-Gramps-

PatrickH's blog entry From the beginning ... got me thinking. When did it start? When did the idea of being part of the motorhoming community first start to grow inside our brains? When did the idea first hit any of us, including Kay Toolson or John Crean, who founded Fleetwood, or Warren Buffet, the owner of Forrest River? All of us have our own story about how we ended up owning a motorhome company or, like most of us, just owning a motorhome. This is my story. Just about eight years ago my wife Diane, slipped on her padded wrist weights and headed out our front door to take her early afternoon walk through our neighborhood. She was not alone. Nickolas, our cocker spaniel, went right along beside her. It was a beautiful sunshiny April fool’s day with a bright blue sky and big fluffy clouds floating overhead. Diane took her journey of about two miles, which followed the main drive along the Western Branch of the Elizabeth River, past Tommy Newsom’s house, around the storm water lake and then the final road home, past Green Acres Presbyterian church, the playground and our front door. She never made it down the final road home. As she was passing a house owned by our neighbors, Radar, their pit bull mix dog, jumped the five foot chain-link fence and then raced to the street and grabbed Nickolas by the neck. Our dog let out a sound that Diane later described as a scream. Diane yelled at Radar with all the authority she could put behind it to let go and go home. The dog turned Nickolas loose and took off down the street. Nickolas lay on the ground and started to whine. Diane leaned down next to him to look for wounds. She was sure that there had to be a gash in his neck somewhere. There was not, but while she was looking, Radar, without a sound, hit her from behind. He grabbed her by the ankle, nipping through her Achilles tendon, and tried to drag her down the street. Diane, yelling again, turned and rapped him on the nose. He let go, and then as she was attempting to get to her feet, Radar clamped down hard on her left wrist, sinking his teeth into the exercise weight. Diane hit him again. The dog let go and then clamped down on her bare forearm. This time Diane screamed in pain and for help. She realized that this dog intended to kill her. A couple of blocks down the road, one of our neighbors heard her. He heard her screams for help over the sound of his lawnmower. He looked down the street, saw the dog and my wife, grabbed a brick out of his flowerbed and took off running. As he got close he yelled at the dog and waved the brick. Once more Radar let go of his intended victim and took off. Diane lay on the road with her blood literally flowing down the gutter. Across the street two more neighbors heard the noise, saw the dog take off and ran over. One was a nurse and the other was her daughter. The nurse borrowed Diane’s rescuer's shirt and tied it around Diane’s arm to stop the flow of blood while the daughter dialed 911. In less than ten minutes the rescue squad was on the scene. The paramedics refused to get out of the vehicle. They would not attend to my wife as long as the dog was on the loose. It took a lot of encouragement from our four neighbors, along with two boys who showed up, to convince the paramedics to get out and do what they needed to do. The boys, who happened to be riding by on their bicycles, said that each one would ride down to the end of the street and keep an eye out for the dog. Thanks to those brave boys and the actions of our neighbors, the paramedics were able to treat Diane and deliver her to the emergency room of the nearby hospital. The nurse and her daughter, after getting the key from Diane, delivered Nickolas back to our house. The poor dog was a nervous wreck. There were a lot of waiting patients at the hospital. Because Diane was mangled but not dying, they stuck her in a wheelchair and said she needed to wait. She rolled over to a free-for-patient’s payphone and called my voice mail/pager number. When I heard my beeper, I was standing in a dark phone closet located in a church. I was holding a flash light with my teeth staring at lots of wires on the wall. I reached down and unclipped my pager, read the number. I used my test set to call the paging service and listened to the message. I heard this soft, shaky voice. “Derrick, I was out walking Nickolas and got attacked by a dog. I am in the emergency room at Maryview. I thought you would want to know. “ That was it. I had no idea how bad this was or wasn’t, but it did scare me to death. I charged out of the church and ran to my truck and drove a bit like a madman to the hospital, which was about nine miles away. When I arrived Diane was back in one of the trauma rooms. She was hooked up to an IV, her pants leg had been cut off at the knee and there were some bloody sneakers and wrist weights lying on a chair. We had some paper work to take care of. Pictures were taken and then they stitched her up, pumped her full of antibiotics and painkillers, bandaged her wounds. We filled out more paper work and received a set of crutches, followed by a trip in the wheelchair to my truck and home we went. Before I left the hospital the doctor talked with me and said that a main artery in her forearm (I don’t know which one) was missed by the dog by only a couple of millimeters. He also told me that the terrycloth-covered foam wrist weight bands she had on had saved her life. If the dog had gnawed her wrist the way he chewed up the band, that would have been it … chances are she would have bled out. Diane smiled at me the whole way home. It looked like a drunken smile to me. It did keep me calm and I can tell you I was pretty shook up. I thought about how close I had come to losing her. It wasn’t the first time she had been in the hospital for an emergency, but it was definitely the worst time. It made me start to reevaluate my position in life and what I wanted from it. I gave a lot of thought to what I wanted for me and for Diane. A few days later, I asked her what she wanted me to do for her. “What do you mean?’ “Well, you were almost killed, don’t shake your head, we both know that could have happened. We have been working hard for a long time, you just got over back problems before this happened, we are not getting any younger and time is running out to try to make our dreams come true. So I think we should pick one and work on it ... so, which one? Trip to Greece? Bigger house? Want do you want?” Diane looked at me and said: "I want to look at campers. I want to spend more time camping in the mountains and I don’t want to sleep on the hard ground anymore.” I looked at her and said okay. I didn’t really mean it, because I didn’t think she meant it, either. Boy, was I wrong. Gramps http://community.fmca.com/blog/62/entry-536-how-did-it-start-part-two/

