tbutler

Having traveled the country for 14 years in a motor home there are many places mentioned in the news Louise and I have visited. They become more than just abstract names of places in the news, they become familiar territory. In the news in the last few weeks, Phoenix, Lake Havasu, Tuscon all had major flooding and damage. We stayed in RV parks and visited friends and relatives in those cities. Today Joshua Tree National Park was in the news with flooding also. We've hiked many miles in Joshua Tree and thoroughly enjoyed the desert scenery and the trails to old gold mines and oases. Weed, California is in the news today. A ferocious fire has destroyed over 100 buildings in the town. My history with Weed (the town) goes back more than 30 years. Weed is a small town along I-5 in northern California. It is a few miles northwest of Mount Shasta, a beautiful composite volcano. Mount Shasta is in the Cascade Range of volcanoes that include Mount Ranier, Mount Hood and Mount St. Helens among others. The whole range is active though the activity at any one volcano may be hundreds or thousands of years between major eruptions. Active in this sense is a geological term more than a human term. Still any one of these volcanoes could have a significant eruption at any time. I mention that because it was the framework for my first encounter with Weed (yes, still the town). We (my first wife and I) were on summer vacation with our two pre-teen children, We had been to Crater Lake which is a caldera from a collapsed Cascade volcano. These were our tent camping days and grocery stops were frequent. The whole family, our camping equipment and clothes fit into our Chevrolet station wagon so the quantity of groceries was pretty slim, a small ice chest and a box of what we needed for the next two or three days. So we pulled off I-80 at Weed and found a grocery. After a swing through the store we lined up at the cash register to pay for our food. When it came time to pay for the groceries I wrote a check (remember those days?) and was asked for my identification. I dutifully produced my Missouri drivers license. The clerk, a young woman, took a look at the license and noted that it was from Missouri. She looked at me and asked, "How do you live there with all those tornadoes?" I told her it really wasn't that bad, we had never been affected by one. She said, "I could never live there." I shrugged it off and we loaded our tucker (an Australian term I learned this year meaning grubstake or food) into the station wagon. Then we were off to return to I-80. As I pulled onto the entrance ramp to the highway I looked at the road ahead and there straight ahead was Mount Shasta with the cinder cone Shastina on its northwest flank. So here we are in the shadow of an active volcano and the clerk is worried about the danger of tornadoes. I had to laugh at that. For years I incorporated this story into my Earth Science classes. The 8th graders always laughed when I mentioned Weed, I can't imagine why. I used the story to help them understand that almost anywhere you live you will find some danger from nature. In some places it is tornadoes, other places have floods, earthquakes and tsunami's are common in still other places. You might wonder why anyone would live near a volcano but people do that also. It is just one more of natures dangers. Fast forward to 2002, the first summer of our RV travels. We started in southern California in the early spring. We visited deserts, Joshua Tree, Death Valley, and others. We tromped our way among the trees of Sequoia and Yosemite National Parks. Further north we stopped to explore Mount Lassen, the most recent active volcano in the US (before Mount St. Helens) and yes, a Cascade Volcano also. Traveling further north we pulled into Weed and found a very pleasant RV park there as our base to explore Mount Shasta. I am a volcano junkie, I love to explore volcanoes of all kinds. We stayed there for a week, partly to just rest and partly to do some climbing on Mount Shasta. We found many interesting hikes to other areas nearby and enjoyed the entire area very much. We've stayed there again and explored the area since. So Weed, California has for me many pleasant memories. It is a town that has been in my lexicon and in my memory for almost half my lifetime. A sleepy little town along a major highway. Now Weed is a smoky disaster area. We'll make a swing by Weed on our trip this year. I hope that the RV park is still there and that we'll be able to find a place to stay for at least one night. I'm sure there will be sadness to see an old friend in its despair. Perhaps we can lend some support to those by our presence. Travel makes life so much more vivid. These aren't just names in the news, they are places. Places with personality; parks, homes, forests, bike trails, mountains and people. When you know them, the news is so much more than just a story. Now Weed, in the shadow of the mighty Mount Shasta, has fallen victim to a forest fire. Mother Nature is beautiful but very dangerous.

