tbutler

John, You may want to start this as a new topic since your engine is not a Detroit Diesel. If you put Mercedes 300 and Gulfstream in the title of the topic you should get some specific answers to help.

Holy Mackerel Bat Man that is way cool! It looks like you could drive that to the space station! The view from the cab is amazing. Wonder if we can get Peterbilt working on new motor home designs?? I assume you meant RV, not TV!

That is a good point. If/when I go with an internal surge protector I'll have to get the tester. It looks great. jleamont: Have you ever encountered a box where you couldn't plug in because the tester is too wide or boxy to fit into the outlet?

You will find that many of the campgrounds in the eastern US and also in eastern Canada are filled with local campers who have an annual contract on a site and park their trailer there on a more or less permanent basis. This becomes their weekend and vacation spot. These are the summer equivalent of the winter campgrounds in the southern US where the snow birds roost from December through March. They have lots of spaces, the listing in the camping guides may show a hundred spaces but there will only be a handful of transient spaces available and those are often booked around times when there are special events, holidays, summer vacation times. It can mean that if you want to see the area you have to plan ahead and sometimes take what you can get. We've had good and bad experiences at these campgrounds. They cater to their "permanent" clientele and tolerate the transients. Given what I've said, let me say that we still make a pass through the northeastern US and Canada on a regular schedule and wouldn't miss the great scenery, history, parks, recreation opportunities and seafood that the NE US has to offer. Just be prepared to take what you get and live with it. Note also that if you are traveling in the fall their camping season ends at Labor Day for many campgrounds. Once their regular campers are gone they close up the doors and head south!

A 2000 watt Honda inverter that runs on gas must actually be a generator. Gremlinbangles indicates that they have a generator in their coach.

We winter in south Texas and spring break in South Padre Island is definitely a college thing. My daughter and her husband took their children to the Pensacola, FL beaches and they enjoyed it. Their children were similar in age so that would be my suggestion. I've seen the beach in that area and it is certainly beautiful but I have no first hand experience or RV park recommendations to offer.

Winter driving is a concern almost anywhere in the US. As jleamont indicated, check your weather before you hit the road each morning. The weather channel is good for an overview of what lies ahead though you might have to watch for a while to get the weather for the specific part of the road you are going to be driving. I use Weather Bug on my iPad or iPhone. You can get radar live (10 to 15 minute delay) and it shows where you are located so you know right away where you are in relation to any storm. Zoom in or out to get more or less detail, all quite easy. Watch the sky, if you see clouds on the eastern horizon, check the weather again! You will be running along or near the southern border of the US so the chances of really bad weather are much lower than say I-20 or I-40. At worst you might have to stop in a campground for a day or two before continuing on your way. Traveling from west to east, you are traveling in the same direction as storms will be traveling. If you are ahead of a storm, drive a little longer each day and you might be able to stay ahead of it. If you are coming up behind a storm, delay for a few days to allow it to get well ahead of you. If I know a storm is approaching, I'll get up early in the morning to check the radar. Coming out of Denver one December we stopped in Colorado Springs. We did a storm drill (slides in, wheels turning in 15 or 20 minutes) at 4 in the morning to get away before being hit by the snow or freezing precipitation. It was all worth it as we were passed by truckers with snow loads on top of their trailers for hours. Glad to get out in front of that one!

