kingfr

Hopefully it is ok for a dog person to put his 2 cents into this discussion. We travel with 2 beagles. We always clean up their mess. We always stop them from barking and never leave them outside unless we are with them and can quieten them. Never allow them to run loose, anywhere. If a campground asks if we have pets, we always say yes and identify the number and breed. If the campground attempts to charge for our dogs, we say thanks but no thanks and move on. Charging extra for pets says to us "we don't want you and your pets in our park" and we don't stay where we're not wanted!

Go to www.tiffinrvnetwork.com . You will find more information there than you can stand!!!!

We just replaced the factory mattress in our coach with a Memory Foam mattress from a place in Birmingham, Alabama called Ensley - Fairfield Mattress Company. The Mattress is right at 9 1/2 inches thick. Our bed is an RV King, which is 72" X 80 ". The mattress was a standard King which is 76"X 80". The company removed the cover from the mattress, cut it down to the correct size, recovered it, brought it out to the coach and installed it, and disposed of the old mattress for us. The new mattress is the most comfortable that we have ever slept on. It is NOT a Tempur-pedic, some other brand, I think Spanish. If your coach has a Queen mattress, I'm sure that they could accommodate you. We had them make a short queen innerspring mattress for a travel trailer years ago, and it was very comfortable. We moved it to our first motor home and used it until we sold the coach. If you are too far from the Birmingham Area, I'm sure that you could find a company in your area that would do the same!

I try to use Flying-J for several reasons, the 1 cent per gallon being the least of them. The main reason I use them is because I appreciate them catering to the RV crowd by making special lanes, offering the RV discount, the cash price on credit cards etc. Oh, yes, they don't turn the pump off after $50 or $75 on a credit card purchase like most fuel stops seem to do these days.! Any time that a business makes a real effort to get my business, and is fair about it, I will patronize them. I just hope that Flying-J's being bought by Pilot doesn't change things. I don't consider Pilot very RV friendly.

Hi folks. I am Frank King, my better half is Kay. We have 4 grown sons, four grandchildren, and two Beagle "children". We have been "RVing" since 1968, when I made a camper out of a 1967 VW Bus. Along the way we have had an Apache Eagle pop-up, two Starcraft pop-ups, and a Starcraft travel trailer. Our first MH was a 31 ft 1991 Allegro. After I took an "early retirement" from the "Itty Bitty Machines Company" in 1997 at 55, we moved to a lake in central Alabama. In 2000, we planned a 3 month trip west in the TT and I decided that the V8 Ford Explorer we were driving was not going to be enough puller for that trip. I discovered that I could trade the trailer for the Allegro for considerably less than buying a new 3/4 ton diesel tow truck. Also, I had a Jeep Cherokee which became the Toad and we were set. Along the way, I decided that we needed diesel power, so we traded the Allegro for a 35 ft 94 Winnebago Vectra. In 2007, we decided to chuck the stick, make that log, house and go full time. I was slipping up on 65 and we decided that if we didn't do it then, we would never do it. Sold the Log home about 2 months before the real estate crash and ordered a 2008 40 ft Tiffin Phaeton to replace the Winnie. Tiffin service on the original Allegro made the choice of the Phaeton easy. We are from Alabama, and have family in Birmingham, so we get all of our service done at the Tiffin factory. One of our sons lives in Albuquerque, NM, and another lives in Menlo Park, CA. Both have a kid, and we spend a fair amount of time visiting them. The full time existence make that a lot easier, we can stay nearby and not be underfoot all of the time. We are currently (Dec 2009) Park Hosting at Oak Mountain State Park near Birmingham, and we probably will winter here. We will hit the road again to somewhere in the Spring. (After our youngest son gets married!) If any of you are in the Birmingham area this winter, stop by and say hello!

I assume that my grandchildren would enjoy the view from my dashboard, just as my dogs would! I expect that the same dog owners who believe that it's ok to allow the dogs on the dash would be horrified if they met me going down the road with grandchildren on the dash. They might even call the law on me! I love my dogs AND my grandchildren too much to allow either of them to do such a risky thing.....

I think that you are between a rock and a hard place. It's going to be impossible for you to go down the road without having the dogs and the grandchildren both in the coach unless you have some kind of exterior riding place for the dogs. ( I am assuming that the grandchildren would ride in the coach.) As a dog owner, I would never travel with the dogs outside of the coach for fear that heat or fumes would kill them. Also, many campground and campers object to dogs being leashed outside the coach, especially overnight or during the day when the owners are away. Leaving them unleashed is NOT an option. This sounds harsh, and I apologize, but you seem to me to in a position where you will have to choose between dogs and grandchildren in your coach. Doggydaddy is right, if the grandchildren are to ride in the coach, you cannot allow the dogs in, ever. Having lived in a coach for 2 years now with two smaller dogs, I know that there is no way to remove all of the hair, dander, etc that goes with dogs no matter how good a housekeeper you and your spouse are! Even if you are part time, the dog residue still gets into everything! That's why so many used coaches for sale are advertised as "No Pets".

