johnbhicks

Just had Hydraulic Works replace a 28' hose from the pump to a rear HWH jack. This old rig presented some challenges, but they rerouted the new hose to replace the hose that was originally idiotically routed and pulled tight across a bolt head which was what cut the hose. In and out in two hours at a reasonable price, no muss no fuss. Highly recommended.

When you digitize your photos DO NOT GET RID OF THE ORIGINALS! Store them away in a safe place. I use a large bank safe-deposit box. Digitizing is just so you can share them with folks on your travels. You _will_ lose your digitzed photos either due to hardware failure or obsolescence or both. Guaranteed. Maintaining and migrating a digital archive is a pain even if they're a small number of happy snaps. So protect your originals. A trip is a good idea, but make it a three-month trip, one month to be spent in one spot. A trip is a vacation but most fulltimers don't travel all that much, so you need to find out what that's like. And you're right, no customers. If you're unsure about your stuff, put what's really important in storage and think about it after a couple of years. You'll probably wonder why you kept most of it. If our story would help... We'd done many weekend and week-long trips and we got the harebrained notion to take a trip of about a month. I plotted, planned routes, researched campgrounds and we launched on the grand adventure. A month later we neglected to come home. Two months later we asked a friend to go to the house, donate all the food in the chest freezer to charity and turn everything off. We returned home _nine months later_ and that was just to rid out the house, get it rented out and store stuff. It was totally unplanned and unexpected. We fortunately got a great renter, let her give away, sell or deal with a lot of furniture and stuff and we were out on the road two months later. That was a few years ago. We don't travel a whole lot; we find a place and especially people we like and stay a while. We're the Floridiots who spent last winter in the North Georgia mountains. This winter our next destination is Ochopee in Big Cypress in _warm south Florida_ in a week or so; looks like the plan this winter is to move every week or two. If cost is a factor, a week at a park will usually get you a free night (compared to the daily rate) and a month will usually get you at least a free week or more. I think most people are afraid of significant change even if they won't admit it.

Red Gate CG http://redgatecampground.com/Home_Page.html is decent. Out front towards the road is a large field with gravelled sites, big-rig friendly, and in back (the "semi-secluded wooded sites") the couple of sites are huge-rig friendly and there's a tree or two. Since the place is farm fields and pastures there's plenty of room for your dog although running free isn't permitted. Red Gate advertises itself as a resort but it really isn't; it's a handy place close-in to town with big FHU sites. If you're interested, the tour trolley will pick you up right there at the CG and take you into town and of course you can ride the trolley all over town. Arrange that with the CG office.

I agree with kaypsmith; too much "city" farther to the west.

You have to give your motorhome a name. Our first was an elderly Yellowstone Class C. The first time we saw her hind end backed in across the lake, we thought, "OhmyGod, is that us?" Although we knew better, she seemed wider than longer. For some reason DW deemed "The Fat B****h" to be inappropriate, so we named her Miss Lueffie. And she came to life, cranky, grouchy and great fun all in one. Alas, Miss Lueffie got tired and wasn't firing on remotely enough cylinders, so she became DS's hunting camp. DS and DDIL go hunting quite often without their devil spawn. LOL But Miss Lueffie's happy and not straining up the mountains, etc., and in return she's stopped leaking. So a new elderly Class A motorhome has seen fit to adopt us. Since she's a lot longer and a tidbit wider, she's more like sailing a barge. "Ark Royal" was already taken; hence "The Queen's Barge." Anyway, the rule is that if your ship already has a name, don't change it. But if not, you should christen her, bearing in mind the theory of "puttin' the mouth on it." And don't start a voyage on a Friday, with any women aboard, and be sure to lay in a good supply of rum, limes and sugar.

Fantastic Fan has a different cover than the generic vents.