tbutler

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.

I haven't been to the UP in several years but there are some wonderful things to see there and in Michigan in general. The weather in September and October is quite changeable and can be very pleasant or quite unpleasant. It likely won't be consistently one or the other, just be prepared to look for indoor activities on those unpleasant days and enjoy the outdoors on the nice days. Here is one website with some information on the weather in Michigan. This site gives record highs and lows and average monthly temperatures. I set this on September but you can select any month of the year on the left side of the page. Here is the National Weather Service Site. You can get long term forecasts on the National Weather Service Site which might help with your planning. Current Weather has probably the easiest to read information. From Denver where we are now located, if you want to stay off the interstate I would recommend taking US 20 across northern Nebraska. From Denver take I-25 N to Cheyenne (fuel is cheaper in WY and Flying J or other stations just south of the I-25 & I-80 interchange is the best in the area). Continue on north on I-25 to Exit 126, the town of Orin and US 18 which become US 20 east of I-25 at the town of Lusk. This isn't by any means a direct route but is worth the diversion to see the great plains. There is Fort Robinson State Park, near Crawford, Nebraska which has interesting historical and paleontology exhibits. There are some amazing mammoth skeletons there and the scenery between there and I-25 is quite spectacular. On to the east, US 20 travels through farm land and small communities in the northern Great Plains. You might be slowed by harvest equipment at times but you will see American farming at its best in this area. US 20 continues on across Iowa toward Chicago. If you want to get to Omaha, there are several choices to get you there, US 275 at Stafford is a good choice. Another possibility you might consider is to take NE 2 across Nebraska. Pick up US 85 at Exit 17 just north of Cheyenne and then US 26 takes you into Scottsbluff, NE. The scenery in this area is known as the Nebraska Sandhills. NE 2 doesn't go through Scottsbluff but you can pick it up a few miles to the northeast via NE Hwy 71. NE 2 will take you to Grand Island where you can pick up I-80 for the last few miles into Omaha. West of Grand Island near Kearney, NE on I-80 is the Archway which is a museum of pioneer history and travel history. The archway spans I-80 and has interesting exhibits on transportation used over time to travel to the West. You can take NE 10 from NE 20 at Hazard, NE to get to Kearney. From Chicago, some southern Michigan stops you might enjoy include the Gerald Ford Presidential Library in Ann Arbor. In Grand Rapids the Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park is a worthy stop. Holland Michigan has a wonderful Tulip Festival in the spring but you won't see that. You could go there to get the Dutch Experience. There are factory tours and the Windmill Island Gardens where you can explore an operating five story authentic Dutch windmill. Further north on the Lake Michigan shore is Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. Sault Ste Marie is a place that we have always enjoyed. There is a lake cargo ship that can be toured. There are tours of the Soo Locks by boat. There is an observation tower to get an overview of the locks. Across the strait in Canada, you can take a train tour north to Agawa Canyon which is a delight. They stop in the canyon allowing time for a picnic lunch and some hiking to see waterfalls before the return trip. If the leaves are good, this trip could be fantastic. We enjoyed it in mid-summer. If you decide to do this during leaf peeping season it probably would require getting tickets well in advance. I'd check on tickets and if possible wait to purchase until you have a good feel for the weather forecast for the area for the next week. If you are interested in aviation, there is a float plane museum also on the Canadian side of the locks. We stayed at Aune Osborne Campground which was right on the Lake Huron side of the Soo Locks. You could watch the lake freighters going to and coming from the locks. To the west and north of Sault Ste Marie in the UP is Whitefish Point and the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum near the site where the Edmund Fitzgerald sank. The museum highlights this as well as many other shipwrecks in the area. The lighthouse station is also interesting. We enjoyed Pictured Rocks National Seashore for its scenery. Both these places could be pleasant in good weather or could be quite raw in cold windy weather. We traveled as far west as Marquette before turning south but my sister loves Copper Harbor. The weather forecast at the time may determine if this is a desirable stop or not. You could visit the Shipwreck Museum as a car trip from Sault Ste Marie and Pictured Rocks as a car trip from Marquette. Check the roads for suitability for motor home travel in the UP. We visited both these sites by car. There are plenty of great things to be seen, enjoy your trip.

I gave up on sensors a long time ago. After living full time in the motor home we gained a sense of how long it takes us to fill each tank. I know with confidence that we can go almost 2 weeks on the black water tank and about 3 or 4 days on the grey water tank depending on the number of showers we take. When living on the tanks we never do laundry, well, almost never. Louise knows how the toilet flush sounds when the black tank is getting near full. She also knows how the sink drains perform as the grey water tank is near full. She is my sensor!