As far as the climb is concerned you should have no problems. Your coach is equipped to handle the climb and your toad isn't super heavy so that should be no problem. That time of year any problems with overheating should be no concern. Even a warm day in January in the LA area is cool by comparison to the summer temperatures you coach should be able to handle. We've driven the grapevine and mountain roads that are much more extreme. Take your time and you'll be fine. Remember your aren't in a race. Get in the truck lane and hang with the big boys! Flashers on if you drop below 45 MPH is pretty standard to indicate to any approaching traffic that you are a slow vehicle. You'll probably find yourself passing a few of the really heavily loaded trucks that are creeping along at 15 or 20 miles per hour in low-low gear. There are alternatives to that route. We've taken US 58 out of Bakersfield toward Mojave, Connect to I-15/I-40 at Barstow and stay on I-40 to the California/Arizona border. Then you have a choice of US 95S on either side of the border. It's smaller highway and I think the California side is an easier drive but it is US highway and last time we drove it, in reasonably good condition. You will then pick I-10 at Blythe or Quartzite depending on which route you chose. If you haven't driven I-10, there are long stretches of open highway. Major cities to be avoided at rush hour include Phoenix, Tucson, El Paso, San Antonio, and Houston. Of these, Tucson is the least problem but I would try to navigate through all of them in early morning, mid-day or late evening. Each has a bypass of some kind and you could avoid the intense city traffic taking the bypass. I prefer real early morning for these city transits if at all possible. A good GPS is helpful in cities. It will advise you of coming lane changes and exits to help with your planning while driving. If you are using a new GPS, try to get some time with it in the car to learn its use and how it provides directions. The last thing you need in heavy city traffic is the distraction of trying to figure out what the GPS wants you to do! Have a good trip! If you want a few days of rest along the way there are nice parks in Boerne, TX, just north of San Antonio, right on I-10. San Antonio is a great city to explore. The River Walk will be drained that time of year but there are great restaurants along the River Walk and it is a pretty area even without the water. There are artsy shops and stores in La Villa along the River Walk. Once you see San Antonio you'll have to stop again on your return trip in the spring! On the north side of Houston, the city of Spring, Texas has many artsy shops and stores. South of Houston is Galveston and further south the Texas Gulf Coast has many pretty stopping spots. Enjoy Florida.

Having a surge protector helps with parks that don't have a breaker at the post. Yes there are parks we've stayed at with no breaker at the post. With a surge guard there is a delay from the time you plug in the surge guard until full power is switched on to the coach. During this time, there is only a very tiny draw of electric to power the surge guard (no matter which end of the coach power cord the surge guard is located on, at the post or internal). This way, everything is fully inserted into the outlet of the post before the full draw of the coach is switched on. I've had an external surge protector for a while and am noticing signs of wear and the weather seal is starting to break down. I'm thinking of going with an installed internal unit to get it out of the weather. Glad to see some suggestions for different models in the previous discusson. I'll take a look at all of them and pick the one that seems to best meet my needs at an affordable cost. Just seeing a coach with no surge protection at the post doesn't mean that they don't have one.

The toad isn't really a problem to tow. With a large coach you seldom even know it is there behind you. That is why they have put a camera on the back of the coach - so you can check once in a while to see if it is still there. Towing a car does require a great deal of planning and caution to avoid problems caused by your sudden inability to back up. Once you attach the toad, you can not back up. Not even a little bit. If you back up the front wheels of the toad will turn to one side or the other and then the tow bar is damaged and it goes downhill fast from there. If you get into a parking lot or a dead end street where there is no room to turn around without backing up, your only way out is to disconnect the toad, maneuver the coach to a position so you can exit and then reattach the toad. Sometimes a wrong turn can result in a long drive until you find a place you can turn around or streets that will allow you to go around the block (without getting into low trees and narrow streets with difficult corners to navigate). You learn to become very skeptical about taking narrow roads that have an uncertain outlet. Even the most experienced of us have found ourselves in this situation and each time it is a learning experience! Once you understand the limitations the toad brings you can anticipate problems and learn to avoid them. We've towed for about 180,000 miles over 14 years on the road and only found ourselves in a bind a handful of times. The convenience of having a small vehicle for the trips to town, going exploring in parks, visiting friends and relatives, etc. easily offsets the extra concerns. Park the coach, it becomes base camp and then take the toad and explore your surroundings!

