tbutler

We left Orewa Beach Sunday morning headed north to Whangarei and beyond to Russell and the Waitangi Treaty Grounds. After several days in the campervan we had a list of things we needed. Groceries were at the top of the list. Yes, despite our purchase on Friday we were in for another purchase of food. We located the Countdown Grocery and Louise went in to start shopping. I went to a housewares store, Briscoes. I thought it was going to be more like a Lowe’s than a Bed Bath and Beyond but I still managed to find most of what I wanted. I found a door mat marked $19.95, two plastic wine glasses marked $10 each, a good steak knife for $9.99 and a sharp kitchen utility knife for $6.99. The door mat was marked 50% off so it should have been about $10. When everything was rung up, it came to $30.00 NZ. I checked the ticket and everything was on the ticket but at a discounted price. Must have been a big sale day. With the US conversion it came out to $25.19. Now that is better! I remarked to Louise that I wish the manager of the Briscoes store was running the Countdown! Louise spent another $170 at Countdown. While she prepared lunch I went to a technology store in the shopping center and inquired about a cell phone for our use. They directed me to the Vodaphone store which knew exactly what I wanted. I purchased a simple cell phone with 30 minutes of time for $50.00 NZ, $40.87 US. I consider this a bargain considering what it would have cost us to use our AT&T cell phones here in New Zealand. We’ll plan to do the same thing in Australia. No, of course the New Zealand phone won’t work in Australia! Shopping and lunch completed, we were off to the Waitangi Treaty Grounds. We arrived at 4:00, inquired and found they were open until 7:00 which gave us time to explore. We paid $100 NZ, $82 US for admission. The treaty grounds are the location where the treaty was signed between Great Britain and the Maori leaders giving the British Crown sovereign control of New Zealand in 1860. A small museum displays photos, artifacts and documents from the signing. A short video describes the events leading up to the treaty signing. The house which was the residence of the an early British resident, James Busby, still stands and has been restored and furnished with period furniture. The gardens were in full bloom. Also on the grounds is a replica Maori fishing camp and a traditional Maori meeting house. We missed the cultural performances, war dances and celebratory dances. We would see them at another site later in the trip. There is also a huge Maori war canoe which held 80 rowers and is launched each February 6 as part of the Waitangi Day celebration of the signing of the treaty. We were there on February 2 and weren’t able to stay for the celebration. We did notice that traffic was really heavy on February 6 and the schools were closed. It was only after several comments to that effect that we remembered this was a holiday, the celebration of the birth of their nation. We walked from the war canoe by the beach back up to the house on the same path William Hobson walked 154 years before as he represented the British Crown at the treaty signing. On the western outskirts of Russell is a Kiwi Holiday Park. The facilities were good but the parking was mostly sloping. We found a site that was reasonably level and pulled in. Our neighbors were sitting out having a glass of wine and relaxing when we pulled in. They struck up a conversation right away. I had to excuse myself to hook up the electric and turn on the gas. I told them if I didn’t I wouldn’t get fed tonight. We later went out with our wine glasses and had a wonderful discussion with them. We found numerous things in common. They were from Melbourne, Australia and we exchanged contact information and have an invitation to get together with them when we are in Melbourne next month. The RV community is the same everywhere, friends are just a few words away.

There are a lot of things to look at and compare. Some items like generators are pretty much standard throughout the large coach manufacturers. Engines are made by one of three companies so not much difference there. If one or another of the engines is important then that will limit your choices Some manufacturers use several different brands of engines. Chassis is another basic item, many of the coaches are built on truck chassis or modified truck chassis. This is one that made a difference for me. Our coach is a two axle coach but has eight air bags and eight shock absorbers. Both the shocks and the air bags are in line with the tires, not mounted closer to the center of the vehicle which improves the leverage of these control and ride features. I think this gives excellent handling and ride. Look at the exterior not for the color but for the fit of panels, nature of seams and where the seams are located. These can give you an indication of the quality and design of the coach. Look at how the slides fit in their openings and how they are sealed to keep weather and bugs out. As to who builds them best? I'm not going to give you a name because I can't, I haven't looked at the market lately to see who is doing the best job right now. If I were shopping today, I'd have to give them all a good look, read and ask questions. I consider design to be a basic indicator of quality and assembly and fit to be an indicator of manufacturing standards and controls.