I sealed both. Not only does it allow outside air in, it also provides openings for insects. The Norcold had a seal on the front of the unit where it met the cabinetry so anything that got inside would only be in the refrigerator compartment. The residential refrigerator doesn't have that tight a seal, not only would the sides be a problem but no residential refrigerator I know of has a tight seal around the compressor compartment and the floor. The roof opening was sealed by putting insulation above a board screwed into the ceiling. The outside vent is still on the roof and this allows going back to a RV refrigerator if a future owner wanted to. I sealed the wall vent by sealing the vents in the removable panel. I used insulation and duct tape to block those openings. I can still remove the panel if I want access to the rear of the refrigerator and the outlet. This panel could also be used for an RV refrigerator again if desired.

It is always a good idea to consider the area where you are parked. With heavy rain comes flooding. If the campground is near a stream, be it river or creek, it could be subject to flash flooding. If you are parked in an area subject to flooding, pay special attention to weather conditions. Watch the sky and listen to weather forecasts carefully. Consider also the conditions before a storm. If the ground is already saturated in the area the danger of flooding is greatly increased. The recent and impending rains and flooding in the SW US are an example. This kind of thing can happen anywhere water flows. Sometimes in urban areas it is difficult to tell where the streams are as they may be hidden behind buildings or landscaping. In severe flooding the extent of flooding may surprise even residents who have lived in an area for a long time. Campgrounds are often on or near low ground because that is flat and easy for construction of utility supplies. In the event of threat of flooding, evacuate. If you have time and can do that by moving the RV, do it. If you don't have time, save your life, get to high ground. Heavy rain may also make steep hillsides unstable and landslides and rockslides can be a danger. If the campground is at the base of a mountain slope or a large hill, pack up and leave before the storm arrives. This shouldn't be a concern with normal rains but storms like the ones approaching Arizona today should definitely put you on the road for drier conditions. We sat out the remains of Katrina as it passed over Maine in 2005. Even that far away we had a full day of heavy rain. The next day we enjoyed touring the waterfalls in the area. They were all in full flow. Fortunately, our campground was on ground which was high enough to be safe for us. If high winds are forecast, look around the campground for things like trees which might have large branches that could be blown down. Look for large trees and dead trees that may blow down. Consider also the debris that may be blow around. Are there loose trash containers or equipment near other campers that may be blown around during a storm? Round up all your loose items and ask your neighbors to do the same. Consider also the fact that you may encounter bad weather on the road. This brings up a whole new set of responses. You may want to find a place to park when winds become strong and controlling the RV becomes difficult. By just timing your travel you may be able to avoid stormy weather. When traveling, watch weather forecasts for the next several days along your route. A slight change in route or just delaying travel for a day or two may help you avoid traveling in bad weather.

Just a question. On what are you basing the age of your tires? Is this based on the date of purchase or on the date of manufacture?

We only have air leveling, no jacks but that may be even more convenient. I can dump air on one side of the coach and raise the other using the manual leveling. That way I can tilt the coach with the high side to the pump (we can fill from either side) and that allows me to fill the tank as completely as possible. When finished filling, I return the coach to travel mode as I record the mileage and reset the fuel statistics on the Aladdin system.

Hey, we had a 1994 Dynasty, fond memories. I suggest that you call Monaco Customer Service and talk to someone in technical support. They should be able to help you including referring you to a suitable repair place for repair or replacement. The Monaco Customer Service number is 877-466-6226. Have your coach number ready when you make the call. The coach number is the last six digits of the Unit Serial Number (look on the wall beside the drivers chair). Despite the passage of 20 years, a bankrupcy and subsequent sale to another company, the records of Monaco still survive and you can get customer service from some of the same people who worked for Monaco when your coach was built. Congratulations on purchasing a new-to-you motor home. I hope you enjoy your Dynasty and the freedom a motor home brings as much as we have.

