tbutler

A number of recent postings have dealt with the necessity for surge protectors, autoformers and other electrical apparatus to protect RV's. Part of the need for these devices is the uneven quality of electrical supply in RV Parks. I've heard it, I imagine most of have heard it at one time or another. You go to a park office complaining about the quality of the electricity. They tell you that they never know what they are going to get from the electric company this time of year. Or some variation of this. They blame the electric company. While we do hear of "brown outs" occasionally during times of extreme electrical usage in areas with a strained grid, these are isolated and rare. I went to the office in an RV park in Valdez, Alaska with just such a complaint several years ago. And their response was the "blame the electric company" answer. Rather than accept that response and walk off, I was armed with information and I responded. First of all, my coach has a built-in monitor of electrical current. I know the voltage, amperage used and cycle of the electric I am getting. I knew that when I turned on an air conditioner I was using an amperage within the limits of the supply the campground should have been supplying. I could also see that the voltage dropped from the desirable 120 volts down to about 100 volts when I ran the air conditioner. This could damage the air conditioner if left running on this electric supply. I explained to the clerk at the desk that I was certain that my turning on the air conditioner didn't drop the voltage across the entire electrical grid by 20 volts! I assured her that this was an indication that the wiring within the campground was not sufficient to provide the promised 30 amps. The fact is that campground owners can put a 50 amp box on any post and connect it with any wire. It will only supply 50 amps of electricity per line if it has a wire of adequate size, #6 or #4 wire depending on the length of run. With a wire that is too small, the voltage will drop as the amperage drawn increases. It isn't the fault of the electric company, the fault lies with the campground owner. Why do campground owners do this? Many campgrounds were wired 30 or 40 years ago. They were wired with little regulation and frequently self done with an eye to saving money. If they have been upgraded since, many were likewise upgraded with no regulation and were done as cheaply as possible. Maybe they do it for the same reason that people buy cheap extension cords to run expensive equipment. In the old days, 30 amps probably seemed to be plenty of electric and owners may have assumed they could use a #12 wire (sufficient for 20 amps) because nobody would actually use all 30 amps or would only do so briefly and they could get away with #12. Who knows but the fact is that you will encounter campgrounds where the wiring is inadequate and you will not get the electric you are paying for. One hint may be when they want to charge you extra to use an air conditioner or a heater. I figure that their rate for 30 amps means I get 30 amps for whatever I want to use them for. If I am paying an extra $2 or $3 for 50 amps, I get to use 50 amps all the time if I want. It shouldn't matter what I am using it for. What can we do about it as consumers? First, I would like to see the major campground directories, Trailer Life and Woodall's add descriptors for the quality of electric (I'd like to see the same for wi-fi). This could be as simple as a code E:0 (for NO) does not meet electrical code, E:X (for excellent) for meets electrical code. Once these ratings were published there would be a strong economic reason for campgrounds to meet electrical codes. I suppose we could ask that all campground owners have an electrical inspection certificate posted in their office like elevator inspection certificates! There is something for the legislative arm of FMCA to work on. Second, inform the campground owner (not just a clerk) when you find a sub-standard supply at your post. Be ready to show them your electrical meter readings. Do not accept excuses given above. Convince them that you know it is their problem and they should fix it. Don't expect that they will fix it on the spot for you. You might be able to move to a different site with a proper electrical supply. Or perhaps you should get your money back and go to a different campground. Third, contact local authorities, city, county or state, and complain about the problem. In many cases, the work has not been done by a qualified electrician and/or has not been inspected by proper inspectors. These are safety issues and when brought to the attention of appropriate authorities (preferably in writing) it is hard for them to ignore them. Once informed of the problem and its safety implications the liability for any accident passes at least partially from the campground owner to the authorities who have been informed. Finally, if you have to stay at a park for some reason, why not ask for a discount for sub-standard electric? Hey, if they say they are supplying 30 amp or 50 amp electric and sold you that spot on that basis they should give a refund if they aren't able to supply what they sold you. Most important, let them know they have a problem and you know about it. If enough people complain, they will have to start thinking about solutions.