I know people who say that the days of the GPS are numbered and they may well be but I don't see any comparison between Google Maps and GPS. With the GPS you can set it to calculate a route based on your preferences, fastest route or shortest route. You can tell it you prefer major highways or that you want to avoid toll roads. We are currently in New Zealand. I brought my GPS with me. In a strange land with strange names for cities, towns, roads, etc. and wildly different driving conventions, the GPS has kept me sane and on the right road. Yes, Louise checks maps as we go along and can give general information but the GPS is telling me which exit to take in a round-about or rotary. So far it has missed only one time on the exit to take from the rotary. Knowing that going in relieves me of trying to look for signs, read them and then decide is that really the road that I want to take? I love the distance to next turn or destination feature, it lets me know how far away the turn is so I can slow in plenty of time to make a controlled turn. I've been using the same GPS for the car and the motor home but I plan to get a dedicated motor home GPS before we leave home this summer. That said, when we return to the states, I plan to get an i-pad and the Jeppeson software to use for my navigation when I fly. The information it will provide will be much greater than the information that my GPS provides and updates will be easier and cost less. In this case, the paper charts are rapidly disappearing and the digital information has to be dead-on-right. Jeppeson has been doing this for years and I'll use their data. I wouldn't try to use an i-pad while driving!

We left the rental agency with our campervan, our suitcases piled on the floor in the rear and a brand new left-side-of-the-road driver in the driver’s seat. Our first stop was to be a grocery store just a few blocks away but after negotiating several rotaries and getting totally turned around, it took us 30 minutes and a stop to get information from the brochures we had been given. We finally arrived at the Countdown Grocery which is a subsidiary of Woolworth’s, yep, the Woolworths we all remember from our childhood is alive and well in New Zealand! An hour later we emerged with $220.25 NZ worth of groceries. The shock was eased a little when I checked the charge at the bank website. The US dollar amount was $180.23, not cheap but considerably better than the original amount! We stocked the cabinets and filled the refrigerator and were on our way out of town. I programmed the GPS for a city on the northeast coast, Whangarei, and we started on our way. The route took us across town to the motorway (their word for a controlled access highway). Louise was watching like a hawk as I tried to adjust to driving on the left. She corrected me and I said, “Yes dear!” I was positioning us too close to the curb and my attempts to correct were defeated by the narrow lanes. Once on the motorway, NZ Highway 1, I still drifted to the left side of the lane but now I had time to look in the mirrors and check my position. It was long past lunch time and we decided to exit to look for some fast food. They have fast food here but we couldn’t find it. We drove around the town (a suburb of Auckland) for fifteen minutes before deciding to cut our losses and head back to the highway. Once there we drove on until we reached the toll portion of the highway which has electronic billing and we had been told in no uncertain terms we were not to take the toll road. The rental company would be billed and we would pay the charges plus a hefty administrative fee. So we exited toward Orewa Beach. At a stoplight in this resort town we saw a campground, Orewa Beach TOP 10 Holiday Park. We turned in and asked for a site for two nights. We had just come off a twelve hour plane flight and I was driving on the wrong side of the road for the first time. I needed some rest and this was our plan anyway, find a nice beach and stay for a while. Now I had to put into practice all that I was told in the vehicle briefing. We backed onto the site and got reasonably level. Out came the electric cord and after a quick examination I was able to plug it in. I opened the valve on the propane tank and we were set. Inside I switched on the electric and the water heater. The water heater lit, then shut off. I repeated, it lit, then shut off. It went through three cycles on its own each time, just as our water heaters do when the gas won’t fire properly. So I was dealing with a familiar animal. Perhaps the gas line just needed to be bled to get air out. Louise lit the stove and it burned just fine. I tried the water heater again. No luck! We would not have hot water, not tonight anyway. Louise fixed dinner and we ate, grateful to have a good meal. Then it was off to the showers. These were clean and well maintained. Louise made up the bed over the cab and we turned in for the night. Neither of us had any trouble sleeping. In the morning we could hear the chirping of birds and the chatter of children. The playground wasn’t far from us. They had a trampoline and there were always anywhere from six to a dozen children bouncing on it. Sure, the sign said one at a time but good luck with that. The children are not going to wait in line to take a turn bouncing on the trampoline unless the trampoline police are there to enforce the rule. Weather was a beautiful 70 degrees with sunshine. We ate breakfast outdoors and enjoyed watching the surf, the children and the birds. A neighbor stopped by to visit. He was a local and had a nice Class C