tbutler

We have Motor Coach Design's (MCD) http://www.mcdinnovations.com/ sun screens all around. We are full time and having the screens on all the windows really helps in warm sunny climates. As Gramps mentioned, the MCD screens are attached at the top with a snap. The bottom of the screen has Velcro tabs that snap on the motor home and then attach to the Velcro corners on the screens. The advantage of this arrangement is that all screens will eventually stretch and even a little stretch causes the screens to sag. With the Velcro you can just pull them snug at the Velcro corners and keep them looking nice and tight. We winter in south Texas and with near constant windy days in the 20's and occasional days in the 30's or 40's I have seldom have a screen come loose so the Velcro tabs do the job. We have had the screens on the front since we bought the coach in November 1993 and use them for at least 5 months straight in the winter and occasionally in the summer as needed. Check the web site or call them to see if they have screens for your coach. We had custom screens made for all our windows so I'm sure they could do custom screens also. MCD has been really good about replacing needed parts. I have had a few of the snap tabs with Velcro that separated from the plastic backing they are on and they replaced the tabs at no charge. We even stopped and stayed overnight at their factory in McKinney, Texas (800-804-1757) just north of Dallas and had full hook-ups. You will find cheaper sun screens but not better ones!

Yes, it has Vista drivers. I am using it with Vista right now. As I mentioned this one came with a small three inch antenna and we ordered a 12 inch antenna to replace it because my friend found the larger antenna significantly improved the range.

My album "Flying gliders at Mile High Gliders" has a database error that comes up when I try to arrow from one picture to the next in the album. I just added some pictures to the album and when I went to scroll through the pictures I encounter the error message. I can select each picture by clicking on it and see each one but the scrolling isn't working. Is there any solution other than deleting the album and re-loading it?

At first glance this might not be what you think of when you think of going RVing but this adventure was made possible by our RV lifestyle. Staying as long as we are in Denver would have been prohibitive if we weren't living in our motor home. Having all my resources at hand made this work for me. Everything has fallen into place and I have just completed my training to fly gliders. I started this quest on Thursday April 23rd and was able to satisfy the FAA authorized examiner on the oral and flight performance exams on Sunday, May 4. These were 12 intense days of work to get to this point. Having never been in a glider before, everything about gliders was foreign territory. Having a private pilot license already made the process much easier and quicker. I didn't have to take the introductory ground school or knowledge test. I did have to take the glider ground school and this was accomplished with the help of John. I had to learn how to fly the glider with an emphasis on what is different about glider and power airplanes. Sean guided me through this process. For the first few days, as with any aerial instruction, we only flew with good weather, light winds and high ceilings. As my skills progressed the weather became less of a factor with the exception of low ceilings. On those days we did ground work, learning to understand performance factors in gliders and exploring techniques of soaring and cross country gliding. I made landings right from the beginning and did the take off on my third flight and each flight after that. Each flight was short, the longest being about 20 minutes so the learning was concentrated. I had to make thirty flights, ten of them had to be solo flights. I purchased the 30 flight package to take me through the whole program. It turned out I needed about 3 more flights and finished them off on Friday, May 1. I was signed off to take my oral exam and flight check ride. I was set to use Saturday to study for the oral exam and to plan the cross country flight my flight examiner, Quay, had set as one of my practical assignments. I wouldn't actually fly the cross country, just demonstrate my skills at planning one and be able to discuss and explain the reasons for planning the way I did. My plans hit a bump when Louise's mother went back into the hospital. She had been recovering nicely up to this point but was complaining about abdominal pain. Louise and I went to the hospital, Irene was in the emergency room with Louise's sister and her husband as well as Louise's oldest daughter. I brought my study materials along and worked while in the waiting room. Mom was dismissed from the hospital about 8:00 p.m. I went home as soon as I knew she was OK. It turned out to be nothing serious. Sunday I was up early to get weather reports before meeting Quay at his office in Aurora, Colorado. He grilled me, in a friendly way, for three hours. Then we were off to the airport in Boulder to do the check ride. I could have flown better but it was good enough to get my license. So now I am a licensed glider pilot. The weather held off long enough for me to fly but it rained on me all the way back to Wheat Ridge. So I beat the weather after all. One more achievement that I always wanted to reach has been accomplished. Meanwhile, our plans for the trip to Florida have been canceled. We'll stay here another week and then head for Missouri to see my mother, children and grandchildren. Maybe we'll get to see a shuttle launch next year!