Do you have Internet in your RV or do you use Wi-Fi when available at parks, restaurants and stores? What is the best way to stay connected online? This question came as a personal message to me from a new FMCA member. I am posting my answer as a way to offer up our solution to internet connections and to allow others to respond with their own ideas. Probably the best internet solution is to have your own satellite connection. You can put a big dish on top of your rig and get a direct satellite link anywhere you go... but you have to be parked for it to work... and you have to have a big budget... I checked satellite connection prices and the units with installation run about $4000+... And the monthly rates seem to be static at about $100 per month. I don't have that kind of budget and I'm not running a commercial operation so can't justify that kind of expense. Also, the set up when you want to use the dish is more time consuming. The dish has to search to find the satellite and then establish a connection. Not convenient for a quick check of the weather while stopped at a highway rest stop. So as you might guess, we don't have a satellite connection. Our own personal best solution is to use a combination of methods to access the internet. What works in one place may not work in another so we have: 1) cell modems, we use T-Mobile because their rates are lower (and they are slower than Verizon or AT&T), cell modems work on the go, you don't have to be parked. I can check the internet while driving down the road, even in some really unexpected places like I-80 in nowhere Nevada! The cell modem is our most useful and common connection, it seems to work almost everywhere. By the way, the Verizon and AT&T modems work at higher speeds but mostly in urban areas, you will likely find them running slower in many of the places RV'ers hang out. Their networks are getting more robust all the time but it is a slow process and they may never reach Yellowstone NP or Glacier NP! One big drawback is that we can't afford to use the cell modem in Canada. Rates for roaming in Canada are outrageous so we lose this form of connection when we are there and we sorely miss it. 2) wi-fi, we recently added external modems with higher power output and an enlarged antenna (see my post on the forum, Internet to go). Wi-fi is so much faster than cell modems that it is our preferred connection if we can get it. Since we have the cell modems we won't pay for wi-fi in parks unless the cell won't work there. The quality of wi-fi varies extremely from park to park. I don't see that changing any time in the future. Things will get better but you still find parks that have bad electricity so I'm sure their wi-fi will never be great. We pretty much ignore the wi-fi at restaurants, coffee shops, etc. When we use wi-fi it is usually in RV parks. 3) dial-up, we still maintain a dial-up account for those few places where neither the cell nor the wi-fi work. We use earthlink because it has so many local numbers available nationwide and we can get 800 service when necessary. We also like earthlink because it has a very effective screening process that has almost completely eliminated spam from our e-mail. We are encountering fewer and fewer places where dialing in is necessary. Still, I use the internet for all my financial activity, statements, payments, etc. so I can't afford to be stuck without service entirely for any length of time. When we started full timing almost eight years ago, this was our sole means of connecting. We got the cell modem about a year and a half later and about a year after that wi-fi began to become more common. What does all this cost? We are paying for two T-mobile modems, about $80 per month total, wi-fi is free when we can get it, the dial up account is about $20 per month, so we're spending the same $100 per month that the satellite service would cost, just haven't coughed up the $4000 for the initial equipment and installation. We could eliminate one of the T-mobile modems but since I went to Windows Vista, we haven't been able to link our two computers together for internet service through one modem. We used to be able to do this before I began using Vista. We could pass one modem back and forth but my wife uses her computer actively and she needs to be connected at will. We have both become quite spoiled, being able to use our computers connected to the internet in the RV. We now find it tremendously inconvenient to have to leave the RV and go somewhere to get internet service.

Well shucks SEAJAY, why didn't I think of that? I'll bet sailors learned a long time ago not to bend over in the shower!!! Salute to you sailor on Memorial Day!

Don, Your coach is six years older than ours so your battery maintainer may look different than ours. You mention that the inverter compartment is below your bedroom, ours is under the bathroom near our bedroom. Is the clicking coming from the inverter also? Is it only coming from the relay you mention in your first post? You mention a function for that relay that is similar to the battery maintainer we have. Our battery maintainer is in a compartment adjacent to the battery compartment and below our bedroom. The battery maintainer that I wrote of is a large bar arrangement with cooling fins. It has two terminals to the batteries, one marked chassis and the other marked add'l for house batteries. It has a third terminal in the center labeled negative. There is an adjacent battery maintainer lockout which looks to be a kind of relay, small square, with four blade terminals. Our manual doesn't mention the lockout but does say that the battery maintainer will automatically reset when it is over amperage. The manual does mention that the battery maintainer will click off and on repeatedly and then go silent if it can not achieve a constant charge (pulling too many amps trips the internal auto-reset circuit breaker). If your batteries are charging fully, then the battery maintainer wouldn't be cycling off and on unless the internal automatic reset function or circuit breaker was faulty. Now, here is another possibility. We just installed a new Xantrex Inverter and I immediately encountered a condition that I hadn't encountered with our older inverter. The new inverter has a "load sense" function. When load sense is activated, the inverter will switch from standby to active at intervals you program into the inverter. When load sense switches on and detects a significant electrical load it will stay on and supply electric to that load. If there is no load or only a very light load, it will switch back to standby and then back on to check the load again after the programmed interval. All this is going on only when you have no AC source, shore power or generator supplying electric. Here is the point of my mentioning load sense. After the installation of our new inverter, we were camped for a while. When we unplugged from the shore power, the inverter went into load sense function. Since we didn't have any major loads on the circuit it would constantly switch from standby to on, back to standby. I could tell this was going on because I was standing right next to the TV, VCR and other AV electronics. I could hear everything switching on, then off, then on and so on... It took a trip to Camping World where we had the inverter installed before I figured out what was going on. I took the inverter out of load sense (programming at the control panel) and everything was fine. Maybe, just maybe, this is the source of your clicking? Does the clicking happen when you are plugged in? If so, it wouldn't be the load sense function. If the clicking problem occurs when you are unplugged then I would suspect the load sense function. It would click off and on until there was a sufficient load on the circuit and then it would stay on (no clicking) until the load dropped off the line and the clicking would return. The clicking wouldn't come from the inverter, it would be other electronics being turned on and off as the inverter switches on and off over and over. Perhaps a malfunction in the inverter is doing something similar with the battery charging function? I'll be interested in the solution to your problem. Be sure to post your findings to us when you finally resolve the problem.