coach about twice the size of ours. It was new and he had it out for a family trip. His grandchildren were competing in a lifeguarding contest up the coast. They would leave to attend the competition and relax in the park other times. This was the last weekend before school starts here in New Zealand so everyone was out on holiday. I understood some of what he said but struggled with some of the rest of the language. He had what I assumed was an Australian accent, kept saying, “good on you,” and using other local expressions. It turns out New Zealand English sounds just like Australian English in movies. That afternoon I asked at the office about the internet and learned they had internet available for $7 per day. I paid the $7 and we went to work. It was possible for Louise to use the service when I wasn’t on line so we could both work from the same account but not at the same time. I visited the web site of the provider and then went to sign up for one month of service which was $60.00 NZ or $49.10 US. We’ve used it several more times already so this will pay for us. It turns out to be common in the TOP 10 Holiday Parks and some of the other holiday parks (a generic term for campground or RV park) as well. We’ve stayed at several parks that don’t have the same internet service but they have an alternate and so far we haven’t had to pay for any of them. We have since purchased a membership card for the TOP 10 Holiday Parks which gives us discounts at other attractions. It saves us 10% on campground fees. It saved us $12 NZ for admission to Te Puia the day after we purchased the pass. It is also good for BIG 4 Holiday Parks in Australia so we’ll get much more than the $49.00 NZ we paid for the pass. We should have purchased it sooner! Campground fees here are interesting. We checked into a campground and the fee was $20 per person per day. That was the fee for us, using electric in a campervan. A couple came in to check on fees for tenting and it was also $20 per person. We were paying the same as someone staying in a tent. The TOP 10 parks are the best parks we have seen so far and we’re planning to stay there whenever we can. We’ve stayed at a couple of off brand parks and the facilities are way below the standard for the TOP 10 parks. Most of the major cities have a TOP 10 park. We’ve found them to all have clean restroom and shower facilities and generally to be in good repair. The parks have gas barbecues available for use, frequently have swimming pools if it isn’t a beach park. Prices are a little higher in and near the big cities, otherwise the prices are pretty uniform at $20 per person per day. Our activities at Orewa Beach consisted of some beach time and walking in a nearby ocean side park. Most of our time was spent resting and adjusting to the time difference.By the time we left the park on Sunday morning, February 2, We were feeling rested and refreshed.

Arriving in Auckland, New Zealand, our first stop is of course to pass through customs. We filled out the arrival card answering questions about the contents of our luggage, etc. Then we face the agents and answer questions about our answers. It is all pretty routine. Next, we need to find a way to get to the rental agency to pick up our campervan. We inquire at the airport information desk and are assured that a shuttle will arrive shortly to take us to the rental agency. Within about 15 minutes, the shuttle arrives. It is a small van with a small covered trailer behind. I load our luggage into the trailer and we hop on the van. We arrive at the rental agency and check in with the receptionist. We are assigned an agent to take care of us. We go through all the paperwork, questions are answered, and we arrive at an agreement on the details, insurance, additional charges, etc. I elect to go with a full insurance package since I’m going to be unlearning driving and learning it all again. There are many exceptions in the insurance language and we discuss all of them. Next we are taken to our campervan. We would call it a Class C. It is not new, it has 194,000 kilometers on it. For a rental vehicle it really doesn’t look as bad as one would expect with that amount of travel. It has been well maintained. We are given a 15-minute introduction and then the keys. We have propane for the stove and water heater. There is an extension cord that plugs into the 220V connection, which is standard in all campgrounds. Standard current in both New Zealand and Australia is 220V alternating current at 50 cycles per second. This requires an adapter for some electrical equipment we bring with us. Interestingly, most things that have a charger, such as computers, cell phone chargers and many others, will operate on 220V current and on the U.S. standard 110 V current. All that is needed for these devices is an adapter that links our standard plug configuration with the slanted blades that the outlets here have. I have a razor and we brought a small portable radio that only operates on batteries or 110V. For this equipment we need an inverter and I have one that I’ve used in the car for years. It plugs into the 12V outlet in the car and provides 110 V AC for computers, etc. These vehicles have the same 12V outlet and it works fine for providing 110 V electric when we need it. With the inverter, we can have electric even when not plugged into the campground electric. The only thing that operates off the house batteries when we aren’t plugged in is the refrigerator, which is a small (think dorm room) regular refrigerator that keeps everything quite cold and freezes things that need