-Gramps-

Number 4. (Maybe the Last Rule!) Owning a motor coach is a never-ending learning experience. And just when you think you know it all, you find out just how stupid you really are. I have learned a lot about my coach, more than I ever wanted to know. I have had to study the mechanics of my engine, my slides, and my power seats as well as learn how it is wired for Surround Sound and cable TV. And, how it is plumbed including the ice maker, the fresh-water tank, the whole coach water filter and on and on. I have had to learn how to drive this big thing, including parking, turning, merging and more. I have learned that trees and rocks are harder than fiberglass. I have also learned, in no particular order, that: It is easy to lose arguments with inanimate objects located at various points inside and outside of my coach. Coach dealer mechanics are just like me -- they don't know as much as they think they do, which is why I have had to learn more for myself. Don't wait to consult the owner's manual. Read it before you start breaking something you are trying to fix. You might find out it is supposed to work that way! Two helping hands are better than one, especially when one of the hands is controlled by a brain other than your own. Still, the best helping hand is the one at the end of your own arm. Most things that break on a motor coach cost $650 to fix. Having owned two coaches I have had to: Replace a bent jack- 650 dollars. Replace two slideout toppers: dealer cost 650 dollars (I did it myself with some helping hands for a third of the cost). Have a non-square slide out modified so it would actually slide all the way in: 650 dollars. I have learned that when your rear end gets in a fight with a coach closet mirror, your rear end will win. I have learned that when my big motorhome gets in a fight with my little mailbox, the mailbox will win. I have learned that screws are better than staples for keeping things in their place (see above). Having friends with the same coach really helps trying to figure out if something is really broke or not (like a hard-to-open pantry and entry door). Wal-Mart has everything that the smart camper needs, like lots of beer. Don't throw any small plastic or metal things rolling around in your coach away until you find out where they go and what they do. Put them in a special drawer so you can find them later. I have learned that the tool you need to fix the problem you have is the tool that is still at the store. When emptying your tanks, at least two people will walk over to talk to you. I have learned that I find my self looking for the locations of the nearest Wal-Mart and Lowes no matter where my RV is parked at the time. Own good tools, not cheap ones. Why waste your money or your CCC? I have learned that CCC doesn't actually stand for carrying crappy cargo. I have learned that I sometimes have way too much crap; I mean cargo, in my coach. A 10-cubic-foot RV refrigerator is way too small when I load it. A 10-cubic-foot RV refrigerator is huge when my wife arranges its contents. I have learned that a cheap sewer hose and hot sand don't mix. I have also learned that a brown sprits bath from a sewer hose with hundreds of pin holes in it may be funny to a couple of people but not to me. . The day after you empty your overflowing special little parts drawer, you will open a cabinet, or crawl under a seat or something and then you will say, "Oh, that's what that strange little screw was for." Protect All really does work when used outside of its container. Washing and waxing a coach, aside from making it look nice, is great exercise. The day after washing and waxing my coach, I can't lift my arms above my head. I have learned that when a rear engine right access panel is open while going down the road, it makes your right turn signal and brake lights pretty much useless. All the above things are not so funny when you live through them, but then I think that one of my rules is about being patient. That is much easier to do if you have a well developed sense of humor. So if you don't have one of those, I suggest you learn where to get one! Try Wal-Mart, they have everything. Oh, Remember rule number 1!

Great insight Gail. Gramps/

I don't winterize but everything else, I can certainly identify with!