One more tip for driving in mountains with a motor home. Truck drivers will tell you that it is better to use your pedal brakes periodically to slow the motor home significantly rather than using the brake pedal continuously. Continuous use of the pedal brakes will heat them up to the point where they become ineffective. If you notice the RV speeding up as you descend, let the speed increase for a little while then use the brakes to bring the speed back down. When the speed is back down, release the brakes and let the engine brake work while the pedal brakes cool down. If you learn the RPM shift points for your transmission, you can effectively prevent the transmission from up shifting as your speed increases. I know for instance that when our transmission approaches 2500 RPM it is reaching a shift point. At that point I will apply the pedal brakes to bring engine RPM back down to about 2000 and then release the foot brakes. One of the keys to having the engine brake do most of the work (most desirable) is to top the mountain grade at a slow speed and engage the engine brake before speed begins to build up on the down slope. If you are facing a long down grade at 6% you will likely want to be in third gear, not fourth gear. Some people seem to be comfortable on these down grades at 60 mph. I wouldn't be able to stop the RV at that speed if I came around a curve to find stopped traffic or an accident and don't want to be going faster than I can quickly bring the RV to a stop. I usually have truckers (real pros) passing me on down grades, they must be empty or hauling potato chips! The really loaded trucks will be traveling about the same speed I am traveling. When I see the heavily loaded truckers starting to accelerate I know the bottom of the grade is near and then I'll let the transmission upshift. You will get the hang of it as you travel, it really isn't difficult to do and nothing to be feared if you take time to learn the basics as you are doing here. Consider this trip as a beginners course for some travel in the west! Enjoy!

Margie, I can't say how yours works, we have a Xantrax RS3000 inverter/charger. When we plug in, ours goes into battery charger mode. It then recharges the house batteries off the shore power (RV park electric). When we stay in a park, it continues to keep the house batteries in top charge. There are loads on the batteries even when you are plugged in. The lights in the coach run off the batteries, the controls for the refrigerator and hot water heater and of course the furnace controls and fan is driven by battery power. As these loads draw from the batteries, the inverter/charger restores the charge on the batteries. This is why I say we never turn off our inverter/charger. Never even think of doing it unless we have service being done on the electrical system and turning it off is a safety issue for the workers. The inverter/charger is one of the real convenience items in our motor home. We never have a power outage. In fact, we have had occasions when we are sitting in our motor home at night watching some TV and the generator kicks on. Only then do we find out the whole park has been out of electric for hours!!!

We have our inverter on all the time. When we pack up and leave a park, we bring in slides and then unplug. The inverter picks up from there. How long it lasts depends on what load you put on the inverter. A laptop is a small load. I monitor our usage during our travels and we run 6 to 9 amps base load and have a 440 amp hour (4 ea 6V batteries) to run the inverter. We also have a roof-mounted solar panel, but even on cloudy days we have no problem using the inverter all day long. It will run all day and run the TV for several hours at night before we have to use the generator or be plugged in. When we plug in, the inverter will recharge the batteries and we're back in business. So the question comes down to what is your base load and what is your battery source to run the inverter? If you don't have an easy way to answer these questions, just try it on a day when you expect to be plugged in at night. Unless you have a small battery supply or a very large base load, I'm guessing it will work fine for you. Base load is the stuff you can't turn off, the electronic controls on the refrigerator and the various safety devices (smoke detector(s), CO detector, LP detector), indicator lights on switches, other sensors, etc. Part of our base load (with the inverter on) is our alarm clocks, the microwave clock, probably a few other things I can't think of now. I was recently at Camping World and mentioned something about an inverter to another motor home owner with a very nice motor home and they said they never used their inverter and I was amazed. I just wouldn't imagine not using such a useful device. We run battery chargers for our phones on the inverter if needed while traveling, stop and turn on the computer or the TV to check weather, catch up on the news on TV while eating lunch, our AC current is always on! We recently upgraded to a true sine wave inverter with automatic generator start (our old one had auto gen start but it quit working) so basically when the inverter runs the batteries down it kicks on the generator and we don't have to worry about the batteries getting run down even when we are boondocking.