Are you staying in your coach now in Florida? If you are, close up your grey water tank and give it a test run. See how long you can go before you have to dump the tanks. Do several runs like that trying different water saving techniques and you will have a good idea of your use and need for dumping tanks. The black water tank typically will go much longer than the grey water tank so as mentioned, washing dishes in a pan and dumping in the toilet will extend your grey water tank. We're not big on extending the water and we usually schedule a waste tank pump-out after about 3 days. If we work at it we can extend it to 4 days but we don't go to extremes. Showers are available, we've used them at some rallies. The showers may be provided in portable shower units or there may be in the case of state fairgrounds fixed facilities with showers. As you might guess, they will be in high demand. At other rallies it just wasn't convenient so we showered in the coach. You could alternate shower days with wash cloth and sink days, a variety of the military helmet wash. If the weather is cool, that may help. Regarding the electric, we usually pay for the electrical supply. You have to sign up early as the number of electrical connections are limited. If boondocking, you can run a generator for several hours in the morning and completely charge the batteries for the day. If needed, you can do the same in the evening. We usually watch a little TV in the evening while the generator is charging the batteries. If the furnace runs during the night it may deplete the battery charge and this plus a pot of coffee call for the generator in the morning. Using the generator for an hour or two each morning and evening will amount to about 10 to 15 gallons of fuel in the course of the rally. The generator will use somewhere between a quarter to half a gallon of fuel an hour depending on the size of your generator and the load on the generator. If you can use your generator now, you might give this a test run as well. Disconnect and see how the power works out for several days off line. Doing this before the rally will allow you to go to the rally with some strategies already tested. Over time as you live and travel in your coach, you will perfect this and become quite comfortable with a variety of living, weather conditions and variations in utilities supplied at any given site. The motor home is quite a marvelous piece of equipment that provides comfortable living almost anywhere but it does take careful management at times to make everything work.

One of the problems with inertial braking systems used on diesel motor homes is that the brakes are activated by any retarding of the motion of the vehicle combination. When you use your engine brake down a long hill or mountain slope, the inertial brakes on the toad can be activated will remain on during the whole time the engine brake is on. This can cause serious burning of the brakes as they may be doing more than just assisting in slowing the toad. The brakes on the toad could be slowing the motor home! I don't know if you can adjust the brakes to be insensitive enough to prevent this and still get braking action from them when the service brakes are used.

Regarding the air conditioners, in our coach the air conditioners feed a common duct system so air from the front air conditioner also feeds to the rear of the coach though not as vigorously as to the front of the coach. At night we set the front AC to a lower temperature so we don't have to listen to the rear AC running. Sometimes when the front AC kicks on, it will dispel warm air from the ducts in the rear which will cause the rear AC to come on briefly then it will go off once the air coming from the rear ducts is cool again. If one AC is cycling quickly, try changing the settings of the other AC units. Let the one that is cycling quickly handle more of the work for a while and see how it behaves. Like Blake, when we park after driving in hot weather I raise the engine cover to allow maximum air circulation and cool the engine quicker. I'll close it up before we turn in for the night but it helps the air conditioners cool the coach much quicker. In our first coach the engine was under the bed. That was really nice in cold weather but we definitely had to raise the cover on the engine compartment in hot weather! We only use our generator while driving when we need heavy air conditioning while on the road. Our inverter is on full time in the coach. We've never had batteries go dead while driving no matter how long we are on the road. With the inverter on it is powering our residential refrigerator. We never have to reset clocks! The only time we've had problems with batteries is when they have reached the end of their useful life and are no longer taking a charge. Glad to hear that you made it in Thursday. I was looking at the weather this morning and hoping that you weren't on the road somewhere along the SE Texas coast! Cooler today, warming tomorrow. Enjoy south Texas weather! If you are looking for a fun experience, there is the Causeway Walk/Run from Port Isabel to South Padre Island on Saturday, January 9. They close one lane on the causeway bridge and several thousand people race or walk across from Port Isabel to South Padre Island. Buses return you after you complete the walk or run. We've been doing this for a number of years, great fun if the weather is good. Every year is different. Registration information is available at this website for the Port Isabel Chamber of Commerce. You have to register to get the wrist band to be able to walk across the causeway bridge. If you walk they have buses at the South Padre Island end of the causeway but you can also walk north to the end point of the race at Louie's Back Yard which hosts the medal awards and HEB grocery stores sponsors hot dogs, chips and drinks for all participants, walk or run! That adds about a mile to the distance you would walk and there are buses there for all participants as well.