You know the old saying; it's the Journey not the Destination. There is a church two doors down from us. The church allows us to hook up our tow in their parking lot and we leave from there. It is quite convenient. When Diane and I have a trip it starts for us the moment we leave the church parking lot. Actually it starts the moment we start packing up the coach, no, it starts the moment we start thinking about THE TRIP. The trip, made up of two important parts, the route, and the destination also know as the goal. So this is my lead in to: Rule number 3: Enjoy the View! Where are we going? What route do we take to get there? What do we need to take with us? How much time do we have? What will it cost? These are the questions I am sure we all ask ourselves. Some of us may worry over the answer to one or more questions more than others. Can we spend the money? Can we spend the time? Did you notice I used the word worry? Worrying and rving should be mutually exclusive, but it isn't. We worry over the price of gas, the temp in the fridge, the amount of air in the tires, along with lots of other things, including the time it takes to get where we think we want to be. It can be hard to just sit back and enjoy the view. The view. The one outside my great big windshield can be wonderful at times. I remember being on the Blue Ridge Parkway coming around Grandfather Mountain in North Carolina one crisp, cool, fall morning. The sky was a fantastic blue and the colors of the trees sucked the breath right out of me! The only thing I could say was Oh God! I meant it. I knew who painted that picture, the same person who painted the sunset over the Albemarle Sound and the light bouncing off the waves at Hatteras Island, the green rolling pastures of the Shenandoah Valley, and the majesty of the Smoky Mountains while heading down I-40. All of these had two things in common. They were made by God and they made me want to slow down and take a longer look. At night in the campground I play back the day's windshield views in my head. My mental slideshow. I look at them later after our trip is over and I am back to my daily routine of answering business calls and driving around fixing problems. Where am I going with this? Owning a motor home is a metaphor for life itself. We all have a destination, but we also only have one journey to get there. I encourage you to sit back, try to relax, and Enjoy the View! Remember rule number 1.

Best thing to use is Murphy's Oil soap and for heavy stains use either white wall cleaner or Clorox Cleanup Spray. Works Great.

Well, maybe it was a small rally for the Vacationer UFOers but it's a start! Gary, Janis, Diane and myself had a great time at the Forest Lake Thousand Trails resort in Mocksville NC this past four days. We drove down together and camped. The main form of entertainment was shopping for all the stuff Gary and Janis need in their first rv. So that meant a trip to Wal-Mart and Camping World in Statesville NC. We also visited Lexington NC and viewed the Pigs on Parade also known as The Boars are Back in Town. This is an artist exhibition of life size fiberglass pigs all done up in different ways like the Painted Ponies in Arizona or the I guess Bulls in Chicago or the Mermaids in Norfolk. We grilled out every evening on my new Chargriller, burgers, chicken, country ribs! Ate the best Pimento Cheese in the world (Conrad and Hinkle home made in Lexington), had fresh white corn on the cob along with some very cold beer. We came back on Sunday just in time for Diane and I to attend The Diana Krall concert in Portsmouth Va with my brother and his wife. All in all it was a very nice four days.

The Gear rally was a lot of fun. Other than a couple days of rain which in my opinion was better than the heat like we had last year, the rally went pretty well. It was smaller than last year, not as many vendors or attendees, but still it seemed everyone involved had a good time. My wife was the star of the beanbag baseball tourney with 3 home runs and 3 triples. I, in a word, stunk at the game. But I did place third in the great grill off. I spent quite a bit of time in the Workhorse PR booth answering questions about my UFO and discussing the Navistar purchase of Monaco and the new company now out of the starting gate. I for one look forward to what this new Monaco will be doing in the near future. So that is a quickie review of the rally. I will try to post a few pics that my wife took soon. The Grill off: I was the only one cooking on charcoal. I used my new portable Chargriller ie smokebox and found myself up against four gassers. I took third place in a hard fought hot contest with my Greek Angus Burgers with Grilled Eggplant slices topped with Fresh Tomato under melted Mozzarella, and Parmeson cheese on the side. The Burgers were actually Feta Cheese Burgers served on a bed of fresh baby spinach leaves, topped with melted Feta cheese of course, fresh cucumber slices and served on a thin toasted multigrain sandwich bun covered with a generous slather of Tzatziki sauce which is plain yogurt, blended with cucumber, lots of garlic, and dill. They were quite good. I got beat by a very elaborate chicken and shrimp kabob entry. Can't win em all. Pictures from the Great Eastern Area Rally 2009

Get this one. I have an earlier version which works great and this one is an improvement over mine. Air compressor

