powered linear actuator and motor and inspect it. Sure enough there was a bunch of burnt stuff in there where there shouldn't be. Toast. As my electronic gadget guys like to say "this thing won't work once you let the smoke out"!
Plan B...which used to be plan A before we added the power door actuator...tie a dog leash on the door, and some rope on the latch and grab a long handled Swiffer. With the right combination of pulling and pushing (sprinkle in a little cursing) you can open and close the door manually. All we had to do in addition to that is install the original "striker" for the latch to work. Luckily I had the striker in a drawer. So the epic adventure will continue. I made some calls and ordered a replacement part to be shipped to Sheila's house in Annapolis. Overnight. So with a little luck, when we get to Annapolis we can get this thing replaced.
That night I took the dog out for a pee at around midnight. When the lift hit the ground he took off and I let loose the leash by mistake, and he was off. Oh no. The old dog can't hear (not that he ever listened anyway) and he can barely see. So he goes off to the next door neighbors and I am following him across the lawn which is kinda slow going for me. He goes up on their front porch and won't come down. Like he's expecting them to open the door and let him in. So finally he comes down, I lunge for the leash and miss and he goes on down to next house and disappears into the bushes. I need help. So I go back and call Joni out to join the party. I head back down the street looking for him, but apparently he had back-tracked and was by the coach. He walks toward Joni and right before he gets within her reach he takes a turn and heads across the street to another neighbor's yard. I guess he got bored after a bit and walked back. This time Joni put a wheel on his leash and corralled him back into the coach. G'night.
Next day, we headed out to Gettysburg. We stopped for gas somewhere and after filling up I got in, pulled the door shut with the dog leash and set out. We were just about to turn onto the highway on-ramp when a car pulled up alongside us honking and waving and carrying on. You could see that something was REALLY wrong and he seemed to be pointing at the lift door. So I eased it over on the side of the on-ramp and went back to inspect. Sure enough the door was not closed/latched. Probably was swinging in the breeze a little as we drove down the road. YIKES. Anyway I attempted to get it closed and it WOULD NOT latch. It seemed like it just wasn't hitting that striker right. Most likely when the striker was re-installed we didn't adjust it quite perfectly. All my tools are outside in one of the basement bins and we are on the shoulder of a freeway on ramp with no room to open the lift and get out. So I found one ratchet wrench in a kitchen drawer, of course not the right size, so I used it like a hammer, which seemed to do nothing. Then I reverted to the next best thing - olive oil. Again. I greased that sucker up and pulled the dog leash like no tomorrow and bam that door closed and latched. On the road again...
In Gettysburg we did that epic guided tour of the battlefields. The tour guide climbed into the coach and took us all over for 2 hours. The battlefield area is pretty extensive and we drove quite a bit. On some teeny tiny roads. And challenging terrain. A few times I asked the tour guide "are you sure I can go down that road?". He always replied "I see the buses do it". Well I don't know what the wheelbase and ground clearance is on those buses, but holy cow! So he tells me to turn right up ahead just past that rock. OK. I'm trying to turn a forty foot bus with a HUGE overhang behind the rear wheels onto a 10 foot wide road with a ditch on the side of it. As I tried to bend it, I dropped the right side rear wheels into a hole. Totally bottomed out the rear overhang. I hesitated for an instant wondering how bad the damage would be and how to get out of this. Then I threw caution to the wind, gave 'er the gas and drug it up out of the hole. No real visible damage but the underside of the rearmost cargo bin is crushed. The door won't open. And hasn't since. Put that on the growing list of repairs.
As we were approaching the end of our tour, literally about 5 minutes from the end, our tour guide suddenly yelled STOP! We were on a small road driving right alongside a battlefield when Fran the guide spotted a man face down in the field. He said I have to go help. Now, Fran was a retired nurse anesthetist and former hospital administrator. As I got the rig stopped he was out the door and yelling for Joni to call 911. Which she did. It appeared there were a couple people with this gentleman and Fran started CPR. Meanwhile I managed to get the motor home off the road and into a little gravel parking lot at a small ranger station directly across the street. I swear it took 20 minutes for an ambulance to get there, and Fran did CPR that whole time. After they got the guy into the ambulance Fran came back, clearly exhausted, and we just said let's get you to your car so you can get home. He was offering to get another guide to finish the tour. We said no thanks and dropped him off. He was a great guy and did hero's work out there, but he texted me later that night to tell me the man died.