Gail and Cor, I'd say the rabbit owes you a big one! If it can't do better than that I would dump it also. You've given me a new saying, at least we won't sink! As a pilot, my saying is "at least we don't have to find a place to land!" We had a flat tire on the rear on the way into our parking spot at FMCA Convention in Minneapolis, last summer. Lucky enough to find a shop that could come out and do a repair on the spot. That got us to the shop to get the tire replaced. And we found out we were spoiled one spring at a campground in Pennsylvania when we found out that propane couldn't be delivered to our location, we had to go get it. In Texas where we winter they come through the park every week with the propane truck and you just put a sign in the window to have them stop and fill up your tank. Enjoyed your story even if it was a sad one! Better luck with June.

Thanks Clay and Lee, It's an interesting way to get to full timing! Louise and I are in the same place, this won't end until something drives us from it. For now we are happy travelers! Had a good laugh at the name of your cat. I knew a man once who had a dog named Dammit. I think it may have had a first name also but I won't mention that.

I have been reading the ongoing discussion in this topic for some time. There were things that didn't ring true with me, from my own knowledge of my coach and from differences in statements from different posters. So I went to the owners manual for my coach and re-read everything related to the inverter, batteries and alternator. From the previous discussion, it is apparent that different coaches have different systems for interfacing with the alternator, inverter and batteries. From our users manual, the information for our coach is as follows. The alternator charges the entire electrical system including the chassis (engine starting) batteries and the coach (house) batteries when the engine is running. There is a caution not to use the alternator to recharge discharged house batteries as it may overload and overheat the alternator causing damage to the alternator. rdlamb's statement is probably correct for his coach but his statement is not true for all Monaco coaches. When we use the inverter while driving this puts a load on the house batteries and thus the entire electrical system and the alternator will attempt to make up for that. A continuous large load in our case could result in overheating the alternator. When we plug in the shore power, or when we use the generator, the inverter switches over from inverting to charging the house batteries. There is a battery maintainer (different from a converter) in the system which will allow the battery charge from the inverter/charger to the house batteries to be diverted to the engine batteries once the house batteries are fully charged. Thus, when parked for any length of time the house batteries are fully charged and the battery maintainer automatically switches to charging the engine battery as needed. The battery maintainer has an automatic circuit breaker which will trip if it draws more than 15 amps and then automatically reset. If the engine batteries are discharged and the maintainer is drawing more than 15 amps, it will click off, then back on repeatedly until it pauses. Could this be the cause of the clicking noise don0344 reported? It will resume putting a charge on the engine battery if the engine is started and then shut down after the alternator has put a base charge on the battery. Again, the above information is from the owners manual for our coach. It can not be applied to all makes and models of motor homes, maybe not even the same make and model from a different year. Knowing what kind of coach someone has (year, make and model) can help find an answer to their questions. You can put basic coach information in your signature as I have done below. This helps everyone understand your problem and helps those who attempt to answer your question.