The original posting was made in February 2012 so any questions dowdyl had have been settled by now. Regarding the original question, there are strategies that can help with any loan of this type. Dowdyl was working at the time and had five more years of anticipated employment before retirement. Since the early years of a loan the payments are mostly interest with little principal paid, it is possible to cut the loan period down by making additional payments. On a 20 year loan at today's 4% rate, almost 60% of the initial payments will be interest so it only takes an additional 40% of the monthly payment amount to, in essence, make two payments while at the same time reducing the amount of interest paid on the loan. Doing this for the 5 years he was working would leave him with just ten years of payments at age 65. If you size the loan (select a rig you can afford) so that you can do this while working, you leave yourself able to drop back with the payments upon retirement and still have just ten years left to pay off the loan. When taking a loan you should always consider the rate your savings and investments are paying. If you had money in a savings account today at an interest rate of a fraction of 1%, you would be better off putting that money down on the purchase. It would be like getting 4% interest on your money because you would be saving 4% on that amount in the loan. If your investments are paying you 5% or more and you are certain they will continue at or near that rate then take the loan. A 4% loan would leave you with a net 1% difference in your favor on 5% investment returns. One other factor always involved with financial decisions that I haven't seen mentioned is the sleep factor. Everyone has their own comfort level with savings, investments and loans. If taking out a large loan for an extended period of time puts you out of your comfort level, you may worry about it constantly. If issues like this wake you up or keep you up at night, you should reconsider the decision. Part of enjoying the benefits of owning a motor home include being able to sleep soundly at night! One additional note. Upon retirement, we sold the house and bought the motor home. The proceeds of the sale of the house were the down payment on the motor home. We eliminated the costs of maintaining a home in addition to reducing the cost of buying and owning a motor home. This significantly changes the financial picture when making a purchase at or near retirement. Not everyone is able to part with the sticks and bricks home but if you can make the break and still sleep at night, it can be very beneficial from a financial standpoint. When we lived on the road, we experienced a freedom that is hard to explain to those who have a house. Suddenly, time becomes a tiny fraction of decision making when traveling.

Here is a link to a list of RV salvage yards. You'd have a hard time visiting all of them, there may not even be one near you. Many if not most are willing to work with you over the phone. Many also ship parts to you. Get on the phone if you can't visit one in your area.

You will find that the quality of electrical supply can vary in RV parks. Many older parks were wired for 30A electric and haven't been properly re-wired. We occasionally find parks where the wire size is not adequate for 50A service. There may be a 50A plug on the post but if the wire to the post is not #6 or #4 for longer runs, the voltage will drop from 120 to 110 to 100 or even 90 or below. Our coach has a built in monitor that shows the voltage of the supply line and our amperage draw. Using this monitor I can see what voltage is reaching our coach. Anything between 120V and 110V is fine. If the voltage drops below 110V your appliances, lights, air conditioners/heat pumps draw more amps which can push you over the limit for the breaker. It can also damage your appliances to run on low voltage for an extended period of time. We also have a power monitoring system that will shut down appliances if we are approaching the amperage limit of the breaker on the post. It automatically senses 30A or 50A current (30A is 110/120V and 50A is 220/240V). In your coach the two hot leads of a 50A line are split into two separate circuits, each supplying 50A electric at 110/120V. At 50A we should be able to run everything in the coach at one time including the washer/dryer. At 30A, we have to use appliances in rotation, not all at one time. If we err, the system will shut off the appliances that would put us over the limit. This monitoring system can even be set for 20A supply so we can plug into a normal household breaker for a 20A line with an outdoor extension cord and use that electric source without tripping the breaker providing the 20A extension cord is of sufficient size to supply a full 20A to the coach. If there is an external 20A outlet, I have an adapter that will allow me to plug my 50A cord into a 20A outlet directly. Then there is no problem with voltage drop due to wire size! We also use a plug in surge protector at the post which will trip if the voltage drops too low. It has saved us several times. I usually check to see what the line voltage is right away when we plug in and turn on the air conditioners but when we don't need the air conditioners immediately I sometimes forget. Checking voltage when there is no load on the system will not tell you if the supply line is sufficient. To check proper line voltage the line should be under heavy load. If wired properly, the line should still provide the 110/120V at full load (the breaker limit). Since we are heavily dependent on the electrical supply in our coaches, it is wise to learn as much as possible about electricity. Moving around and plugging in at different locations constantly means it is even more important to understand what is going on when you plug in. One bad electric supply source can destroy a whole bunch of expensive electrical devices. Here is a web site that I recommend to help you understand campground and RV Electric,