We left Wounded Knee with a desire to return on another day. Early morning on Sunday and a holiday weekend as well are not the best time to visit most any site. Driving on west we passed through the town of Pine Ridge the largest community of the Pine Ridge Reservation. Entering town it looks to be a pretty typical community. As we turned south and left town we saw the underbelly of the community. It was a sad site to see many older native Americans living in poverty, I have added a link for the American Indian Relief Council for those who would like to join us in holding out a helping hand to those in need. A short distance south of town we entered Nebraska. This is a state which never held much interest for me until I discovered some of the interesting and amazing features of the state. Several years ago we took our grandsons on a tour through Nebraska and South Dakota. We visited the State Museum on the campus of Nebraska University in Lincoln, Nebraska. The state has numerous paleontology sites and this museum administers all of them. We visited several sites with the boys, Ashfall Fossil Beds with the most amazing collection of fossilized rhinoceroses you will ever see. The other site was the Trailside Museum of Natural History at Fort Robinson State Park. The latter has some amazing mammoth skeletons as well as some interesting history from the American Indian Wars. We have driven US Hwy 20 across northern Nebraska and enjoyed the relaxed trip through the Great Plains. This time we would drive Nebraska Highway 87 and 71 to I-80 and then on to Cheyenne, Wyoming. One of the newly discovered surprises was the scenery of the Nebraska Sandhills around Scottsbluff. We made a pass through the area but will definitely return to see more of the scenery here on another trip. The weathered sandstone hills and cliffs are beautiful and deserve some additional scrutiny and photography. This route connects to I-80 just a few miles east of Cheyenne which was our destination for the day. We stopped to fill the diesel tank before reaching the campground. I put 112 gallons of diesel in our 127 gallon tank, by my records the emptiest it has ever been! The RV park we had selected for the night was AB Camping and RV Park just south of I-80 and east of I-25. As we pulled into the park we could smell the barbeque. This wasn't just a fellow camper preparing a meal, this was real restaurant BBQ. We were parked by their restaurant. We registered, parked and returned to the restaurant for a fine BBQ meal. We enjoyed a quiet evening and then left mid-morning for the Denver area. I inquired about a place where I could wash the motor home as we had been driving for several days on wet roads. We had no luck so had to roll into the next park looking pretty ragged and dirty. The toad really looked terrible. We arrived at South Park in Englewood, Colorado about 2:00 in the afternoon. The office was closed on Labor Day but our parking assignment was posted on the office door. We pulled the sheet and unhooked the toad. South Park wasn't our first choice, it is on the south side of Denver and everyone we know lives on the north side of town. Staying in this park meant that we would drive across town each time we visited family. For this reason we planned to stay here only six nights before moving to another park. When we made reservations this was the only park we could find with a site and then only for the six nights. Fortunately, our preferred park, Dakota Ridge, had space available starting on the seventh night through the remainder of the length of our stay. I found out later that we were not only looking for a site in a large city on the end of a holiday weekend but there was also a PGA Golf Tournament in town. It ended the day we were able to move to Dakota Ridge so I believe that the golf tournament may have played a roll in the scarcity of campsites available the first week of September. One of the pluses that we didn't expect with South Park is that they allow washing vehicles. The toad went to a car wash but I spent Wednesday morning washing the motor home. It was a quick wash but made a huge difference in its appearance. So we left South Park on Sunday morning with a clean motor home and a clean toad. At Dakota Ridge we have additional elevation and a view of some of the hogback ridges that make up the Front Range of the Rockies. We also have a little more wind and we've had our first snowflakes of the fall. The furnace has had several nights of heavy duty work as temperatures hovered just above freezing. Today the temperature was in the low 80's. The forecast indicates that we will have fair weather and warm temperatures until our departure on Wednesday.

With our set-up, the cruise control won't engage if the engine brake is on. I guess if I had the set-up that Brett has I could drive with the engine brake on.

I think Mike (ScoutsPal) has hit it on the head. With our coach, when we are plugged in, the house batteries and the starting batteries are on the charger (an inverter/charger) and kept at peak power. I know that all coaches are not that way, if you have a coach that only charges the house batteries when plugged in, then the starting batteries would slowly loose charge and could become ineffective over time. So this system offers a way to accomplish what we have in our coach. If you are plugged in and your house batteries are being charged, it will pass along some of the power to charge the starting batteries. I guess as an installed device it would eliminate the hassle of having to put a charger on the starting batteries to keep them at peak power. If your coach isn't plugged in, this system might extend the near peak power of the starting battery but if left too long it would discharge all batteries. We have a switch which allows us to boost the starting batteries from the house batteries. It is useful if the starting batteries are weak. If all batteries were discharged, the battery boost wouldn't work.