WHOA DUDE! An Excel spreadsheet! Now that is organized! Just kidding, everyone finds their own level of planning. For me personally, I feel out of sorts when I know that I have to be someplace in the next five days. I hate having to make appointments more than a month ahead. Our plans are always tentative but then we never have to pack or unpack the RV and don't have to work. Sorry about the four letter word! Full timing is about as free as we can be! When backpackers pack long trips along the Sierra Nevada they can ship supplies to way points along their route. You might try that with the Blue Bell Ice Cream! If we were going to be in Colorado when you come through, I'd give you an address to ship the ice cream to... We keep criss-crossing the country and haven't seen near everything, not even everything we are interested in seeing. We try to make every trip via a different route. Enjoy your trip!

Wayne, Then next launch after the 11th of May is May 20 if you believe NASA can get two shuttles off on that short a schedule. Personally I'm skeptical about that but they posted the schedule that way. If you want a full listing of the coming rocket and shuttle launches, go to http://www.nasa.gov/missions/highlights/schedule.html They update launch dates as delays change schedules so check frequently if you are planning to go for a launch. The next two after the May 20 date are June 13 and August 6. The Shuttle program is winding down so if you haven't seen a launch yet, get to one soon.

Intuitive... that's what you call it if you have written the code. It all looks so simple! We users have another name for it until we have used it for a few months and then it becomes intuitive to us as well! Enjoy your trip and I'll be looking for your Blog!

Doug, When you are logged in, go to the community page and look at the top of the page. There is a line that has My Controls, View New Posts, etc. I think that you can go to My Controls and look at the left side of the page for the menus. There should be one that says My Blog. Mine won't give me a choice to start a Blog but I think that is because I already have one. If you click on the Blog menu item it should come up with a page for creating a blog. Name it, put your names as desired on it and start with your first entry. There may also be an entry on the community page next to My Controls that says My Blog. Clicking that entry may bring up the start a Blog page. If neither of these suggestions work, just start probing around on the My Controls page and you should find it somewhere. It can't be too difficult, I found it!

Hey Wayne, Ouch! Diesel at the Flying J at Quincy, I-10 Exit 192 was $2.279 (I checked the internet just now). When I get caught in this situation I'll put in enough fuel to get me 100 miles down the road rather than filling up at the higher price. Next time you are in the Flying J, pick up a brochure that gives the location of all their stations nationwide. My navigator keeps it in her map pocket. We also have The Next Exit which will give you a full listing of restaurants, shopping and fuel stations at every exit on the entire Interstate Highway System. And there is the GPS as well. All good resources for finding what you need. At 22 cents a gallon you could have bought the book and had change to spare... Sounds like a great campsite. Enjoy your stay. If your schedule is flexible, the Space Shuttle is scheduled to launch on May 11 with a second launch scheduled for May 20! I am hoping to see at least one if not two. We'll be headed to Florida soon.

I second the suggested blog! You could share your adventure with us as you travel. We in turn could comment on things like: If your going there you should see... or, I didn't know there was one of those there... You might think that those of us who travel full time wouldn't be interested in your travels but each of us has our own unique interests and we pursue different interests when we travel. Your blog will help widen our world by seeing it through your eyes. When we started traveling full time almost eight years ago now I started sending a weekly e-mail to our children and mothers. My son printed out each one and kept it for his children, just 2 and 1 years old at the time. I didn't think to do that so when I changed computers or cleared old e-mails I lost all those records of our travels. I wish I had them on the computer now. At least we have the printed information. Like Gary says, enhance your journal with any special talents and interests. Perhaps you'll end up with a book or movie!