The first thing you may want to try is to talk to the manufacturer for your coach. See if they have suggestions or a system that they use to anchor heavy objects in slides in your coach. There may be hidden anchor points or a layer of strong material which would support anchors without having to bolt through the floor of the slide. Just getting definite information on the construction materials in the floor and walls of the slides may help your efforts to anchor the furniture. I gave this some thought and I believe you are correct, the floor anchors may not work. One way to compensate for an inability to locate heavy duty anchors is to use more anchors for each object. I thought perhaps a two axis anchor system might work. Put in floor brackets that will anchor the furniture against vertical movement and then attach the furniture to a wall to keep it from shifting away from the bracket horizontally. By using two axis you may be able to prevent movement with anchors that are not as difficult to install as a well anchored D-ring. Consider the center of balance for each object you are anchoring. A table has a high center of balance so the horizontal anchor should be near tabletop level. Chairs and a couch have a lower center of gravity so anchor them near seat level. The mass of heavy objects like recliners and a sofa sleeper will require many anchors for each axis.

After a three week stay in eastern Missouri at my daughter's home we were preparing to leave. After unplugging the coach I started the generator. Just as it was switching the current over to the generator it died. The error code indicated an overheat condition. It was a very warm day but we could get by without the air conditioners running so I decided to let this ride for now and investigate at our next stop. While on the way to Independence, on the other side of the state, I pondered how the generator problem would affect our schedule. I discussed several options for making an appointment with Cummins to get the generator serviced. We pulled into the Campus RV Park in Independence in mid-afternoon and settled into our campsite. The purpose of our stop in Independence was to visit my sister and her family. We enjoyed an evening of visiting and feasting before turning in for the night. Sunday morning I was up early to wash the bugs off the windshield, I hate stale bugs so I try to wash them off while fresh besides, we have this huge windshield which gives us a great tour-bus view of the world as we drive so who wants to look at smashed bugs all day? I ran the generator out to check oil and water and added about a cup of water. We pulled off the campsite and hooked up the car. Once we were in our seats, seat belts fastened and ready to pull out I tried the generator. Surprise, it ran! All it took was one cup of water to take care of the overheat code. That is surprisingly sensitive. We enjoyed the roof air conditioner as we drove north on I-29 toward South Dakota on a warm August day. Our next stop was a visit with our friends in Yankton, South Dakota. We stayed from Sunday night to Saturday morning. We played cards and golf, then played more cards and more golf. Our Carefree of Colorado replacement awnings arrived on Monday but one was missing. So I got on the phone and talked to customer service who transferred me to the person in warranty service who was gone until Wednesday. So I called on Wednesday and found out that the person who was supposed to be handling the warranty replacement wasn't, it had been handed off to someone else. I was given a phone number of the supervisor. It took several calls but I finally got the supervisor on the phone. I explained the problem with the remaining awning and sent a photo to verify my claim. The replacement for that awning arrived on Thursday afternoon. Friday I started installing the replacements. The fabric is held in place with a crimp in the channel and that turned out to be a real challenge. The channel is aluminum but it is 1/8 inch thick and doesn't bend as easily as I had hoped. It took four hours and help from my friend to get all four awnings done. As we explained to the ladies, we were learning as we went. Friday afternoon I began putting away the tire covers and the sun screens. I got everything put away before the rainstorm hit. I had planned to unhook the utilities before the rain but didn't quite make that. After the rain stopped I dumped tanks (yes, they have full hookups in their driveway) and stowed the sewer hose. We had dinner, leftovers from a week of feasting on fine food, and played one last evening of cards before turning in for the night. Saturday morning we slept in, got up and ate breakfast next door with our friends. We pulled out about 10:00 with an uncertain route to Denver. We had about 600 miles to go but we had no campground to stay at until Monday afternoon, September 1. We could only find one campground that had a site available on that date.

We attended the Monaco International Rally in Gillette last year and were present for a briefing from a Monaco executive. Their strategy (as I understood it) for restarting the company is to start with the most popular of their vehicles and then expand the line from there. They are positioned at the top of the ASV RV line and plan to stay separate from the other companies in the line as much as possible. They are however located in the same manufacturing facility so there will likely be some economies associated with common facilities. With the economy and the market for RV's remaining weak, this start-up is likely to be a slow deliberate process and it may never blossom into the full range of vehicles that we once had available. As you suggest, some models may be repositioned in this process. We all know that following the merger of Holiday Rambler and Monaco the two lines became more and more similar as suppliers and manufacturing processes were standardized. This resulted in what I considered a set of parallel models with smaller and smaller differences with time. Our model was orphaned several years before the bankruptcy and first reorganization. I'm certain that the same will happen with other models. This is all similar to the General Motors reorganization.

Atwood is a large manufacturer of RV products. At the bottom of the page linked above is a list of their other products. They are headquartered in Elkhart, Indiana, a major manufacturing center for RV's. It looks like they have a good selection of doors and might actually have a template or model available for your motor home. We have a screen door built into our front door and use it frequently. It is much easier than opening and closing the big door and it also does provide excellent fresh air circulation in the front of our motor home.

Can't help with the model question. I ordered a dash cover from Josie about 10 years ago. It arrived and didn't fit very well. The quality was good, they had the model year we had but it wasn't a tight fit. I took some newspaper and cut it to size on our dash. Then I found a carpet remnant at Home Depot and cut the pattern from the carpet. It has been there for 10 years and still looks great. Total cost of the dash cover was $17.