In Annapolis we picked up the new linear actuator, but of course I can't reach the top of the door to install it and I didn't want to impose on my sister or her kids to try to do the work. And my brother in law was out of town so we figured we would hire a tech down the road to do the install. (And while we were setting up camp, one of the rear bedroom slides was hanging up. I had my nephew Jack check the slide locks and then he pushed the slide while I hit the switch. That worked real well...need to remember to have all the slides serviced)
Me- I actually "knew" we would find someone down the road- camped next to us that would be more than willing to help out. Sure enough next night in Virginia, we got to talking to our next door neighbors. They actually had 3 sites- 3 couples all related, having a nice week long camp trip. They were super nice folks from Virginia and North Carolina. Anyway that evening I asked the guys if they would be so kind as to install the motor. They said sure, how about 10AM tomorrow, which was perfect. It's actually a fairly easy install, and one of the guys came by right around 10 and had it done before the second guy showed up. We removed the striker, ran the door a few times and called it good. I thanked them and they went off on their hike for the day. So we finished packing up and hopped into the seats ready for a drive to Tennessee. When I put the key in the ignition all hell broke loose. There is a red light flashing on the dashboard and an obnoxiously loud, shrill alarm screaming like crazy. OMG. Well, this thing is there to alert you if the lift is out, or the door is open or something like that. In other words, you can't drive off unless the lift is stowed properly. But, in fact the lift IS stowed properly AND the door is closed. Great. Well, out of the driver seat and back to look at the stupid lift and door. I can't find a thing wrong. Everything operates properly yet each time I try to start the engine it's like Armageddon. So it looks like this is gonna take a while. I found a wheelchair lift shop in Richmond, about an hour away and I called them. They had more questions than answers, but agreed to try to help. This guy spent the next 3 or 4 hours back and forth on the phone- with me, and with Newmar Corp., because the lift is actually installed by the motor home builder and they would have been the ones to wire it. All this to try to identify where and how the "interconnect" is wired so we can troubleshoot it. Meanwhile we extended our reservation for another night. I was pretty happy to stay there. It was the nicest RV resort I have seen and the weather was perfect. Around 5:00 PM I was riding the lift and I saw a little micro switch tab sticking out of the cross member. It was bent a weird way, and I said to myself "self, that ain't right". I poked that tab back into the cross member and bent it over. Essentially guaranteeing that the switch was closed. I went up front and turned the key and bingo! Problem solved. At exactly that moment, the Richmond repair guy called and said he was sending a truck. Something like $140 an hour starting when they leave the shop. I said "whoa now fella" (not really). I told him I found the problem and fixed it. He was glad. I offered to pay him for the time he had already put in and he said no. He said "I've been doing this for 30 years, this is what we do." So we sat back and enjoyed a relaxing evening. Oh, and Joni sent him a nice basket of goodies from San Luis Obispo county!
However, getting to Virginia wasn't all smooth. When we left Kent Island we went back over the Chesapeake Bay bridge and continued west on that highway whatever it is called. Somewhere just on the Annapolis side of the bridge I noticed in the right turn camera something was flapping around in front of the lens. It had rained the night before and I was thinking it might be a leaf stuck to the camera. But it didn't go away, so Joni hung her head out the window and inspected. Sure enough, the front fender was coming apart from the front cap and flapping. Yikes! So I jumped off the freeway at the next exit which shot us straight into downtown Annapolis. If you have ever been there you know that the roads are not designed for 40 foot RVs. Holy cow. So we had to make a loop through downtown Annapolis which was pretty funny and head back out toward the freeway. Finally found a stretch of road with a wide shoulder and a sidewalk I could get out on. What I found was the fiberglass fender had separated from the front cap and the wind was getting under there and pushing out the fender. There was already damage to the fiberglass fender so I needed to fix immediately. It appears that the two parts were bonded together, not bolted. So next best thing- duct tape. I put some duct tape on and got back on the freeway. It held for a couple miles and then let loose. So we bailed off the freeway again and ended up at a Home Depot in what was probably the worst neighborhood in D.C. or Baltimore or wherever we were. I literally put my gun in my pocket before going out of the coach. Oh yeah, and when I went to get out of the driver seat my wheelchair had a flat tire. No doubt picked up a thorn during my first tape job. I remember that I was up against a holly bush! So first I had to get a tube, and drag the air compressor into the coach so I could fix the flat. OK, that done I commenced to survey the situation with the fender. I concluded it was going to need a professional repair and we got on the phone to see if we could get anyone out there. It wasn't very promising, one guy said he could come in a couple hours...And we were getting pretty spooked by the drug deals we were witnessing and the generally unsavory characters all around. Apparently there was a homeless day care, or drug rehab or something right next door which provided a steady stream of trouble. So I decided the best bet was to duct tape the dickens out of the fender and move on. While I was out there taping one such character walked up to inspect my work and said "yep- just like that ought to work. Now put some tape the other direction too"! Thanks bro.