I was going to add a comment to this months ago. Nickolas' life ended just the way he hoped it would.

I welcome a fellow FMCA blogger. I look forward to your next entry!

If you are a regular reader of my blog you know that I enjoy the idea that motor homing is a metaphor for life. It is day four of a new year. How is this year going to be? That is certainly one question I don’t have the answer to. I am sure that many people would like to know what the future holds even if that knowledge is only about the next twelve months. When I was a kid I remember that there were a number of celebrity prognosticators that would make all kinds of predictions about the future. They predicted who would win the World Series, or who would win some national election or there would be an earthquake in Los Angeles that wipes out half the city. My dad used to say they would shotgun their so called prophesies. In other words make enough of them and maybe one or two might just happen. In my later years I would hear all kinds of people, including preachers and televangelists, predict that the world was about to end and that there would be all kinds of signs including famine, wars and an earthquake that would wipe out half of Los Angeles, foretelling and warning us of that coming event. The year 2000 was supposed to cause all kinds of terrible things to happen. Planes were going to fall out of the sky, the stock market would crash. For me the worst event was a lot of voice mail and phone systems crashing because they suffered from the dreaded Y2K bug. The best thing was I made quite a bit of money fixing those systems. I wrote my own program to do just that and made a lot of friends because I repaired the systems instead of replacing them. Now it is 2012 and people are once again looking for some kind of sign to tell them about our future or the lack thereof. According to the long gone Mayans the world is supposed to end at the end of this year. Will it be with a bang or a whimper? It seems to me that if the human sacrificing Mayans were so good at seeing into the future they would have done whatever it took to insure their own. They would have seen the signs so to speak. It there were any to see that is. I prefer not to worry about the end of the world. I do believe that there are signs of trouble on the horizon that we should pay attention to but I also think each day has enough trouble of its own. I believe that there are signs that we should pay attention to that will help us in our day to day lives, on and off the road, from getting into trouble. Let me simplify it for you. How many signs are there in your coach, signs that warn you of potential trouble if you don’t pay attention? Start looking and you may be surprised at just how many there are. Inside over the door of my coach was a sign that said something to the effect “make sure steps are extended before exiting.” I can’t remember the exact words and Diane peeled the sign off the wall. I asked her about that and she said “no one is going to read it when they need to cause it is posted in the wrong spot. Besides if you don’t see the steps after you open the door don’t step out of the coach!” That is logical but we know someone, actually it was the person who bought our Bounder, who didn’t notice the steps were not deployed after opening the door. Her two dogs jumped out of the coach before she could get them leashed (she opened the door thinking the screen would stay closed) and she went charging out after them only to fall on her face, bite through her lower lip and knock out two front teeth. Ouch! Next to the driver’s seat, posted to the wall above the seat belt anchor, is a little sign that says “Move cab seat forward before activating slide out.” Which should be easier to spot? Is it a little white note or a big captain’s chair that is too far back? The answer is; sometimes neither. I watched a tall salesman at an RV dealership forget to move the driver’s seat forward after he parked a coach and before he extended the main slide out. The chair was pushed off its pedestal with a loud crunch. I was surprised that the slide out didn’t stop as soon as it hit the chair. But I was also surprised when the main slide out in our coach removed the door to the cabinet housing the washer-dryer. Behind the curtains next to the drivers seat is a warning not to apply the parking brake while the vehicle is in motion. It also says something about the result being major damage and death or injury. No big deal. The third sign posted in the same spot reminds me not to press the accelerator while starting the engine. The sign says to turn the key only. I am not sure about that one. Is it there to help me not flood the engine? Or is it there to prevent me from plowing my coach through my one car garage? I suspect the first but the second might happen if I ignore the sign. There are more. Under my kitchen sink is a sign with lots of warnings about using propane. What to do if you smell it. There is also a list of things that could happen if you ignore this warning. The list includes explosions, fire, injury and possibly death. Two death warnings posted in the same coach! Inside the bathroom medicine cabinet door is a note about exceeding the GCWR of the coach and/or its towing capacity. What is the GCWR? It is the Gross Combined Weight rating which is made up of the CCC (carrying crappy cargo) and the weight of water in the tanks, passengers, fuel etc. It doesn’t say what happens if you exceed this GCWR (which you are supposed to consult your owner’s manual to find out how much that is) but if the results were listed I think they would include exploding tires, damage, injury and possible death! Makes