Two years ago the drivers side outside dual tire blew out taking a sizable portion of the fiberglass on the left rear of the coach. After the tire blew, the tire alarm sounded. There was no indication that the tire was loosing air prior to the blow out. In fact, we had stopped for lunch immediately before this event. I had done my usual walk-around as I do every time we stop. I touch the tires and the hubs to make sure nothing is abnormally hot. We hadn't been back on the road for more than 10 minutes following that stop. Two years before that we were traveling after dark in Alabama. At some road work we were routed off the road onto the shoulder. I picked up a cargo hook in the right outside dual tire. The alarm sounded and after we cleared the road work I pulled off to investigate. As I stepped out of the coach I heard the air rushing from the tire. Had I not had the tire alarm system I'd have driven on with the full weight of the coach on the remaining tire which being greatly overloaded would have failed quickly. I would have been on rims on the rear axle and nothing good happens after that. So the tire monitors have saved me once which more than pays for the system. It gives me peace of mind especially with the toad to have some indication of tire problems. The system only works for those occasions when the air escapes slowly from a tire but as Brett said, this is the most common kind of tire failure.

Our '04 Monaco has a collection system consisting of a pair of plastic drip pans below the condensate outlets from each of the Duo-Therm air conditioners. These are connected to a factory installed tubing system within the ceiling. These tubes eventually make their way down to the bottom of the coach, one at the front and the other at the rear of the coach. From time to time they need cleaning as they clog with algae but flushing usually resolves this without too much difficulty. I assumed that all Monaco's had this feature. If your coach does not, I don't think it would be feasible to install one, at least not in the ceiling as ours is. You might check your air conditioners to see if there is any such system installed on your coach. If there is, a good cleaning of the tubing could solve your problem. The tubing of our system is visible from within the coach when the filter is removed. Ours is clear plastic tubing of approximately 5/8" internal diameter and I can see both tubes coming down from the drip pans they are connected by a cross tube which then continues on into the ceiling as a single tube to the drain.

I have heard of others who drive with the engine brake/exhaust brake/retarder on all the time. It is cutting your fuel mileage. If the only states for your vehicle are power and brake you are missing out entirely on coasting. Coasting is when no power is applied but you are using the momentum of your vehicle to propel you forward, sometimes for very significant distances. I'm not talking about coasting with the transmission in neutral, I'm talking about coasting, simply not applying power, foot off the accelerator. Think about it, I'll bet you don't take your foot off your car accelerator and immediately start pressing the brake pedal. Only in an emergency situation would you drive like that. When you are applying power, you are adding energy to the vehicle. If you apply power until you have to brake you are powering the vehicle much longer than necessary, wasting fuel. Taking your foot off the accelerator and having the automatic braking come on immediately turns that power into waste. If you drive in a manner to apply just the power necessary to get you to the next stop sign or signal and then coast to the stop sign you will be taking full advantage of the power you have already applied. When I approach a town I begin coasting to slow from my cruise speed to their speed limit. Easiest when you know the territory and the speed limits but can be done anywhere. I look for water towers or grain elevators as an indicator of a town. My GPS has shaded areas for towns and these show up two miles ahead when in cruise speed so that helps me know when a town is coming up and I'll start slowing down. Sometimes towns or states post reduced speed ahead signs which are helpful for avoiding sudden or hard braking. I'm not suggesting that you coast all the way to a stop at the stop sign. No one is that precise in their judgement of the momentum in the vehicle. I am suggesting that you attempt to do that with the hope that only minor braking will be necessary to bring you to a full stop. This has an added advantage with stop lights. If you slow down well in advance of a red light you increase the chance that you will arrive at the light after traffic has started to move. If you can avoid a full stop you avoid the lower, less efficient gears and significantly increase your fuel mileage. Watch carefully and you will see most truck drivers doing this. Roaring up to a stop sign and coming to a screeching stop is something that you hardly ever see from truck drivers. In short any time you apply the brakes, you waste energy and energy is fuel. The harder or longer you have to apply the brakes the more energy you are wasting. So how do you use the engine brake/exhaust brake/retarder? Mine is always off. I use it when necessary for additional braking. I use it on downhill slopes to avoid overspeeding. See my post above for techniques to avoid or minimize braking on downhill slopes. I use it when approaching a stop sign or signal if necessary but to be used minimally or completely avoided if possible. I use it in emergency stop situations. I watch traffic very carefully and at any sign of congestion or emergency condition I will immediately place my hand on the engine brake switches (I have a 2 stage engine brake) at the same time I remove my foot from the accelerator and place it over the brake pedal. I'm retired, driving a large thirsty vehicle, not a race car driver.