2. Keep your temper on a very short leash. Or, when owning a motor coach, patience is not only a virtue but a necessity. If you are the type of person who always wants to be in control of your circumstances and are uncomfortable when things are not perfect or not even close to it, you will have trouble adjusting to the motor coaching lifestyle. Things are going to go wrong whether you are an old-timer or a newbie. There are preventive measures you can take, but only God can stop anything and everything bad from happening. Let me break it down for you. A. All may not go well at time of the motorhome purchase. B. All may not go well when driving down the road from point A to point B. C. All may not go well when setting up and breaking down camp. All may not go well when your coach is at the repair shop because of A. B. or C. or any combination of the three. So this means you have to be patient with all kinds of people and circumstances. You have to be patient with drivers (and that includes yourself), passengers (and that includes your spouse), dealers, repair techs, manufacturers. You get the picture. Just be patient, because it can turn out better than you think. An Example of A: The day my wife and I bought our first, slightly used coach it was a rainy, cold Valentine's Day in 2005. We had signed the papers a few days earlier and now it was time to do our walkthrough, or PDI, or something like that. We started with the roof, and the tech told us about the satellite dish that came with the coach. I looked hard for it but I didn't see anything that looked like a dish to me. I had no plans to order satellite service for the coach, but if it is supposed to have a dish it should be there! I started to say something, but I didn't want to appear stupid. Plus, the tech was in a great rush due to the rain. We were told about the sewer system, the fresh water system, the electrical connections, the generator, the storage, and the hitch. It went on and on. I was cold, wet, hungry and needed to find a bathroom. We went inside the coach and learned about the dash controls, the radio, the video system, the leveling system, the voltage monitors, the battery disconnects, the batteries, the power switches for all the appliances we could not use at the same time because it was 30-amp service. Next, he shows us how to crank up the TV antennae and follows that with the manual satellite dish controls. The whole time we are inside, I am thinking about the satellite dish that is standard, that isn't on the roof, and I still need to go to the bathroom. I am getting impatient and am just about to complain when he shows us the washer and dryer combo -- the one that we had no idea was in the coach. On the day we signed the papers, we were told we could get a washer-dryer for 900 bucks and we said no thanks, maybe later. I looked at it and at the happy expression on my wife's face and stupidly said "Where did that come from?" The tech told us that it originally came with the coach, but the first owner didn't want it. Right after he traded it they put the combo back in the coach. The salesman didn't know it was there, so it was too late to charge us for it now, so consider it a bonus. At that moment I forgot about the dish that didn't exist ... well, I didn't forget, it just didn't matter anymore. An Example of B: (The Same Day!) So, with my wife leading in the car, I started up our new-to-us 36-foot Bounder, with no SAT dish, but a stump where it was supposed to be, and eased it along with the included washer-dryer combo out of the dealer parking lot (point A). I had no idea what I was doing. I should tell you that I had never driven the coach, or any coach or even been a passenger in one before. I was scared to death. I took it down U.S. 17 and missed my first turn. Great, I have not had it five minutes and now I have to do a U-turn. I managed to turn around in an abandoned gas station lot, made the right turn toward home. About 20 minutes later I am in front of our house and am looking at our tree-lined driveway (point B.) trying to figure out how to get this really long and wide box on wheels to go where I want it to go. I make a right turn and realize that that it is pretty tight between the trees. Diane is standing out in the rain and yells at me that I am not going to make it without clocking the tree on the left. I stop, grit my teeth and sit there for a minute or two. Okay, it will not go in the driveway, so what do I do. Diane