you want to leave your coach in the driveway and hope the parking brake holds. There are many signs posted on the outside of my coach. On the fuel intake flap there is a sign that says “Unleaded Gasoline Only”. This sign takes on a special significance with my coach. I have a rear gas chassis. The fuel intake door is under the driver’s window….the same place you would find it if the coach were a diesel pusher. On more than one occasion I have been asked if I am using the correct fuel pump. It is one of my favorite questions. I know what kind of fuel goes in my coach but I sure want to avoid someone else making a big mistake. I can’t remember if a diesel fuel pump nozzle will not fit into a gas tank intake or if a gas nozzle will not fit into a diesel tank intake, and I don’t want to find out the hard way. On the gas flap is another sign. This one says to extinguish all appliances and igniters in the coach or something to that effect. Along with that is a warning that failure to comply could lead to….you guessed it….grave personal injury and or death! Next to the fuel warnings are warnings posted on the door to the compartment holding the propane tank. This sign is rather large and its message is posted in multiple languages. It repeats the same warning as the fuel warning label including the part about injury and death. Let us move farther down the coach. Inside of the wet bay we find all kinds of info posted about. There is a picture of a sink. Under that there is a neon yellow stick on label that reads “Warning! Clean with Windex only!” Thank goodness that failure to comply doesn’t result in serious injury. I hope not anyway. Why this warning isn’t posted in the head over the sink is a mystery to me. Up in the right hand corner of the bay there is a warning that says “Potable Water Only! Sanitize, flush and drain (consult owner’s manual) before using this tank!” Failure to comply (oh my goodness, not again!) could lead to serious illness or possible death!” I think the odds are beginning to favor death here. The last warning is posted next to a picture of a toilet. It reads “The sewer value must be open when using this inlet!” Now I know that the inlet posted in this warning isn’t the toilet itself, which is technically an inlet. No, the inlet is the flush valve. The sewer valve should indeed be open when back flushing or something very unpleasant might come out of the toilet. If my wife happened to be in the room housing said toilet and it did misfire due to my non compliance to posted warnings, the result for me or to me could be serious injury or possible death. I have only forgotten to open the valve once when flushing the tank. I was told of my mistake while washing the roof of the coach. I flew down the ladder in fear of becoming a player in a live scene from the movie RV. This brings me to my next to last warning. There is a sign attached to the roof of my coach under the ladder handles that reads, and I paraphrase “Maximum weight capacity 150 lbs when vehicle is moving.” Every time I read this sign the thought pops into my head that it must not be safe for me to hang on to this ladder, waving to passing cars, as the coach is flying down the road because I weigh 175 pounds! Of course we all know that lots of things are tied to roof ladders. Step ladders, bicycles, kayaks, mother in laws. Don’t exceed the 175 pounds. It isn’t printed on the label but if your kayak and your bicycle and your ladder flew off the back of the coach, I suspect it could lead to…forget it. Not going to say it … I am starting to scare myself. The last sign posted on the side of my coach is on the basement door located beneath the furnace. It reads “Caution…Do not allow door to remain open when furnace is running.” What does that mean? Don’t allow the door to remain open? I think it should read: “don’t allow the door to remain all the way open.” Locking it half way open is okay. All the way would allow the running furnace to blister the paint right off the door. That is no good. Unfortunately this half open door belongs to the basement compartment that I am in and out of the most, and so it is the door that I bang my head on the most. This is one time where complying with instructions leads to personal injury. I hope that I never hit my head so hard that it leads to possible death. We have now learned that signs posted inside and outside of our coach are there to make our Motorhome a safer place. That will be the result as long as we read them, pay attention, and comply with what these warnings tell us. I wish I had been able to take the Motorhome approach to raising my kids. I could have posted warnings all around their room. “Do your homework! Failure to comply can lead to failure at school which can lead to a lifetime of pain!” When my girls became teens and started noticing boys I could have stuck the following up on their wall: “Caution! A moment’s physical pleasure can lead to a lifetime of pain!” Along with that one how about: “Listen to your Mom and Dad so that your days will be good on this earth! Failure to comply can lead to a lifetime of pain!” And the last sign: "Warning! Don't insist on growing up so fast! Enjoy your childhood while you have one! Adulthood can lead to personal injury and will lead to eventual death!" You see I knew what the future could bring. As my kids grew older I could see the signs of trouble and would have done anything to prevent injury, physically, emotionally or any other kind, if possible. I think that the MotorHome approach to life is not a bad idea but only as long as you don't peel those signs off the wall and then charge out the door before the steps are deployed. Ouch! Derrick "Gramps".