As we left Martin, SD it began to rain lightly. Radar showed rain between Martin and Wounded Knee. As we passed fields of sunflowers their heads were bowed, hiding their bright yellow ray flowers we had seen the day before. The sunflowers are much shorter than the ones I planted in my garden in the 70’s. Their heads are smaller than the 12 to 16” heads I remember from those days. I know these fields are harvested mechanically but I would love to see the equipment that does the job. The heads I harvested in my gardening days were always sticky and getting the seeds out of the head was an exercise in persistence. Modern agriculture has definitely found the height gene in plants. In my childhood one measure of a good corn crop was the tallest corn displayed at the county fair. Those corn stalks were well over 10’ tall. Now the corn in the field stands a modest 5’ to 6’ tall. The waving wheat the sure smells sweet is now little more than 12” tall and hardly moves in the wind these days. We arrived at Wounded Knee in a light mist. We found the battlefield and parked by the information sign. Nearby there were stalls that on a summer’s day would be occupied by vendors selling their wares. On this Sunday morning, a cool damp holiday weekend, there was no one around. I gathered my camera and we stepped out of the motor home into the mist. Across the road a young man was approaching. He introduced himself as Alex and asked us for a donation for the local drum group. We talked and he told us of the small museum across the road which was closed this morning. He pointed out the top of the nearby hill where there is a mass grave for the 153 Native Americans who were killed in the massacre. He pointed out significant points on the battlefield in front of us and described the battle that had occurred here. It was a familiar story, the Sand Creek Massacre in 1864 was a similar incident. The US Cavalry faced a village of Lakota Sioux. They were going to disarm the village. Soldiers were searching the village and confiscating weapons. Someone fired a shot. At that point everyone began firing. From the nearby hill the artillery, Hotchkiss Guns, opened fire on the village killing soldiers and warriors alike. Women and children fled into a nearby stream valley and were pursued by soldiers who killed every member of the village. The following day the soldiers collected the bodies and buried them on the hilltop where the artillery was mounted the day before. We walked to the top of the hill on a muddy road. At the top of the hill stood a small church with a cemetery that surrounded the mass grave from December 29, 1890. Amulets with streamers hung from the chain link fence surrounding the mass grave. A marker identified the 43 warriors from the village who were killed in the battle. I walked around surveying the more modern graves in the cemetery. I was struck by one point. In the surrounding cemetery there were numerous graves of Veterans from WWII, Korea and Viet Nam. Here in a place which marked a massacre of women and children by an overwhelming force there were people who could see past the past and move forward even to the point of joining the very military that defeated them less than 100 years before. To be sure, resentment and a strong sense of injustice still remains for many but obviously there were those who were able to get beyond the past. I thanked Alex for his guided tour and assured him that this story was not unfamiliar. I mentioned our recent trip to New Zealand and Australia. The native Maori in New Zealand and the Aborigine in Australia experienced similar injustices at the hands of their European conquerors. Clashes between cultures are everyday news today with the history of some conflicts going back many centuries.

Yes, being able to keep both hands on the wheel and manipulate the cruise control makes it workable. The information that the Aladdin System provides allows me to refine the decisions that I make. Without either of these assets, it would be very difficult.

I believe 2x4's are too small for most tires. If you are putting blocks under wheels they should support the entire footprint of the tire. I block our coach for winter storage and use 2" x 12" for our tire size 295/80R22.5. I believe that even ordinary auto tires require at least a 2x6 board to support the full width of the tire footprint. That said: I would seriously consider Erniee's suggestion. The install if done should be per instructions from the manufacturer. They know the design strength of the frame and where lifting the vehicle will not cause damage and may have serious limits on how much weight may be lifted off the wheels at a given spot on the frame. The decision of where to place jacks is an engineering decision, not just a "this ought to work" decision from someone who does not have specific engineering statistics on the bending resistance of the metal frame, frame dimensions and load distribution on any spot on the frame. Those are reasons that the manufacturer may not authorize using add-on jacks. If the manufacturer doesn't authorize the modification you are out of warranty and any damage/repairs will be at your expense.