comes into the coach. She knows me very well. She quietly suggests that we can park it in front of the house, off the road and hire someone to take down the tree the right away. That sounded like a good plan to me. So I backed out of the driveway, back up the street and then pulled it off the road right in front of our house and sank into the mud. At least I didn't hit the tree. An Example of C: (two months later) The tree is now gone. A tree service removed it. The rig is stocked and we are on our first weeklong trip. We are off to the mountains of Virginia, a wonderful place called Otter Creek on the Blue Ridge Parkway. It was not a bad trip up to the campground. We drove up U.S. 460 and stopped at a gas station to fill up the rig. This took a bit of planning. The gas tank opening was behind the license plate at the end of the rig. I had to be quite careful about where I filled up. It was very easy to block the flow of traffic in and out of the gas station, not to mention I ended up parked in front of two pumps for a long time. I have found out you have to be patient at gas pumps. Most will not allow more than a $100 purchase. With a 100-gallon tank, that means using my credit card three times to get my tank filled. It doesn't bother me now, but when we first became RVers, it ticked me off. But that is not the worst thing. Sometimes you just can't get the gas to go into the tank. The nozzle just shuts off. I found that if you hold it at the three or nine o'clock positions gas will flow, but you cannot leave it unattended and that makes your hand tired. After we filled up (and this was the first time, a bit of a shock even at 2 bucks a gallon) we continued on up the road. I drove carefully the whole way and it was a rather uneventful, pleasant but longer than I expected trip to the campground. Otter Creek is a national park campground. No connections. No water, no electricity, no sewer. It does have a dump station. Oh, one other thing it does not have: more than one site that a two-slideout 36-foot-long coach will fit into. I pulled into the first one, a pull-through that looked long enough. It was slightly curved but I wiggled the coach into it. I got out to check everything and realized I could not open the main slideout because of the trees. I looked at a site in front of the coach but slightly off to the right. The trees were not as tight around that site. It looked like it would work out quite well. I was quite anxious to get parked because I was running out of daylight. I got behind the wheel and started the engine. Diane asked me if I wanted her to guide me out of the site. "Why? The other site is just over there, I should be fine." So I took off, drove about 34 feet and made a slight turn to the right. It is too bad that I was in enough of a hurry that I couldn't take Diane's advice. It's also too bad that I didn't see the camper sitting outside his Airstream who was frantically waving at me as I made my turn. I didn't see him, just like I didn't see the tree stump I ran over with foot 35 of my 36-foot coach. The rear end of the coach went up in the air and dropped hard. "What was that?" I asked of no one in particular. "I think we hit something." Diane said. I pulled into the new spot, got out and looked at the coach. Everything seemed okay, except I noticed the gutter spout was missing off the rear of the coach. Not a big deal. I also noticed there was a wood-colored streak down the middle of the last basement door. And then I saw it! A fist-sized hole in the bottom of my end cap. I was sick. I had wrecked my new coach. "Diane, look at what I have done!" "Its not so bad" she said. "Not so bad? Not so bad!" I was starting to lose it. The man who was sitting in front of the Airstream walked over. "I was trying to warn you that your tail was swinging over that stump," he said. The man looked at the coach's boo-boo and said something that, well, I didn't know how to respond to: "You might as well bang up the other seven corners and get it over with!" Then he laughed and slapped me on the back and said, "Welcome to the club. It happens to everybody. Don't let it spoil your trip. Good looking coach you have here." All I could see was the hole in my end cap. I did find the gutter spout, so it wasn't a total loss. Just so you know. We met some really great people on that trip and had a good time. Actually, this could have been another example of B, but I think you get my point. Remember rule number 1!