Well it is another new year. I am sure that we all hope it will be a good one. This last one was a bit tough for my shrinking household. We lost a grandson, my wife lost her mother, our son moved out on his own (well that is a bittersweet thing). However, there were a lot of things that happened, friends we made, places we visited, and memories that were created this last year that allows me to appreciate 2011. One thing is for sure, I sill enjoy being a part of the motor coaching community. No depreciation there! I am working on an idea for my first big blog entry of the new year, which should be posted later today I hope. But the Christmas decorations have to packed away first. So until I can get words down on electronic paper maybe you will find this entry from a year ago worth reading or reading again. http://community.fmc...9-depreciation/

The original post lost the link to my blog entry....here it is. http://community.fmca.com/blog/62/entry-359-depreciation/

You have a wonderful new year also!. We really look forward to seeing you again. Hopefully we can meet at Deer Creek, play some golf and have some char-grilled steaks and a couple of cold ones.

https://recreationnation.me/drupal/catalog/84

Thanks Tom, Merry Christmas! I hope you and Louise experience a lot of good miles this new year.

Diane and I just finished watching “It’s a Wonderful Life.” It is certainly one of our Christmas traditions each year, as it is with a lot of people, I am sure. We take it a bit further in our house than most. There are IAWL ornaments on the tree, some glass balls, some ceramic with scenes and lines from the movie. Some are small houses and buildings from the movie with a hole in the bottom to allow for a light. In my office I have the Bedford Falls Village on display. There are twenty one buildings set up on three shelves. Along with the buildings are the other things you would find in a Christmas village, including cars, figures, street lights, trees and a train. I pay careful attention to which buildings, such as Gower’s Drug Store, Anderson’s Department Store (the Bailey Brothers Building and Loan is located upstairs) the Bedford Falls Bank, City Hall belong next to each other as seen in the movie itself. It is a rather elaborate display. I have read the original script for the movie. I have a number of books that relate behind the scenes stories and anecdotes about the making of the movie. One of those books is a coffee table book and one is on my e-reader. I have an autographed picture of the closing scene of the movie. It is signed by Karolyn Grimes, who played George and Mary’s daughter ZuZu. I have watched the movie some two hundred times. I have watched a number of colorized versions on You Tube. I know each and every line by heart. I can watch the whole film in my head. It still chokes me up. I still can’t stand the scene where George loses it with his family after Uncle Billy loses 100,546.67 dollars (8000 dollars in 1945.) Let us give ole Billy a little lee way and say it was almost the year 1946. He still lost the equivalent of 92, 812.31 in today’s dollars. No wonder poor George freaked out and kicked over the bridges and buildings he had built. Those scale models represented all his hopes and dreams. He knew that the life he wanted was never going to happen. At that moment, George frightened his family and he became a walking dead man or so he thought. He believed he was worth more dead than alive. I understand why and how he came to feel that way. One Christmas some years back Diane and I threw a fancy “It’s a Wonderful Life” party for some close friends from our church that included a formal dinner. I sent out invitations with pictures from the movie. We came up with a printed menu with dishes like “Uncle Billy’s famous New England Clam Chowder” and “Mary Bailey’s Grilled Chicken with Mango Salsa” served with “Mom Bailey’s Sugar Snap Peas steamed in Balsamic Vinegar with Walnuts”. There was New York Seltzer and Cheese Cake for dessert. The table was decorated with little red plastic bells and fresh red rose petals. Some of our friends had never seen the movie (a shock to me) and they did not realize the meaning of the bells or the petals. They soon found out, but first I wanted them to know why the movie means so much to me. I told them the movie had saved my life. It happened twenty years ago now. I was finishing up my second year of being chronically unemployed. I had gotten fired from a job I loved ten years earlier, (that is a possible story for another day…..I will tell you this; I didn't deserve to loose that job and the ambitions of a man who wanted to be president of the United States had a lot do with it ending.) I had started a business that failed after forty two months. That failure was directly connected with the murder