I'm trying to recall the last time I used the manual downshift. I'm sure that I have but it is a really rare occasion for me. I drive in economy mode almost all the time, the exception is when I forget to hit the mode button when I start driving after an engine shut down. I drive almost all the time with cruise control. On flat country that is a no brainer, set it and forget it. In hill country when I top a hill I'll hit the set button on the smart wheel which notches the cruise setting down 1 MPH each time I hit the button. After hitting the button three to five times the turbo drops to zero and I'm coasting over the hilltop. Yes, I'll slow down a little and this frequently allows me to descend the hill, accelerating while coasting, without using the engine brake to keep my speed under the 65 MPH speed limit on my toad. If the speed approaches 64 MPH I'll engage the first stage of the engine brake and if it goes on to 65 and increasing I'll engage the second stage of the engine brake and use additional braking as needed. The engine brake does the downshifting for me. Near the bottom of the hill, I'll disengage the engine brake and notch the cruise control up by hitting the resume button on the smart wheel as needed to notch the speed up 1 MPH per hit until the setting matches our speed. This all works well because I have the Aladdin System display on the dash which displays the speed, cruise control setting and the turbo boost level. It also displays engine and transmission temperature and the instantaneous MPG. If the hills are really big I'll have to drop the cruise setting incrementally to keep the turbo from going to 100% which will trigger a downshift on the uphill as the speed decreases. When speed drops below 57 the transmission downshifts into 5th gear automatically and the turbo boost drops. Once again I'll drop the cruise speed as needed to keep the turbo just below 100% until the speed is below the limit for 5th gear and the transmission automatically downshifts into 4th gear. This works for mountain slopes as well, as the speed drops to the minimum for any gear the transmission will automatically downshift, RPM goes up and turbo boost drops. At the top of the hill I'll cancel the cruise control and coast over the top of the hill purposely allowing the speed to drop. Going over the top of the hill I assess the descent and then engage the engine brake as needed. If it's a long or steep hill I'll engage the engine brake right away if not, I'll coast downhill until near the speed limit for the toad. I've never had a problem with engine or transmission temperature using this method. All that said, on two lane roads with traffic behind me, I don't use this method as the fluctuations in speed would irritate following drivers. I'll try to maintain speed as much as possible on hills which means more manual throttle on the way up the hill and more engine brake on the downhill which is more wasted energy and more fuel usage. On multi-lane highways if traffic is really heavy (I-35 between San Antonio and Dallas) I'll also abandon this method to help with traffic flow. Keeping up with the changing road conditions and making adjustments requires a certain amount of concentration which also keeps me alert and helps me avoid white line fever. I believe that it also is more energy efficient and helps to boost my fuel mileage.

Great discussion, good back and forth from all. I think I'll go get a really cold Diet Coke out of my residential refrigerator!

Nice post. If Yellowstone ever did erupt in a supervolcano eruption you wouldn't have to be there to be affected. There would be serious repercussions for hundreds of miles in all directions and ash fallout for many hundreds of miles downwind (most likely east). Yellowstone is over a hot spot in Earth's mantle and as North America continues to move westward the hot spot shifts ever eastward under the continent. So the next supervolcanic eruption (10's of thousands of years from now) may be somewhere in central WY or MT. If you like the smell of sulfur, visit Mt. Lassen in California. Before Mt. St. Helens erupted, Lassen was the most recently active volcano in the contiguous US (excludes Alaska and Hawaii). There are great thermal pools and mudpots there as well. One of my favorites is Bumpass ****, named for the discoverer, Kendall Bumpass, who severely burned a leg when he broke through the thin crust.