We've enjoyed traveling US 2 on several occasions. I think you will find a variety of small RV Parks and even possibly some Corps of Engineer parks along the way. Fort Peck Dam is a Corps of Engineers site and we've stayed there before. We use RV Park Reviews as one source of campgrounds and the iPhone app, AllStays is also a good source of information on places to stay, campgrounds or boondocking sites. Like you, we enjoy the leisurely travel when we find it.

While the Provincial Parks web site may be awkward to use, we found the parks at Jasper, Lake Louise and Banff to have very serviceable campsites. We didn't make reservations and had to spend two nights in a site with no utilities to get to a serviced site but the park access was good. We made reservations a week ahead of time for each of the remaining parks and had no problems getting a serviced site suitable for our rig. We also stayed in a number of private parks that were listed in the campground guides so I'm certain there will be plenty of sites available on RV Park Reviews that John cited.

That is interesting because the owners manual for our first coach said that the exhaust brake should not be used in stop and go traffic. This discussion is very helpful. I had a friend who said he drives with his engine brake on all the time. With our coach that kills the cruise control. So now I know that there is a wide variety of how the two systems are linked and can be operated. For myself, I consider brake use to be a waste of energy. Make no mistake, if the brake is needed, I use it. Using the brake means that energy (gas/diesel) is being wasted. If you can anticipate conditions where braking is going to be needed, take your foot off the accelerator or shut off cruise control and coast to reduce speed before applying the brakes. I've read that some people want to top a hill at the speed limit which only means you will be on the brakes all the way down the hill on the other side. I try to drive so that I need only minimal braking if at all possible. Traffic conditions sometime dictate that you keep up with traffic and that will increase brake usage but whenever possible minimizing use of the brake will maximize fuel mileage.

If there is any chance that leaves, pine needles or sticks or twigs have dropped onto the motor home at a campsite I'll get on the roof. I clean the slide toppers but also make sure there are no sticks, twigs, pine cones, etc. on the roof of the motor home. Those objects are likely to blow off the roof and present a hazard for the toad. They could also present a hazard for other traffic on the road. If you can't get on the roof because of physical limitations you should have someone else take a look at the roof and toppers before you leave the campground to avoid damage to your property or the property of others. A long handled mirror might work to give you a look but someone would still have to go remove debris if there is any.