of my best friend who worked with me. I went to work for the people who bought my failed business but that didn’t work out either. I went to work for AT&T and lost that job a year later. I got a job that I thought would last with the local PBS station that I had worked for once before years earlier, but they had to lay me off due to state funding cutbacks. That happened in November of 1990. It was the last straw so to speak. So in March of 1991 at the end of a very bleak winter and with what looked like a very bleaker future, I found myself thinking the whole previous ten years had been a waste. I was a failure. No one would hire me because they didn’t think a man who had owned his own business would want to work for someone else. That is true if you have a choice. I didn’t think I had one. I sent out two hundred resumes because I thought I had to work for someone else or else I and my family would starve and I was extremely tired of being told I was over qualified for the positions I applied for. I did manage to find some temporary jobs. I installed microwaves for a military sub contractor. I helped install MRIs for a medical company. Diane demonstrated products at the local supermarkets. She was a gray apron lady which required her to hand out coupons and fry sausage samples. We subsidized our empty pantry from our church’s food bank. My kids qualified for reduced price lunches at school, well because we were flat broke. I refused for the longest time to apply for unemployment because I thought it the surest sign that I was out of hope. I finally did apply and received two measly checks before I went back to full time work. However something else happened in between. I could not make myself continue to look for a job. I did have a friend in the phone business offer me a straight commission position with a draw. I could not accept that. The economy was not in good shape and neither was the company making me the offer. They were just being nice to an old friend with a shared common interest, that being phone systems. I was miserable, lost and really didn’t care to live anymore. I didn't know how far down a dark road those feelings would take me, but it was far enough to worry my wife and kids. Diane started a prayer chain with the hope that if enough prayers were made my situation would change. The situation did change, but first I had to have a change of heart. One day I was home by myself. It was early in the morning. Diane was at our church where she was a part time secretary to the pastor as well as the church bookkeeper. I finished cleaning up around the house and decided that I wanted to watch a movie. I opened the cabinet where we stored all our tapes and an old cheap copy of It’s a Wonderful Life fell out onto the floor. I thought to myself why not? I put it in the VCR, sat on the floor with my back to the couch and proceeded to watch this old chestnut of a film for the umpteenth time on our thirteen inch television. Obviously I had a different viewpoint this time. Like George Bailey I was angry at my situation. I was depressed and felt that there was no hope. When George started yelling at his family something started to break in me. When he was in the bar praying I started to cry. When Clarence rescued him, I told myself it was only a movie but I hit rewind and watched it again, and I cried again. I sat there on the floor and viewed that movie four times. By the end of the forth time it finally sank in. Life was not as bad as I thought it was. I had friends, great kids and a loving wife. I didn’t think a bunch of people would show up at my door with gobs of money but I knew that all was not lost. Frank Capra and his cast helped me realize that I did have a wonderful life, and with the right attitude, some help from above, and with a lot of hard work, I could turn things around. I started my business a week later. I turned things around. It did take a lot of prayer, help from friends and family, a lot of hard work and we did receive a lot of help from above. There have been setbacks since then. Some have put me down, but not out and that is because I know that I have friends, most of whom drive a Motor Coach. Those friends make me remember that I am not a failure and I do have a very wonderful life. It is a Wonderful Life! And I hope that every one who reads this has a Very Merry Christmas! Derrick "Gramps"

That is another advantage of the UFO chassis as well as the w-24 Workhorse, both have a grade brake. When the grade brake is turned on and you tap your brake pedal the Allison downshifts, the brakes do not engage unless you hold the pedal down for about five seconds.

My coach travels up and down mountains just fine....I pass trucks and can climb with the diesel motorhomes. Then again my coach is not your typical gasser either.