Let's start a discussion of various aspects of full-timing. Those of us who have already made the break can discuss how we came to the decision to sell the bricks and sticks house and move into a very small but mobile space. It is important to remember that there are no absolutes in this discussion. Each of us arrived at this decision via our own personal route for our own personal reasons. We'll leave it to others (perhaps those who hope to join us) to challenge and question us about our decisions. I'll kick things off with a few thoughts of my own. Please add your own experiences. In 1998 Louise retired from public education. I followed in 1999. For two years after this we worked for a company in Chicago, making trips back and forth regularly. We also did some traveling, going to Paris in the summer of 1999 and to Africa in the spring of 2001. Meanwhile we had traveled to meetings in several locations in the US flying commercial for some and flying in single engine airplanes when possible. On one such trip we drove from Phoenix to Lake Havasu City to visit Louise's mother. Being February we passed through Quartzite and saw the assemblage of RV's. Our discussion began. In Lake Havasu City we saw an RV dealer lot and the discussion continued. Before we left Lake Havasu City, we stopped in to check out the RV's. A very nice and patient salesman spent several hours showing us everything from the Prevost once owned by a NASCAR driver who lost his sponsor to toy haulers. We asked the salesman about information on RV'ing and he referred us to a book titled: Movin' On by Ron and Barb Hofmeister. Written in 1999, this book contains information that is now somewhat dated but describes the experiences of a couple who started in a Class C motor home and went full time. For those considering starting in a Class C, I would recommend this book. The cell/computer information is way out of date but the considerations of packing for a small vehicle are still good. The book had excellent descriptions of what it was like to travel full time, the advantages and disadvantages. I would still recommend it for that content alone. We read the book from end to end and discussed it over and over. We convinced ourselves that we could do it, make the break from our fixed home to a mobile life. We began looking at RV's everything from 5th wheels to motor homes. By March of 2001 we had settled on a motor home and found one to purchase, a used 1994 Monaco Dynasty. We parked it in storage. After we returned from Africa, we decided to quit our jobs and live on our retirement income. The dye was cast, we began the process of getting ready for the road.

I came across an article about the coming Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, which goes into effect next week on June 1. This site lists the documents that are acceptable for crossing the borders between Mexico, United States and Canada. If you are planning a trip out of country this summer, be sure you have one of these acceptable documents for each person in your group. http://www.getyouhome.gov/html/eng_map.html The above link also has buttons for the Canadian Border Patrol and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (Look at the lower left of the page).

Don, thanks for the update. It helps us all to find out what the solution to your problem was. Now we have another suspect to put on our list of possible faulty electrical components. Unfortunately, it sounds like a trip back to a competent RV technician is in order. If the inverter isn't failing, it is surely malfunctioning.

Don and Linda, We have wintered in south Texas for the last eight winters. While we have been at one park the whole eight years, we have traveled all over the valley. There are hundreds of parks in the Rio Grande Valley with every range of services and type of location. There is a state park at the southern tip of South Padre Island with full RV hook-ups if what you want is seaside residence, you can't beat this one. You can drive the beach in places and fish most anywhere. There are plenty of sea food restaurants and during spring break things get real interesting. There are landlocked parks further inland with every range of service from large dance halls where you can practice your Texas two step or other dance steps, to locations next to wildlife parks. Some parks have lots of activities and others are just places to hang out. Some parks have paved parking spots, some have grass spots. You can find RV parks at golf courses and RV parks next to flea markets. Throughout the "valley" as it is known, you will find excellent authentic Mexican food, Texas BBQ and seafood. Our winter temperatures seldom reach the freezing mark and we seldom have a week that we don't see some temperatures near 70 degrees for at least a little while. So when you ask for a decent campground, just what do you mean? I'm betting we can find one for you!