It's been so long since I blogged anything that I find this blank page a bit intimidating. But I will get over that rather quickly. "What's it like owning a 38 foot coach?" I was asked that question just a few days ago. I had to stop and think for a minute or two. I have always thought that having that big thing sitting in my driveway is nuts. It really is crazy. It cost too much to buy, to own, to keep on the road, and to pay the taxes that come along with it. It is insane to own it, but at the same time owing it keeps me sane. How can that be? Owning a coach, or any rv requires a certain mentality, a different perspective, or philosophy as it were. Maybe it requires more than a philosophy it requires some rules. I have set a few for myself anyway. I will cover rule one. If you remember it, all the others will not be as hard to keep.; 1. Remember owning a coach improves one's life, if you let it. Well, a coach allows you to get away, to visit God's handiwork. It will take you to all kinds of places, some of which you might not go to otherwise. Rving provides friends, life long friends. Some of them will stick closer to you than your own family. Rving not only makes friends, but rvers become friends with each other really fast. It's almost magical how easy it is to make friends when you own a coach. I can talk with people on the road, at a rally, campground, rv show, or at a rest stop and after just a few minutes its like I have know them my whole life. How can I put a price on that? I can't. It is part of the priceless experience of being part of a unique community that loves the road and the people who travel it. I know from first hand experience. This last Tuesday, I received an interesting e-mail. It was from a gentleman named Gary who lives just a few miles down on US-17 in Suffolk, just west of us. In other words, he is practically a neighbor. He and his wife Janis have been shopping for a new coach for almost a year. He wanted a diesel pusher, she didn't. She didn't want the front coach entry but he wanted the quiet ride and handling of a diesel. On the internet they found a coach like my Vacationer. With only pictures to look at, she loved the floor plan so much that the front entry door was no longer a problem; he found a chassis with a quiet engine and good handling. At least they hoped so. They needed to know more about this coach, so after searching "UFO" and "Vacationer" on MSN they found our FMCA profile and emailed me wanting to know if I would contact them and answer a few questions. I did just that. After talking on the phone with Gary for about an hour, I hung up, and my wife said to me "Silly man, why didn't you invite them to come over and see the coach?" It never occurred to me. But not being totally stupid, I listened to her, called back and suggested to Gary that he and Janis come over to walk through our coach before going to New York to see the one they are interested in. He didn't hesitate to accept, just wanted to know what time. So at three pm that same day, I started giving two people who have never owned any kind of rv the complete skinny on owning a really nice 38 foot motor home with a gas engine in the rear, made by a company that is presently in Bankruptcy. Three hours later they left with plans to travel to Buffalo and purchase a new coach that the dealer realy wants to sell. Gary and Janis consider us a Godsend. They were so nervous about this crazy thing they are about to do and having friends close by, especially ones with the SAME coach, who can answer questions, share experiences, and help them, why that is just too wonderful for words. God works in mysterious ways. He provides new friends to you in most unusual ways. And these new friends give you the opportunity to improve their lives and at the same time, they do the same thing for you. You must have gathered by now it was Gary and Janis who asked the simple but at the same time complex question. "What's it like owning a 38 foot coach?" My answer is its great. It has helped make new friends, taken us to places we have dreamed of going to and allowed Diane and I to be closer together. It has improved our lives because we let it. Derrick