I am over there quite a bit and they allow me to post a link in my signature and in my posts to my blog here. I actually registered to blog there first l but there has been no reply to that which is no big deal. I am very happy to be an FMCA blogger.

Look at the Huskey Portable air compressor from Home Depot.

Well, Christmas is only ……days away. You can fill in the blank yourself. I thought I would mention a few things that I would want for Christmas if I didn’t have them already and some things I don’t have that are on my list. These things are almost always gadgets of some kind. 1. Winegard GS-wing Wingman Antenna upgrade. I have one of these. It attaches to an existing Sensor head with no tools required. It is supposed to increase UHF signal gain up to 100%. I am not sure it has done that for me but it has helped pull in stations that are far away, up to a point. You still have to rotate the antenna of course, which I find to be a real pain. If your digital TV has a viewable signal strength meter that helps. http://www.winegard....ngman/index.php 2. Wingard Sensar Pro TV signal meter. I do have one of these installed in the overhead video cabinet of my coach. This direct replacement for a Winegard preamp is a helpful thing to have. It allows you to seek and peak digital TV signals before you run a channel scan on your TV. It helps you to aim your RV antenna with a numerical scale…the higher the number the better your aim. It provides 10db of gain, which will pull in that big game just enough to stop the picture from freezing and breaking up into those irritating squares. http://www.winegard..../sensar-pro.php 3. Crossfires. This pair of gadgets is invaluable. Crossfires are a dual tire pressure equalization system. They provide a number of things. You have a window that quickly tells you if your tires are at or near proper inflation pressure. You have one point to inflate both tires. The most important thing is that the Crossfire system moves air back and forth between the two tires depending on which one is taking the most weight or if one has a leak the other tire will loan air for as long as it can, until the low pressure shut off activates. These things will add life to your tires and pay for themselves. I have been using them for seven years and they are a very good investment. http://www.dualdynam...res/index.shtml 4. Rechargeable Family Radios (walkie talkies). No coach should be without a set of these. Hand signals alone or depending on a rear camera when parking the coach just don’t cut it if you ask me. You can go hog wild and buy a set of headsets or just go for a good set of handhelds, but do your self a favor and get a pair. You can always use them to keep up with the grandkids at Disney World. Store them close to the front door of your coach. Wal-Mart sells a whole range of them. http://www.walmart.c...ch_constraint=0 5. Wireless thermometers with multiple remote transmitters. These things are great. Put a transmitter in your wetbay, one in the fridge and anywhere else you want one. It is always good to know if your beer is getting too warm or your water pump is getting too cold. http://www.acurite.c...hermometer.html 6. A remote controlled AM/FM CD weather band dash radio. The remote is important. The co-pilot can use it to change the station so that the driver doesn’t have to look down or reach for the buttons. I am ordering the remote control for my Magnadyne today. https://recreationna...m9900cds-remote 7. Cell booster/repeater. This is a great gadget. I have helped install them and my wife keeps complaining about the fact we don’t have one for ourselves. It is on my list. This device will find a cell signal and repeat it inside your coach where it would normally be weak. This helps to prevent dropped calls or helps you make a call in the first place. The key is to buy the correct system for your coach. I don’t recommend a tethered repeater. The best way to go is to have a multi user repeater that is wireless. http://www.wilsonamp...245-soho-rv-kit 8. A GPS that is designed for RV/Coach use. My Droid phone has two gps programs. My Droid Tablet has one. I have GPS software installed on my Windows 7 tablet. I have a Garmin as well. None of them are going to keep me from driving under a too low bridge or taking the coach down a road that is too narrow. They are also not going to tell me where to find a campground or a big rig accessible gas station. Rand McNally has two RV friendly GPSs. I hope to find one under the tree for me this year. http://store.randmcn...CFchgTAodX2npKQ 9. An air compressor is not exactly a gadget but it sure is nice to have for obvious reasons. You can keep all your tires both the coach and the tow inflated without have to negotiate gas stations, that is, if you can find one that has an air pump. I carry an older Huskey that I bought from Home Depot. It is on wheels, light and has enough horse power to fill my coach tires. The new model has a large compartment for hose and attachment storage. http://www.homedepot...ssor-91581.html 10. A Brita water pitcher/filter. Sure beats carrying a lot of bottled water around plus you can keep the pitcher in the fridge. http://www.brita.com...water-pitchers/ 11. A Kindle for the co-pilot. There are not enough words to describe how much my wife likes her Kindle, the keyboard model. She is always looking for the deal of the day and free books to read. She uses it as we are going down the road. Hers is the keyboard with WiFi version. I sure was the hero when I bought it for her along with a leather case with built in led light. The light gets its power from the Kindle itself. http://www.amazon.co...sl_1h7nrm5wtl_b 12. A Droid Tablet with Keyboard. I own one. I happen to have the Asus Transformer with keyboard/usb/ extra battery docking station. It is great. I can web browse, Skype, take pictures and videos, blog, take care of email business and download books to the Kindle ap or other reading aps installed on my tablet. I am also addicted to Angry Birds. The nice thing about it is that it is small, portable and still makes a great laptop at the same time. I did the midnight Black Friday thing and bought one for Diane as well. She loves it. The Asus Transformer is the best pad you can get, better than an Ipad 2. The new one coming out on the market is the Asus Prime. It is very light very thin and very fast. It also costs more than the Transformer. http://www.asus.com/...nsformer_TF101/ 13. CharGriller Table Top Grill and Smoker. This is not a gadget but deserves to be on the list. I own one of these and it is great!. Smokes, grills and makes everything taste better. Along with the grill you need a cover, a cast iron grate lifter, and an apron. You will cook and look like a pro with one of these grills. I know because I won an FMCA GEAR rally grilling contest using this beauty. http://www.chargrill...uemart&Itemid=2 14. Dyson Ultracompact Vaccum. My wife owns the DC24, which was the predecessor of this vaccum. It is light, compact, so that you can hide it in a corner or store it in the basement. It works really well. It sucks up a lot of dirt off any type floor. There are no bags of course. Great attachments so you don't have to carry a dirt buster and a vacuum. http://www.bestbuy.c...8&skuId=8728736 These are just a few gadgets that I think will improve your time in your coach and, in turn, improve your life! Gramps