Brett has hit the nail on the head. Or should I not mention nails when discussing tires? Here is another factor to consider when checking your tire pressure. You should check tire pressure each day you travel in the RV. Why? The more frequently you check your tire pressure the better you will know your tire pressures. If one tire is suddenly low, it indicates a problem that should be investigated. You will know that the problem needs to be investigated because you have checked the tire for many days and it is always at the same pressure as the other tires on that axle and now suddenly one tire is different. Alarms go off in your head and you do more than just add a little air to bring it up to the correct pressure. Another reason you check air pressure each day you drive is because the temperature each day will affect the pressure of the tire. When Brett mentions ambient temperatures, that means the temperature each day you drive. Because each day will vary slightly in temperature, the pressure will vary also and you want to be sure that the pressure stays at your desired value. Now here is a gotcha for checking pressure. If you check tire pressure after the sun rises and the sun is shining on any of your pretty black tires, those tires will have an unreliable pressure reading because they are warmer than the other tires, just as if they had been driven. How much is the difference? Check your tire pressure before sunrise and then check again an hour or two after sunrise and see how the pressure changes. Compare that pressure with the pressure of tires on the same axle with the same starting pressure but in the shade. You will find significant differences in pressure readings. In reality, the tires should all be at equal pressure but you won't have any way to verify that with your pressure gauge. If you now try to equalize the pressure on an axle, you will end up with the tires in the sunlight being at lower pressure (the gauge will read the same but the warmer tires will have less air in them) than the cool tires in the shade. So the only time you can check tire pressures and be sure you are getting accurate pressure readings is when the tires are all at an equal temperature, before sunrise! This same principle applies to tires that are near a running generator or other heat producing device. If something in your coach warms tires unevenly, you can not adjust tire pressures until that heat source is removed from the equation and the tires have equalized in temperature. If you weigh your coach with RVSEF you will receive an analysis that mentions another complication for motor homes. Your coach never weighs the same one day to the next. No I'm not suggesting your diet isn't working... I am pointing out that each day you drive, you use significant amounts of fuel from your fuel tank. A 100 gallon fuel tank holds fuel weighing about 600 pounds. Your propane tank may hold another 200 pounds of propane if it is full. You carry fresh water, sometimes more, sometimes less. You have waste tanks that are sometimes empty and at other times may be nearly full. So when your coach is weighed you need to know what the status of all your tanks are. Then you need to compensate the actual weight of your coach to the tanks full weight. In my coach, the fuel, propane and fresh water are all near the front axle. The waste tanks are near the rear axle. So when it is weighed I have to add weight for each axle to equal the missing liquids in each of the tanks. That way the tire pressure will be sufficient for an all tanks full situation. So, weigh your coach, add weight for empty or partially full tanks, look up the weight for the tires on the manufacturers tire chart and add 5% or 10% for a safety measure. This becomes your target pressure for the tires on one axle. Each axle will be different, based on the weight on the tires on that axle. Also, be aware that tire charts will show a different weight allowance for single tires vs. dual tires. Dual tires run hotter due to the adjacent hot tire and thus need a different pressure for the same weight a single tire carries. The charts make all this easy, just look for the dual weight scale for those tires and use the single weight scale for single tires. Finally, when you drive, your tire pressure will likely go above the rated pressure stamped on your tires and rims. The pressure stamped on the tires and rims is for the cold pressure before you start driving. This rated pressure assumes normal heating during driving and thus the associated pressure increase is also factored into the rating.

Doug, It is interesting how different people plan trips. When we leave on a cross country trip I have no idea where we will be staying. We use the Trailer Life Directory and Woodall's Campground Directory as our reference. Generally, we will determine where we want to be the next stop on the trip and then look for a suitable campground in the area. If we plan to stay for a while we'll be pickier about our campground, if it is just a night or two, we can flex a little and take a less desirable campground. We don't plan on spending a lot of time in the campground generally so we aren't as concerned about the campground facilities beyond the full hook-ups. We almost never make reservations in advance. In fact, I hate to have a schedule that I have to stick to. If we decide it is too far to a campground for a day's trip, we can stop somewhere along the way or change to a different campground without having to cancel reservations. If we are finding campgrounds near full or worried about getting a space at a preferred campground we will call ahead before arriving at the campground. We typically call an hour or two before our arrival in this case. That way it saves us a drive to a full campground and allows us to re-route to a campground with space without wasting fuel or time. We have seldom found a campground so full that there wasn't some kind of space available. Once we have reservations at a campground or a series of campgrounds then we are committed to a schedule. Did I say, I really don't like schedules? I had enough of them when I was working! With no schedule then we are free to do what we want when we want.