A half roll of duct tape later we were on the road and solid. Another fix to add to the repair list. As we dove off in silence I could sense that Joni was seriously pissed. So I said do you want me to take you to the airport? She said yes. And then added what about Lance? I said he'll fend for himself. Thank goodness for Lance because Joni decided to stay and make sure he travelled safely.
Bristol, TN- we rolled in in the late afternoon, well actually early evening and we missed our left turn into the campground. The road we were on had an occasional U-turn cut in the divider, but it didn't look like the road was wide enough for us to U-turn without causing a mess. After about 2 miles of looking for a place to turn around I got antsy and turned onto a street to the right. A rather narrow street. I tuned into a driveway and then attempted to pull a K turn out of the driveway. When backing up I stuck the rear driver side corner into the embankment and cracked the fiberglass rear cap. DOH! That's a nice souvenir from Bristol.
I believe we made it all the way through TN, AR, and most of Oklahoma without incident. Then we were tooling down I40 outside of OK City when I heard a terrible noise on the side or roof of the coach. Looking in the side view mirror I could see the awning that covers the big slide on the driver side flapping onto the roof. Well, off at the next exit, we found a truck stop. As we were driving through the truck stop I spied a mobile truck repair guy working on a big rig. I pulled up alongside him and asked if he knew where I could get this fixed or removed and he said he could probably do it after he finished the truck- about 30 minutes. Perfect. So we waited for him and when he was ready I went out to supervise. He inspected and determined the best thing would be to remove the awning the rest of the way from the track it had begun to pull out off. Cool. So he did that and wrapped the awning up on it's roller and secured it. So now the slide works fine but there won't be an awning above it. The awning just serves to keep dirt, leaves, etc. from piling up on the slide when it's open. No big deal. We camped that night in Amarillo. It was pretty darn hot and we had the A/C running in the coach when all of a sudden we lost all power. I went outside to look for a problem and found the 50AMP service plug was totally scorched! I tried resetting the breaker, but nope. This is the service from the park, not part of the motor home. SO I called the park office and had to have them come out and install a new breaker box and outlet. Then we were back in business.
The next morning I had the foresight to visually inspect that slide with the broken awning and while Joni ran the slide in I sat outside watching- connected by cell phone, and sure enough that slide can't go back all the way because the metal awning cover had dropped into the area vacated by the removed awning. So we got to spend another day in Amarillo while we waited for a mobile RV guy to come out. No big thing. He removed the cover and zip tied it to the roller/awning where it was out of the way.
It was around this time that we noticed that the living room TV was fixed. Yep, the one thing that rattled itself fixed. When we bought the coach that TV had a black line in the screen, top to bottom. Like maybe 1/16th of an inch wide where there was no color. It was kind of obnoxious but not terrible. Anyway, it was (and still is) gone.
I think it was this same night that I woke up in the middle of the night and the dog was pacing rather frantically. I jumped out of bed and took him out. He made it outside thankfully before he threw up something that looked like a hairball a cat would upchuck, and then had diarrhea. Eeh gads. Not sure what he might have ingested. I was worried this was going to be recurring, but in fact, we went back to bed and everything was fine.
Also around this time, the wheelchair lift began to have problems with folding up. It seemed like the hydraulics were struggling to initiate the folding. So I hooked a dog leash onto the platform and gave it a tug while holding the fold button. That worked really well, and we used that technique frequently on the rest of the trip!
And the last of the maintenance issues cropped up on the final leg of our journey. It was somewhere in Southern California when we stopped for gas. I always do a walk around inspection when we stop for gas and I spotted some "cupping" on the left front tire. Usually this means a suspension problem, like a collapsed shock or something in the alignment. Anyway, we limped it on home knowing it would get worse but not a show stopper. The front tires were showing some wear by the end of the trip and were on the list to replace soon anyway. After we got home I had a front end truck shop check it out and pronounce the suspension OK. He conjectured that the tire just got "unbalanced" as it wore and began to cause the cupping. Once it starts it's never going to stop. So those front tire are getting replaced next week.
And very lastly, as we were approaching home and determined to not stop until we got there, Lancey Pants started whining. The I gotta pee whine. Which by the way he never did once on the whole trip. At this point we were like 7 miles from home with really no place to stop. By the time we got home he was actually screaming! But he made it! At that point we were all a little bit ready to scream!
So, to recap...
Just kidding the list is too long! As soon as race season ends (Nov 10th) I can begin scheduling the lengthy shop time to get all the boo boos fixed.
Our next camp trip is scheduled for late January in Santa Barbara so hopefully it will all be done!
I'm sure it will be EPIC!