A note from me: I emailed Nancy and Wayne and provided them with all the info they needed. It has been a year and a half now and my slideouts are still working great. The guys from BAL and ESC really did a nice job.

Someone asked me what rule number one is. You can click on archive and find it and all my earlier blog entries. But if you are in a hurry to learn the answer you can read it here: http://community.fmca.com/blog/62/entry-84-rules-for-owning-a-motor-coach-part-1/

Our sixteen pound turkey is currently relaxing inside my electric smoker. It has been getting the smoke and steamed beer treatment for about two hours now with four to go. I keep checking the remote thermometer and making sure that the bird doesn’t finish its spa treatment too fast. This takes a lot of patience on my part but it will be worth it. Patience is the key, not just for smoking a good turkey but also to enjoying the Motorcoach lifestyle. In case you don’t already know it, rule number two of my rules for owning a Motorcoach is: Keep your temper on a very short leash or when owning a Motorcoach, patience is not only a virtue but a necessity. You can read more about this rule here: http://community.fmc...r-coach-part-2/ Patience pays off in the long run. Exercising it will greatly improve your disposition and turn a bad situation or a coach you don’t like into something positive. Two weekends ago, Diane, Teddy Bear and I attended our annual Good Sam’s chapter ThanksMas party. This is our combination Christmas and Thanksgiving celebration. We eat, play games, eat some more (a lot more) and talk a lot. As at any gathering of motorcoachers (and that is what we are, no trailer owners in our group) we talk about our passion for motorcoaching. When talking about motorcoaching the conversation will include mishaps, repairs from said mishaps, the cost of those repairs and the advantage of buying a used coach over a new or vice versa. We enjoy the subject of motorhoming so much that I read all my one liners from Rule Number 4 for motorcoaching which caused a few flying elbows between husbands and wives as well as a few red faces. You can read more about rule #4 here: http://community.fmc...r-coach-part-5/ The whole weekend made me realize that Diane and I are really at home in our coach. It didn’t start out that way. There was a very long list of things that were wrong that came with the coach and a number of things that went wrong later. I could have gotten mad and said: “This is a brand new coach and it shouldn’t have these troubles. I wish I had never bought the darn thing.” Actually I did say that a few times but I remained patient and did I what I had to do to get all the malfunctions functioning. My patience paid off. Our coach is now a very good one. My fellow motorcoachers in our club have learned the same thing. Stick it out, be patient, don’t expect everything to always be perfect. Just like life, that isn’t going to happen and you will only make yourself angry if you don’t learn to be patient and roll with it, whatever it may be. There will be troubles with your coach. Just be thankful when it works and for the friends it has helped you make and the places that it has carried you to. When people ask you “how’s your coach doing? “; you can answer “It was a turkey but now it’s smokin’!” Happy Thanksgiving! Gramps.