We are now in Warrenton, Missouri, parked in my mother's driveway. We had a nice visit with my sister and her family in Kansas City last weekend. My sister is recovering from knee replacement, a familial weakness that will likely catch up with me some time in the future. She is hobbling around on a crutch but is healing and will soon be out dancing again. While in the Kansas City area we enjoyed staying at the Smith's Fork Campground. It is located just below the dam at Smithville Lake, a Corps of Engineers flood control lake. The campground is run by the Smithville Parks Department. They have 30- and 50-amp electric with full hookups at very reasonable rates. With a senior discount the 50-amp electric cost just $23 a night! They have almost 80 spaces, some pull-through sites and the whole park is beautiful. A 14-day stay limit keeps turnover high. They don't take reservations but they take gate reservations. I don't know exactly what that means, but if you are interested, call ahead as this is a popular fishing and family campground. Leaving Smithville, we decided to drive smaller roads directly east rather than heading south on I-435 to I-70. The traffic on the smaller roads was light and local. We seldom were holding up traffic and if they couldn't get around us they usually turned off at the next town. We enjoyed seeing some towns we had only heard of before and a few we had never heard of before. We were surprised to find a very nice looking large resort in Excelsior Springs, Missouri. The Elm's Resort was designed by Kansas City architects, Jackson and McIlvain. The grounds are beautiful. The road through town is torturous for a motor home but we navigated it without a problem. It is very rugged terrain and the road turns every block or two as you go up and down hills. Not the place to zip through in a hurry but definitely worth a stop. I am really enjoying traveling the backroads rather than the interstate highways. The pace is much more relaxing and the scenery is so much more interesting. Even if we don't stop, we get to see so much more of America once we are off the interstates. We found a nice roadside picnic area to stop at for lunch just before we reached U.S. 65 north of Marshall, Missouri. The whole area of this drive we saw beautifully cared for farms and homes. The area had a prosperous look even in this economy. South of Marshall we hit I-70 and zipped across the rest of Missouri to Warrenton, Missouri where my mother lives just a half mile from where my grandparents lived during my childhood. Crossing the Missouri River near Columbia, Missouri we did see that the river is bank full to slightly above. North of our crossing the flood plain was covered with water, evidence of the storms that passed through in the last few days coupled with snow melt from the northern Rockies. At Mom's house we have 50-amp electric that I installed several years ago. There is water and sewer available about 75 feet from our rig. The macerator I installed several years ago comes in handy here. We shower and wash dishes in moms house but if need be, we can empty the waste tanks without moving. Mom has a list for me, her to do's. This time the list is small; replace a porch light, trim some shrubs, glue this, fix that, all minor things that help her stay in her home a little longer. Along with her list, I have my own. A drawer railing rear support gave out when we got here. Too many bumps and cheap supports. I replaced those last night. I've replaced most of these cheap adjustable plastic supports for the rear of the drawer railings with a sturdier support I found at Lowe's. The replacements aren't adjustable and are a heavier plastic. I haven't had to replace one of them yet so they seem to be doing the job. Checking the roof when we got here, I see I have a big cleaning job to do. We were parked under a really nasty tree in Denver at The Prospect RV Park. Sappy buds rained down on us as the tree leafed out this spring. I haven't found a good way to remove the sap yet. While on the roof I also noticed that the anemometer that automatically retracts our awning has been broken once again. I put a protective frame over it to keep tree branches from getting it but this is the second time that hail has gotten it. I guess it needs an umbrella to protect it from the hail. I have a replacement ordered thanks to the help of Freedom RV in Wentzville. Unlike the other RV place in Wentzville, Freedom RV called me back! And they could get the part I needed. I can do the install on this, I watched the first time it was replaced and replaced it myself the next time. This will be the third replacement. I'd just remove it but it is so handy to have the awning automatically retract when the wind picks up. This morning we make a run to St. Louis to visit our doctors. We scheduled two doctor appointments for each of us, our GP for exams and renewing prescriptions and an annual check with our dermatologist. Next week we'll visit our optometrist with the dentist to follow. We are tied to our home physicians for routine care by the medical insurance from our school districts. It is how we manage most of our medical care as full time RV'ers.

My mother pulled out her church cookbook this evening. The cookbook is really two cookbooks in one. Titled: Past and Present, 1946 - 2008, it has all the recipes and other information from 1946 (the year I was born) and from 2008. Mom still has the old original 1946 cookbook and they used her copy for the new cookbook. Anyway, I thought a few of the tips would be helpful today. There were two pages of tips in the 1946 book. Here is a sampling: To make stove polish shine more easily, add a little turpentine. Using a pastry brush, wash the bottom of unbaked pie shell with unbeaten white of egg; your pie will never soak. Silk hose will wear longer if washed in cold water. Tough meat will be made tender if placed in vinegar water for a few minutes. My own personal favorite: Lard will be whiter if a teaspoon of baking soda is added after lard is started to render. The cookbook was produced by the ladies of Friends United Church of Christ, 313 E Main Street, Warrenton, MO 63383 www.uccwebsites.net/friedensuccwarrentonmo.html