You might try putting a class 2 or 3 receiver on the nose of the coach and mounting a bicycle carrier up there. We used a bike rack on the nose of a Chevrolet 3/4 ton van for many years with no problems.

My biggest concern would be that 30,000 miles might be too low! Diesel engines like to be run. Long periods of inactivity can be detrimental to their health. Be sure that you get that engine thoroughly checked.The cooling system too. Also, is the generator diesel or propane? A propane generator will drain the propane tank really fast. Also, generators like to be run too! Make sure that the hours on it aren' too low.

Speaking of Canyons, we just visited the Black Canyon of the Gunnison NP, just east of Montrose, Colorado. It is spectacular. There is a nice campground in Montrose called Cedar Creek RV Park. It is small, well kept, and reasonable! If you really want an exciting drive, make the trip from Durango Co. to Montrose via US 550 through Silverton and Ouray. We did it yesterday. It is breathtaking. (In more ways than one!)

The Oasis in Amarillo is really nice and, as of one month ago, was going for $20 per night! HOWEVER, if the wind is blowing from the southwest, the aroma of nearby feed lots will possibly overwhelm you! If you like eau de cow poop, you'll love the Oasis.

I would say early fall. It's too hot in the summer and too windy in the spring. We were at the south rim of the canyon in late October of 2007 and it was great. We had an awning ripped off of our coach on I40 in western Oklahoma in May a few years ago.

We are towing a 2007 Jeep Grand Cherokee 4x4. It couldn't be easier to set up to tow. You hook up the towbar, turn the key to "on", put the transmission in neutral, push a button on the console until the "Transfer case in neutral message" lights up, put the transmission back in park and remove the key! Then you are on your way (after hooking up your braking system!!!) The Jeep has 32k driven miles and another 18K towed miles on it and the only service that it has needed is oil changes and tire rotations.

Since we travel with pets in some areas where summer temperatures are terrible and loosing power to the coach could be terrible for the pets, we have an autoformer. Seems to me that an Autoformer added to a circuit that was low in voltage due to current limiting wire size, dirty contacts, or any other fault would only force the circuit to supply more current to help the transformer produce a higher voltage than that supplied by the line. You might get away with that and solve your problem but you probably would be reducing the power available to everyone else on your leg of the campground circuit. Not a very neighborly thing to do. This is why a generator autostart is worth its weight in gold!

I am using one right now. It does work and keeps me from blowing breakers when both A/C units are on. Yes, the 30 and 20 amp circuits are on the same wire from the distribution panel, however the wire is large enough to carry 50 amps AND the distribution panel has a 50 amp breaker on the circuit. Also, the 20 amp breaker on my power pedestal is not a ground fault breaker. I made this so by replacing the 20 amp breaker myself. (I am a CG host and will be on the site for 4 months. I will reverse the change when I leave the park.) We still must be careful. This rig DOES NOT give you the 100 amps available on a true 50 amp circuit. No running both A/Cs, the washer and dryer, electric hot water and the microwave all at the same time.

I am hosting at a State Park which has 30 AMP service. I have found that most of the "RV" sites, which have a 30 amp and a 20 amp plug on their power posts, have a single wire feeding both plugs on the post. In some cases there is a 50 amp breaker in the distribution panel and in other cases there is a 40 or even 30 amp breaker in the box. This, of course, means that if you pull from both plugs on your power post, you are likely to pop the breaker in the panel even if the wiring will carry the amps. If you have a 30 amp breaker in the distribution box and on the post and overload the circuit, then the breaker in the distribution box will pop. That can be a real problem if it is the middle of the night and the distribution boxes are locked or in a location that is impossible to find. To compound the problem, this park is running two and sometimes three sites on a single 50 amp circuit. So much for state agencies following any kind of code! In this parks defense, the CG is old and it is supposed to be reworked and upgraded this year. Of course we have been hearing this for the last two years! You should be very careful any time you plug into any electric service in a state park, especially if the campground is an older one. That probably should go for any older campground. We have a 50 amp surge/ voltage protector on our coach, which will shut down power to the coach if the voltage gets too low or too high. Also we keep a voltage meter plugged into an outlet at all times so that we can see what is happening. We wouldn't be without this protection.

Hey Marchalpern, Earthquake on wheels is probably a good analogy. Especially if you spend time on highways in the west. (Oklahoma and California come to mind) Be glad that you own a Tiffin product. They are probably not constructed any better than most other manufacturers, but Bob and the boys do stand behind their product better than most other manufacturers. And yes they are still in business, I understand that they just increased production from three coaches a day to four, all sold before they go out the door.

The key is the transmission. If the coach has a 6 speed Allison 3000 transmission, then it will be rated to tow 10,000 lbs. A Allison 2500 series transmission will be rated for 5000 lbs. This per the 2005 Winnebago specs for a 32T Journey. The 32 ft Itasca is basically the same coach as the Winny 32T, with some upgraded stuff. I think that I remember that the Itasca has the 3000 series transmission, but I would check that. The 300hp Cummins in that small coach should get right along.