I was interested to see this pop up on the active list again so I went back to read the postings from the last several years. I'm using the latest (as of December) model Samsung 4G T-Mobile Hotspot which offers full speed 5 GB and then throttles down for any more. There is no limit if you can stand the slow service. There is of course a great T-Mobile desert in the Great Plains. I was in the area last week and picked up AT&T for a while but that ended so I called T-Mobile just to make sure I wasn't being charged extra for roaming on AT&T and then to ask what happened why I couldn't continue to connect? Their answer, I had used my 100 MB, yes I could get 100 MB roaming (per month)! Wow I said. I also have a Verizon 4GLTE Jetpack which covers us in the areas where T-Mobile doesn't. We had a 5 GB plan but seem to need more so I have bumped it up to 10 GB per month. Even at that we're running up against our limit. We find Verizon has pretty good coverage but are headed for our daughters home near Valley Springs (in the California Gold Hills) and we've never had good service with any wireless service there. We have updates shut off and do those only when we have wi-fi at a campground. We have two computers with us and a desktop at home. Trying to keep three computers updated is insane but I don't want to try dealing with the desktop on the road. We don't download video , no movies, no youtube, no skype, just e-mail, blogging, financial stuff and the occasional sports feed. When we are on the road, and most of the rest of the time, we are almost totally paperless. I'm still looking for the magic bullet but no good answers yet. Interestingly, speeds are up but as this happens web designers are making their web sites fancier with more video and moving video displays. This slows down the loading time for the site and also eats up more of the GB limit on our account. For an excellent example, look at the recently updated FMCA home page! My credit union just did the same thing. Don't even think of going to the DirecTV home page! Curse you Red Baron! Shot down again...

This is not an uncommon in my experience. It is assumed that any copy of the credit card information will be destroyed but most businesses don't return the information to the customer. I always check my credit card statements to ensure we have been charged correctly and not double charged. I share your concern. We encountered a similar example of this in Australia this year. Checking into a hotel I was asked for my passport. They took it and scanned it into their computer. I asked for the information back and they refused. We had quite a discussion. After that I would not hand my passport over to anyone but Customs/Border agents. When asked, I would show the passport but I would not let loose of it. For making reservations over the phone, you really don't have much choice if they insist on a credit card to hold the reservation. The only choice I can see is to try another park. We checked into a AB Camping RV Park in Cheyenne last week. They had written the CC number on a manual CC slip and returned that to us when we checked in so some places are doing this. Of course what they returned to me could have been a second or third copy. I was interested to see that AB Camping used their tablet to charge the credit card and I signed with my finger on their tablet. They have an excellent BBQ restaurant and the charge there was also done on a tablet there. At the other extreme, we stayed at South Park RV Park in Englewood, CO and they didn't take a credit card for reservations but they also didn't take credit cards at all, we had to give them a check. They were really old school! No matter how it is handled, there has to be a certain amount of trust in any credit card transaction. When we hand the CC over to anyone in a business, they get access to our CC information. We know that Target, Home Depot, and a host of other companies hold on to all this information far longer than they should. I think things may change, I understand US banks are going to cards with chips which will help. At least that would make a transaction without the actual card much more difficult.

When I install new sensors I note the difference between the tire gauge and each of the sensor readings. At 100+ pressures, most are within 1 or 2 PSI but as Brett has said, once that is noted then I know what the readings should be and I will know when I'm getting readings which should cause concern. My sensors don't provide temperature data. A temperature data sensor would have to be inside the tire as you mention. Putting a sensor inside a tire makes it very inconvenient to service or replace so I wouldn't use such a system.