I have MCDs. They snap on and have adjustable velco tabs so you can easily adjust them to keep them tight.

Wolfe10, My Chassis manual says the mode button has no function.

Workhorse signs agreement to buy Monaco. The Article Here.

The mode button doesn't work with all coaches. It doesn't do anything with my chassis.

I am so ready to hit the road again cause I want to get away. My best friend and business partner died suddenly last week while we were in Florida. This is the second time this has happened to me. Mike was a great guy and friend for almost twenty years and his death has just about devastated me. This is one big care that isn't so easy to cast upon the Lord but I need to, to survive. My rving friends are about the only thing keeping me going right now. Derrick

I also use a y valve with quick disconnects. I use opposite genders so that the fresh water hose will not fit on the flush tank connection and vice versa. Plus I have a back flow stopper and triple cut-offs on the black connection. One at the valve, one on the end of the hose and one on the flush connection itself. I turn on all three to flush and turn off all three when done. It keeps accidents from happening as long as I don't forget of course.

I see that this thread has been moved to a new forum. This is a good change, so all members can feel free to reply not just the A owners. So keep it up! Hopefully we will be getting new members, cause I really talked the boards up at the Convention!

Nice Coach. We almost bought one ourselves.

Well, this thread is moving right along. I guess I can add a bit to my original post. My wife Diane and I have been married since 10/7/72. It's funny but when we decided to get married we thought about living in a camper, a fifth wheel because we thought it would be cheaper than a house. So we went looking at rvs and based on sticker price decided it was a nice dream but that was all. A few years later we were convinced by friends that we worked with to take up tent camping so we used our Jerry Ford recession tax rebates bought a Winchester single wall umbrella tent, a cooler, a stove, a lantern, two sleeping bags, made our own pads and headed for the Blue Ridge Parkway. We kept tent camping for the next thirty years unitl my wife started to have major back problems, no longer liked sleeping on the ground, and said she wanted a potty that wasn't hundreds of yards away when she needed to get up in the middle of a cold night. I agrued with her and said they cost too much money. We knocked it around for awhile until one day she was mauled by a pit bull while walking the dog in our neighborhood. That beast almost killed her. It missed an artery in her arm by a millemeter, took out her Achilles' tendon along with a bunch of other damage. She called me from the hospital, as soon as she was taken out of the ambulance that took her there. While I was driving and praying my way to the emergency room, I swore I would provide her any wish as long as they could fix her up. We filed a law suit, settled out of court, and I suggested we save the money or use it for college tuition for our son. She said I want to use this settlement as collateral for an rv loan. I kept my promise and on Valentines day 05 I found myself driving an 04 Bounder 36 foot long coach home from a dealer lot. I had never driven one before or even been a passenger in a coach at anytime in my life. I was scared to death but I made it to our street where I discovered it would not fit in the driveway until I took down a tree, which I did. I mean, I hired someone to take it down for me. I work from home and everytime I looked out the window at our shiny new coach sitting in our driveway, I thought I must have gone out of my mind. However, my wife and I love coach camping and if I did loose my senses, I have not tried to find them since. My non Rving friends and family, when we first bought the coach, thought we were nuts. Money should be saved and invested not put into some great big hole in the driveway you put money into. Well, I am not sure where the biggest hole is, investments or a motor home. At least we have fun with the coach! With very few regrets about being an RVer Gramps.

Maybe from Perry we will continue down to Florida to see my daughter. We were at Ft Wilderness back in January and may make it down there again this year I hope. During the Summer, my business usually does not let me get away for long so we camp with our Good Sams Chapter members or Holiday Rambler club in places like Williamsburg, Hatteras Island. We always try to get out to the mountains of North Carolina or Virginia in the fall if not sooner. I would like to take a long trip to Niagra Falls, but we will have to wait and see if we get an opportunity for that. I did manage to take a whole month off in May of 2007 and we visited Tarpon Springs, Stone Mountain, one of our favorite spots, Gatlinburg, Asheville NC with our final stop in Seagrove NC, with its interesting arts community .

To: FromTheDoghouse Nice to hear from another UFO owner. We will be at Perry ourselves. I have not met another UFOer in person yet. Maybe we can say hello sometime while we are there. Gramps

We are going, it will be our first time as well. Any suggestions from you vets of the convention are appreciated.

Since there is no official introduce yourself thread, I though I would start an unofficial one. I am Derrick, screen name -Gramps-. My wife Diane and I along with our Cocker Spainel Nickolas, have been rving since Valentines Day 2005. We started out with a slightly used 04 Bounder Gas which was a really good coach. We traded it back in June of last year for a new Holiday Rambler Vacationer 38plt UFO gas pusher. This is the coach of our dreams. I am crazy about the Chassis, and my wife loves the interior. Two seperate bathroom sinks, two easy chairs in the bedroom with a drop down card table, dining table with four chairs, a hutch/coffee bar. The things she had to have before she would let me get the chassis I wanted. This is a coach that will allow us to take the final step to semi-fulltiming at some point in the not too distant future I hope. I own my own micro business selling phone systems, voice mail, computer networks and servicing same. I have had this little company for 18 years. It hasn't made me rich, not on paper anyway, but it put one daughter through nursing school and college and one son throught William and Mary. We have two grown daughters and one grown son. I have three grandsons, 9, 5 and one ten months old Well, anyway that may be more info than you wanted to know. I look forward to reading about you. Gramps My wife Diane, Nicolas and Rambling Rose our new coach.

Well, my wife says "If you ask me, it seems like they are pretty smart guys".

Hey all, I just found these forums myself. My wife suggested I join and spend a bit of time here. So I am just introducing myself . Gramps