to be frozen. The fresh water tank is gravity fill only. The water pump provides all water -- there is no city water connection in lieu of using the water pump. You fill the fresh water tank and then use the water pump. We find the fresh water supply lasts about two days just doing dishes. Gray water is stored in a gray water waste tank and is emptied with a small 1-inch hose. Toilet wastes go directly into a small storage tank, treated with chemicals. It operates much like the outhouse toilets at some parks, just a holding tank for wastes only. The entire tank assembly comes out of the campervan and then is emptied and flushed in specific disposal drains for black wastes. It holds about 3 gallons when full and, since little water is added, will fill much slower than the black water tanks we have at home. The hot water heater is the same thing we use in the U.S. Ours wasn’t working. We found that out when we got to our first campground, turned on the gas and turned on the water heater. I knew exactly what was wrong. It would light and then shut off. The thermocouple that senses the flame was not working. We boiled water on the stove for washing dishes for almost a week before we could get it fixed. When we returned to the rental agency, they had it fixed in 15 minutes. Despite our small size, we have a four-burner gas stove top and a microwave. A one-piece, single-basin sink with a drain board made of stainless steel completes the countertop. We have place settings for four people, glasses and coffee cups in one drawer, dishes, bowls and saucers in another drawer and pots and pans in a third drawer. There is a small built-in trash can on the inside of the door below the kitchen sink. A slide-out pantry with two shelves for cans and boxes of food handles most of our food storage needs. There is a closet that has four hangers, a broom, a hose for filling the fresh water, and a bag with the hose for emptying the gray water. Below the closet is a small built-in electric heater that can be set to maintain temperature in the campervan. We have seven overhead cabinets for storage of lightweight items. The dry goods -- bread, rice, etc. -- are stored in one. The remaining cabinets hold our clothes and my camera, computer accessories and electrical adapters. Above the closet and the cab is the bed, along the front of the bed is a label that says in bright red letters, “MIND YOUR HEAD.” I wish I could. I’ll have a permanent dent in my forehead by the time we finish this trip. Actually, by the second day I found that the bed could be lifted into a raised position when we are moving about the campervan. A ladder that stores on the bed is placed in position and hooked over the edge of the bed when it is time to retire. The mattress is thin but most welcome at the end of a day. There is also a cargo net to keep someone from falling out, but I refuse to use it. We have bag chairs and a folding table for use outside and I store these on the bed during travel. I’ll put the cargo net up to make sure they don’t come sliding off the bed while we drive. There is a second bed in this vehicle. That is in the rear of the vehicle where the dining table can be removed and the cushions rearranged to make a bed. We are not using that bed because we make use of that area for too much other activity. The table that fits in that space is unusable. It is supported by a single leg which inserts into the floor. The leg is removable and the table top is stored in a special slot behind the driver seat. We tried using it for several days and now have stored it permanently away. It was necessary to twist the table out of the way to get past it and sit on the seats. We’re using the camping table that was for outdoor use as our table in the camper. We also have a television, which is for use with DVDs only. We have no antenna, so no television for four months! As mentioned above, we have a radio and get a little news, especially local news, from that. Most of our news from home comes from the Internet. The bathroom is an oversized closet. There is a medicine cabinet above the folding sink. It folds into the wall right above the toilet. The shower is in the same small space and soaks the entire room, including the toilet when used. The bathroom is our least used space. It is nice to have the toilet instead of running to the campground restrooms in the middle of the night. We may find ourselves freedom camping (boondocking) at some point in the trip and may make more use of the bathroom. Here in New Zealand there are few approved areas for freedom camping, and there are strict regulations (as in a law) regarding this practice. The vehicle itself has dual rear wheels and a front engine. The engine has pretty good power for the size of the campervan. Handling is as one would expect with a vehicle of this size. Actually, I feel more comfortable with our motorhome than with this vehicle. It bounces and sways quite a bit on uneven roads, which are the rule rather than the exception. The vehicle is manufactured by Mercedes-Benz and the engine is a diesel. The transmission is automatic PRND and has the shift lever on the left side of the driver. All other steering wheel controls, are similar, with the turn signal/dimmer switch and windshield wipers on the left of the steering wheel. The Headlight switch is on the right side of the dash. There is an interlock that prevents the vehicle from shifting into gear if the electric is plugged in. I’ve tried everything! Hey, I just wanted to move it a few inches .... Next: We actually drive and go to a holiday park (campground).