We left Yankton, South Dakota, on Saturday morning on our way to Denver, Colorado. We have made this trip in one day many times in the past. This trip would be different. It is Labor Day weekend and we don't have reservations in Denver until Labor Day itself. So we have all day Saturday and Sunday and part of Monday before we have a place to park in Denver. We drove west on South Dakota Hwy. 50 until we reached US Hwy 18. This is a new route for us. I had set the GPS for Wounded Knee. We have never visited the site of this famous massacre. Despite the fact that this is a holiday weekend with expectations for record numbers of motorists on the road, the highways we are traveling are almost empty. We drive for long distances without anyone passing us. We pulled off in a small town and had lunch parked behind a gas station. We're driving through towns with names like Gergory, Dallas, Winner, Okreek, Hidden Timber, White Horse, and Soldier Creek. The road is lined with fields of corn, sunflowers, soybeans and huge fields filled with giant rolls of hay. It has been a wet year in the prairie and the crops are abundant. We've seen quite a bit of rain during our stay in Yankton and the fields are wet so we don't see much action in the fields. Later this fall there will be a rush of harvesting once the fields dry out. We stopped at Winner, a small town with a hotel and RV park. The owners were quite welcoming but they had no pull through sites so we drove on. They suggested that we might find a place to stay in Martin. Arriving in Martin there were no signs for campgrounds so we stopped at a Dakota Mart Grocery and Dairy Queen. We figured we could ask someone and get information about a campground and also get some ice cream, sort of killing two birds... In the grocery store the clerk at the register told us that there was a city park that allowed overnight parking. Just go to the stop light and turn left and you will "run into the park." We grabbed some ice cream treats and went back to the motor home to check out the free wifi advertised at the Dairy Queen. It turned out to be too weak a signal at the motor home to be useful so we pulled out. We found the park just as described. After driving around the park once we circled back and parked in a spot on the swimming pool parking lot. There was a place with a sign for overnight parking. It would have worked for a small class C but there was no way I was pulling in there. There were ball fields nearby but no game was scheduled for Saturday night. Near the overnight parking lot a spirited volleyball game was underway with what looked like 20 or more participants. As the sun set, a storm rolled in. We started rocking and rolling as wind gusts of 30 to 40 miles per hour kicked up followed by a good heavy rain. Sunday morning came with a nice sunrise and clear skies. As we left Martin just past the grocery store and Dairy Queen was a nice RV park! Amazing the clerk in the grocery didn't even think of this when we inquired the day before. The really interesting thing was that no RV park was listed on RV Park Reviews. In fact, I just checked RV Park Reviews and the park we visited the day before in Winner was not listed either. In fact, RV Park Reviews shows no RV parks at all on US Hwy 18. I need to gather information on these places and get them on the list! I had also checked the Allstays App and found that they have the motel/campground in Winner and also showed a state park and Corps of Engineers campground where US 18 crosses the Missouri River. So this part of South Dakota seems to be off the map for many sources. Good Sam lists the two parks at Pickstown where US 18 crosses the Missouri River but neither of the other two we found. So it turns out we are traveling in a kind of camping and RV no-mans-land. There are resources here but they are not easily found.

Good News Herman! I just got my credit card statement for August. I made four gas purchases on my Chase Freedom Card, two purchases at SAM's, one at Love's and one at a quick shop. They gave me the 5% rate on all of the gas purchases. Now, it took me a while to confirm this. They list the rewards on one line as 1% on all purchases and then on another line they list the "Bonus from 3Q 5% category: Gas stations" which it turns out is the additional 4% over the first line 1% bonus. I had to work through things with my calculator several times to figure out how they calculated it.

Be careful with the trouble light, make sure that nothing combustible is anywhere near the light. When temperatures get below freezing I always open the cabinet doors on the cabinets below the sink as these usually have an outside wall which can become quite cold. Opening the door allows warm air to circulate around the pipes under the sinks.

From Brett's reference, download the RV Tire Guide. On Page 19 is a table for 22.5" tires. Find yours in the column on the left side of the page. Read across the table (lbs single for front tires, lbs dual for rear tires) to the weight that is greater than the weight that Tireman9 has suggested for you. Read up to the top of the table for the pressure in pounds (or other units). The table for dual tires gives the combined weight for two tires so use 2 x 6386 = 12,772. As I read the table, it looks like you could use 115 pounds for the tires both front and rear. The rating for 115 pounds has a nice cushion (Single Tire at 7130 and Dual Tire at 13,050) over the weight you will be supporting but if you are especially cautious you could add 5% to the above which would be 6 pounds but that would take you over the 120 pound limit so I would set the pressure no more than two pounds above the 115 from the table. Be aware also that your wheel rims have a pressure limit. On my coach that limit happens to be 120 pounds also. Check yours to be sure you aren't exceeding their limit. All limits are cold (before driving) tire pressure. The pressure will rise when driving and that is taken into account when setting the limits. You didn't specify the condition of your coach when it was weighed. As Jim mentions, you should know the maximum weight of your coach with its normal load of clothes and equipment as well as full water, fuel and propane. For the rear axle it is wise to factor in full waste tanks. Using those weights you can be assured that your coach will be within the limits for the tires even with tanks full.