Meme, We spent the summer in Alaska in 2006. First, get the bible on travel in Alaska, The Milepost. It will give you a near complete listing of possible things to see. Depending on the time you have to stay there, you can drive most every major highway in Alaska in a season. There is no way you can see anything near everything in a season! Now for more good news. On your way to Alaska you will travel through British Columbia and/or Alberta and then Yukon and if you want you can see Northwest Territories, all beautiful and amazing parts of Canada. It will take some time to see some of the sights here. We spent almost 3 weeks getting to Alaska and another week coming back to the lower 48. Now for the roads. Of course, my report is now 3 years old. That said, the roads to Alaska were generally good. The Alaska Highway pavement was fine through about the first half of Yukon. As you go further north from there, the roads begin to show the effects of the harsh winter. You will develop an eye for the closet dumpers! These are dips in the road caused by frost heaving and slumping. They are about the right length to cause your coach (trailers too) to settle down on the suspension and then coming out of the dip toss the rear end upward so as to cause all the clothes hangers to rise off the closet bar! Viola, a closet dumper! Once you have an eye for those you learn that 45 MPH is a good speed to travel, it allows you to slow just a bit to avoid the big down/up movement of the motor home. That was the good news. Road repair in Canada and Alaska is an on-going process and I'm sure you will see many miles of road under repair. You will drive over packed rock/dirt that is wet down with Calcium Chloride to reduce dust. Being damp this will sling Calcium Chloride laced dirt all over your motor home. Fortunately, most RV parks accommodate washing either with a free washing policy or a paid wash area. I washed the motor home just about every time we drove from one place to another. We were there in a very wet year according to veteran Alaska travelers and this probably contributed to the mud/dirt problem. Also, be aware that you will find few places where the parking lots for gas stations, grocery stores, souvenir shops are paved. Instead you will find them pot-holed and if it has rained, muddy. Is such a trip hard on your coach, yes. Would I go again? We are already planning to do just that, if not in 2010, likely 2011. Our next trip will be via ferry on the way north to see the coastal areas of Alaska, Juneau, etc. Our coach has more scars from other more civil locations than we got in Alaska. In our old home state of Missouri we had a flat tire on the left front steer tire in the fall of 2006, on I-29, none in Alaska! In the spring of 2007 we took a large rock in the windshield, again in Missouri, I-44 this time. We got plastered by tire debris from a highway department mower on I-80 in Utah in the fall of 2007. Now, we did see a motor home with a large patch on the upper rear quarter, apparently a sign or a tree caught the rear of the coach when making a turn. We saw a fifth wheel that had run off the road. There was a path of run down vegetation at least 300 feet long. We watched as a wrecker pulled out the pickup truck and fifth wheel as a single unit and they then drove away under their own power. I'm sure there was damage but it was still drivable. Caution is essential, don't schedule yourself into being in a rush. Take your time and enjoy the great experience that is Alaska. In preparation for our trip to Alaska, we made sure we had new tires on our taod. We purchased a cover for the hood and windshield of our toad and used it as well as the Guardian that we already had with our Roadmaster Tow Bar. We also purchased and installed a Bra for the front of the motor home. Big, ugly and black, it gave us extra protection for the nose of the motor home. We saw all kind of home-made devices to protect motor homes, windshields and toads. I think it makes sense to prepare though as it turned out, we could have likely done fine without these steps during that particular trip. Fuel prices in Canada and Alaska will be higher than in the lower 48. In 2006 we paid about $3.50 to $4.00 per gallon of diesel. On a drive to Inuvik, NWT we paid $4.50 for regular gas! That was the only station in a stretch of about 300 miles on that highway. Given the nature of fuel prices, I would prepare for prices greater than these for your 2010 trip. If they are less, you'll be prepared!

Strange73, I would have suggested a Class C for bunk beds, didn't know there was a Class A or Bus Conversion that had bunk beds until I read garykd's post. The standard saying for Class A coaches is, "Conversation for eight, drinks for six, dinner for four, sleeps two!" That would be the answer to the people who look at that great big coach and think it must sleep 20 people! Glad there are floor plans out there to fit your needs. Again, go to an FMCA convention if you can. I have never had a salesman pressure me to buy one kind of coach or another. If you show an interest in one coach or floor plan, then they will offer help but there are many browsers at the convention and the salesmen can't buttonhole everyone. In fact, the sales people are pretty low key the first day or so. Pretty much just answering questions. With all the coaches that are usually at the convention, you could spend the whole convention just browsing coaches! I wouldn't be afraid of an older coach if it is in good shape. We started in a seven year old coach and stayed with it for two and a half years. Once certain we were in this for the long haul, we purchased a new coach at a rally. We drove it over 7000 miles in the next six weeks. That is a good break-in run in a short time. Our last stop before parking at our winter retreat was at the dealer to get various items fixed. With the lower cost of the purchase of a used motor home comes increased maintenance costs! It would be hard for the maintenance costs to equal the cost of purchasing a new coach.

Thank you LovinLife! You made my day. Glad to have helped you with your decision. Hope to see you on the road soon!

Ouch indeed! I've been there and done that - more than once! The last time it took staples to close the cut. I was busy looking at the ground while walking and then started to bend over to pick something up... At that point I did purchase a hard hat and some safety cones that I put under the corners of the open bay door! So far that is working for me! Knock on wood!