I just went back through this discussion and nowhere does it mention that your drivers license is also recognized in Canada which is the case. If you are legally licensed in your state then you are also good for Canada. When we moved to Texas and went to the DMV for our driver's licenses we got the class B license without a test because the license we held in another state (South Dakota in this case) was the proper license for driving an RV (over 26,000 pounds) in that state. So if you have the proper license for your motor home in your current state of residence you can turn it in and get the proper Texas license without taking a test. The clerk at the DMV office had to call Austin (the state capitol) to verify that a South Dakota regular driver's license (same license for an auto) was the proper license for driving a Class A motor home over 26,000 pounds in South Dakota. Once that was done, we were issued Texas Class B (non-commercial) driver's licenses. If you are currently a Texas resident and don't have the proper license you will have to take a test to get the Class B or Class A license - or you could move to South Dakota and then move back to Texas! So if you are living somewhere else and want to move to Texas, don't let the license thing stop you. And oh-yes, if your license office or your insurance agent tell you that a special license isn't required but the law says otherwise, either follow the law or get everything in writing. In the case of the insurance agent, I'd ask for an official letter from the underwriting company office. When we were licensed in South Dakota I had a letter from the South Dakota drivers license state office stating that a regular South Dakota driver's license was all that was needed to drive any RV. I kept it handy in the motor home in case it was needed.

I would go digging to find the receptacle and the DC transformer, remove the transformer and go directly to the receptacle with your standard TV power cord. If that won't work I'd try to find a way to hook into a 120V AC circuit to power the TV. If you need some information about how best to get the power to the TV, contact the factory service center. They should be able to tell you how and where to look for the 120V AC receptacle if it is there.

Over the years traveling, living full time in the motor home and now just summer travels, we've found wide variance in service. Each service center, facility or provider we have used has been different. Some are good, some are great and others are very poor. They vary with time. We had a dependable repair shop in San Antonio for several years but our recent experience has led us to cross them off the list of possible stops. We have found our manufacturer to be a very dependable stop but one or two times not what we expected or needed. Most times they have been great. We prefer the shop in Coburg, Oregon for our best service. Cummins Coach Care (Cummins and Onan) service is generally excellent. We recently stopped in Harrisburg, PA and they gave us the best-ever service. The shop in the Denver area has also been very good over the years. We've tried a number of dealer shops and the only one we would go out of our way for is Paul Everet's RV Country in Fresno, CA. They have provided good service every time we've been there. If we ever purchase another motor home, they get our business. Obviously we haven't visited every dealer shop so this is not to say that other dealers don't provide good service, this is just the best we've found so far. When it comes to general chassis work we look for Freightliner and tires I have no recommendation whatsoever. We bought our last Michelin tires from a shop that didn't have the equipment to mount them (inferior balancing and no ability to test for round) so we had that done at a Goodyear dealer in the Sacramento area that had the best balancing/test equipment we've ever seen. I've been to other Goodyear shops where the tech didn't know how to use a torque wrench! Take your windshield chip work to Safelite, the replacements go to the factory shop if at all possible. We had one replaced at an auto glass shop and I cringed through the whole process. The industry has changed over the years. In 2008 there was a great shakeout. There were very few RV's on the road for years after the crash. Fuel prices were high and many dealers and manufacturers went out of business. A recovery is under way now, the number of RV's we saw on the road this summer were the most we've seen in years. It will take years for the industry to recover and it may never return to the golden days of the late 90's and early 00's. Fuel prices are a major factor. If people aren't driving their RV's, they are not supporting the manufacturers, repair shops or dealers.

Good morning David and Judy! It is 66 degrees in Edinburg this morning. The high for the day should be in the mid 80's! We're about 80 miles up the road (inland) from Brownsville! It will get cooler in December and January but you'll have many a day when you will be smiling about the weather here as opposed to elsewhere in the country. We were with My Home Address for over 11 years before we settled down here in Texas. They always gave us good service. We've been wintering here in the Rio Grande Valley for 15 years now and find it to be a nice relaxing place to stay. There is plenty to do for almost any interest. Come and enjoy!

We've traveled for four years now, 40,000+ miles, and no problems. We put the rubber non-skid shelf liner on each shelf, tall containers go in the door, some like milk and juice are stable enough that we've never had a problem. We do keep a supply of soda in a "rack feeder" where the cans circulate from the top layer to the bottom where they are removed. We use a small bungee stretched from the top to the bottom on the front to keep cans from coming off the rack. We also use a small bungee to link the freezer and refrigerator door to keep them closed in case the magnetic latch isn't strong enough.