Thanks Bro, hope you and Janis are doing well out west.

Based on my experience I would say that buying that used coach isn't much more of a risk than buying a brand new one. Tom offers very good advice. Let us know how this all turns out! Gramps.

Diane has spent the last week in Florida visiting our daughter, Jeri, and her family. The care of myself, Joel, the house and last but not least, Teddy Bear, has been left to me. That means that I need to take a high-energy, long-legged Cocker Spaniel for a walk every day or he goes stir crazy. When that happens he rings the bell hanging by the back door every ten minutes so that someone, me, will let him out. Getting up from the couch every ten minutes tends to spoil the continuity of the football game or whatever it is that I am watching at the time. I have taken him for a walk every day, except one rainy day, since Diane left. We walk in our own neighborhood. The weather has been good. The skies have been blue and the leaves are starting to have their best color. Teddy walks with his nose to the ground. Scents are like candy to him. He reads the entire local doggy P-mail at each mailbox post. He sniffs the trash cans. I give him the leash every now and then just so he can follow a scent trail until he decides to resume his happy little trot down the street. It quickly becomes obvious that my dog enjoys living in the moment. I have taken a cue from Teddy Bear. I don’t walk with my nose to the ground of course, but I still use my senses to enjoy the moment. I see. Most people tend to watch their own feet when they walk. I look up. I watch the gentle swaying of the trees in the wind. I glance at the sun as it peeks between the branches of the tall pines. I take in the contrast of the red maples against a bright blue sky. I notice the clouds moving across the sky and just like when I was a kid they start to take on shapes. One might become a ship, another a flock of sheep, another the profile of a sleeping old man. I listen. The wind in the trees reminds me of the ocean on a calm day with the waves gently crashing against the shore. Wind blowing through a grassy field sounds the same way. There is something about that sound, that continuity, that I find peaceful. It is a common thread that our Creator has woven though his creation. I smell. Well, you know what I mean. I use my nose. I smell the leaves wet with dew. I smell the wood smoke coming from fireplace chimneys that we walk by. Smells provoke memories, more than sights or sounds. When I smell wood burning, I am carried back to the mountains, where I am sitting around a campfire with my family and my friends. I remember the nights spent in a tent, looking up at the stars through the screen window, listening to the wind in the trees. I think about how my life has changed from tent to coach both literally and figuratively. This last Sunday Teddy Bear and I took our walk at the Portsmouth Seawall. We walked along the Elizabeth River while watching the ships in the yards across the river in Norfolk. I looked at the downtown Norfolk skyline while Teddy checked out all the smells. We listened to the water lapping against the seawall. We both watched other walkers, human and doggy. We talked to both. There is a boat landing built into the seawall where the ferry to Norfolk docks. Mariners visiting Portsmouth can dock there as well. As we were walking buy I smelled charcoal smoke. It took me a minute to find the source. It was coming from a metal chimney on a ketch, a sailboat. The smell made me think of salmon steaks on the grill, corn on the cob and a cold one. I wondered whether the person in the boat was getting ready to cook steaks or shrimp or just taking the chill out of his floating home. We spent quite a bit of time in the Portsmouth Marina, walking by the boats docked there. We gazed at a multi million dollar yacht. I looked with admiration at a wooden, teak to be exact, schooner that was built in 1938. It had either been restored or a lot of people have been giving it tender loving care for a long time. Either way it was a beautiful boat. Where have these boats been, I asked myself. Have any been around the world? I imagined what it must be like to be at sea, no land in sight, sailing to some exotic location. As I was looking at the boats, some big, some small, some huge I reminded myself that I own something like it only it is on wheels. I read all the names. “Sail Away,” “Endeavor II,” “The Christine Marie,” to name a few. I found the last name to be interesting because that is my daughter’s name. One of my favorite names was “Better Times.” We can only hope that is the case for us all. There will be better times, but right now isn’t so bad, either. Like Teddy Bear keeps telling me ... enjoy the moment. Well, got to go. Diane will be at the Norfolk airport in an hour. Seeing her again is a moment I am going to enjoy, for sure. Speaking of better times, Jeri is expecting a healthy baby boy sometime around April 7, 2012, on her son Dylan’s birthday. Things are looking up. Gramps