Another source for repair and replacement parts is the salvage industry. There are salvage yards all over the country that specialize in RV salvage. I referenced this source in a topic, "A Great Resource for RV Information," under the General Discussion category. If you can't find what you need from the above references, check the salvage industry.

On the question of what to do with the stuff you have collected over a lifetime of living in a foundation home, everyone has their own connections here that are difficult to part with. From our experience, we started by selling my motorcycle. Louise says she knew I was serious when I did that! We had furniture that was of some value and we gave our children first choice on that. Daughter number two was moving into an apartment at the time and took several of the furniture and electronics items (sterio and TV). We also had a few family heirlooms among the furniture. Those were passed along to specific children with their concurrence. So many of those items were not gone completely though we have no intention of ever asking for them back. Then there is the whole category of collectibles. Both Louise and I had numerous collections of items from coffee mugs to fossils that we had assembled over the years. Once in a while I get a twinge for some of those items. We sold or donated most of those items. None were particularly valuable other than keepsake kinds of value. I would like to have had some of the fossils to give to my grandchildren though none are old enough to appreciate them yet. That collection was too heavy and too bulky to be storing in our daughters basement so it went. So now I look for rocks and fossils and transfer them directly to the grandchildren rather than keeping a collection on hand. Common household items were easier to get rid of. When you think of what you paid for some of these things and what you get when you sell them it helps to keep the RV lighter. My days of consummate consumerism are over and I am glad that I'm not throwing my money away on stuff that will be worth pennies someday when I am finished with it. We sold everything we could at a series of garage sales at fire sale prices and gave away what we could not sell. We had some nice artwork, our oldest daughter took some of those items and the rest we stored in her basement. They aren't heavy and can be stored in a compact space so we kept them. When we have to give up the motor home we'll have some artwork to decorate our new home with. Louise loves to read. She always has some books with her but she doesn't collect books. She loves to use the book exchanges at parks to find new books to read. She has a bread maker, blender and several other cooking utensils. Louise likes to keep the house decorated when we are staying in one place for a while so she has small photographs and nick-knacks stored away in drawers. I made a small table that fits over the steering wheel to hold some of the things we like to display. Many of these things are small souvenirs of our travels. She has a lace tablecloth we purchased in Mexico and drapes it over the dash and steering wheel table to make things look nice. As an amateur astronomer I had several telescopes. I rebuilt one of them to fit into the motor home, the other is compact in a suitcase style carry case and it fits under the bed. I get those out from time to time as we travel though not enough to justify hauling them everywhere. Still, I won't give them up. We have a friend who travels with her keyboard and sets it up to practice and play as they travel. We know another couple who travel with her sewing machine because she loves to sew. Those things that are of greatest importance you will find a way to keep and/or take with you. We had a nice home gym which our oldest daughter took and uses. We purchased a Bowflex, it fits into one of our basement compartments. We get it out periodically to keep fit. It is out more often when we are in a location for an extended period of time. We have items for our grandchildren when they come to visit. Coloring books from places we've visited, puzzles from National Parks we have visited, they love to play with tickets and our convention badges and ribbons. We got some native toys in Alaska. We keep some simple games they like to play. We can't keep them away from our dominoes and they love to play Mexican Bingo. We also have a collection of DVD's for them to watch. So plenty of rainy day stuff for the children. Life is simpler knowing that there isn't room for anything more so now we shop for the essentials. We invest our money in the experience of living rather than in things.

Brett, Thanks for the information. Your technical tips are very helpful. I always learn something. With our side radiator I usually hose it out good with a garden variety sprayer every time it gets a good wash. I hadn't used any detergent and that would be a good idea once in a while.

Now Wayne, nothing I said should discourage you. Filling out the form won't cost you a cent! It just takes a little while to put together an inventory. You don't need to include any of the stuff that is attached to your motor home. Just inventory all the valuable loose items, computers, cameras, other valuables you carry with you. You should have a good inventory of these items for insurance purposes anyway. Consider this a good reason to get it done now and go to Canada. We have been to Canada every year, for the last four years. It's a great country, go and enjoy. You don't have to pay anything at US Customs to process the form. It will take you a few minutes to process the paperwork. One hangup is that it isn't easy getting into Customs from the "back side." We can usually find a parking place on the US side somewhere nearby and walk in from there. I enjoy the reaction of the border agents, they don't see too many of these forms. I suppose that most RV'ers don't file this form but if you don't you leave yourself open to more problems than you want. Most border agents are quite reasonable but if you get one on a bad day it would be nice to have the form! With it you won't have any argument.