We arrive in New Zealand at 6:30 a.m., two days after we left our house. Where did that day go? Crossing the date line erases a day. We are actually 19 hours ahead of Central Standard Time in the US. As I explained to our children, it means we are 5 hours behind their clock time so imagine moving the clock back five hours, and then turn the calendar ahead one day! Actually we are on the same day from midnight to 5:00 a.m. in the Central Time Zone. What about other time zones? Well, it is 18 hours difference for the Eastern Time Zone and 20 for Mountain Time and 21 for Pacific Time. When daylight savings time goes into effect we all effectively move east one time zone so adjust accordingly. What happens here in New Zealand? I have no idea. That is why I came to explore this strange land. I’ll tell you when I find out. As everyone knows, when you are in New Zealand and Australia, you are “down under.” It takes special concentration and great toe strength to hold onto the Earth and keep from falling off. Yes, we really are upside down. I saw the constellation Orion one night and the Great Orion stands on his head in the southern hemisphere! His sword is pointed up toward the zenith, overhead and his head is low on the northern horizon. In the northern hemisphere his feet are toward the equator and his head is near the zenith. The real thrill is to watch the water go down the drain. I haven’t been able to observe this just yet. The drain in the campervan sink is so slow that I could fall asleep before it finally drains out, no spin there. The toilets are water conserving toilets, there is no swirling to the water, just a strong splash and everything is gone. Another thing to be resolved. I can tell you that the rotaries do rotate in the opposite direction! Both New Zealand and Australia are former British Colonies. Despite being half a world away, they decided they would follow Great Britain’s model and drive on the wrong side of the road. This creates great confusion particularly in my mind. Knowing this they have taken special steps to ensure that everyone drives on the wrong side of the road. They have neat little blue signs with arrows to show you which side of the islands and barriers in the road to drive on. Every place you enter the road from a side road they paint large white arrows on the road showing which direction each lane is traveling. Clearly we need to work on the US roads and include these arrows to help remind our drivers where to drive. It is funny (and sometimes not so funny) to learn to drive completely backwards from how you have driven all your life. I worked for days just getting the position within the lane correct. I’m on the right side of the campervan. Constant reminding from Louise has moved me from the line at the edge of the road toward the center line. Louise insists that the line at the edge of the road is near the edge of the world and in a few places here it really is! When I turn off the road into a parking lot I revert to driving on the right side! Then there are the one lane bridges, come off the bridge and my first instinct is to go right – oops. I have tried to be at my most humble when being corrected by Louise. She has after all saved me several times by pointing out my mistakes. She will not take the wheel, at least not yet. Maybe I’ll find some remote road in Australia and convince her to take a turn at it. It is an experience that no one should miss. One of the best things I did before we started the trip was to order the map sets for New Zealand and Australia for my Garmin GPS. I ordered a hard copy as opposed to downloading it from a web site. It arrived in the form of a mini-SD card that simply plugs into the side of the GPS unit. On that tiny little chip is an amazing array of information. I could have rented a GPS here but that would mean learning how another unit works and we all know how painful that is. I have my familiar GPS, I know how it works and am able to use it to its full potential. It is just so wonderful to have step by step directions in a strange country with confusing city and street names, unusual traffic patterns such as rotaries and then learning to drive differently than in the past. Having those directions has taken one mental strain off my mind allowing me to concentrate on my driving. I think we have had to pull over to consult a map or check directions a couple of times. Otherwise, we just get in and drive to our destination. I have found it to be quite accurate and complete with parks and tourist sites usually in the data set. I switched it to read in kilometers and it gives distances, speed and speed limits. Of course it is summer here in the southern hemisphere. February weather here is the equivalent of August weather in the US. You no doubt have read or heard of the weather in Australia and the intense fire season they have had there. We aren’t in Australia. We started the trip in New Zealand which is an island nation. The ocean is within a one hour drive from most of New Zealand and the climate reflects that. We are using our heater at night to take the chill off the night. Daytime temperatures are in the 60’s, 70’s and a few 80’s. One of the mind-bending backward features of the southern hemisphere is that when you travel south the weather gets cooler. Go north to warm up! In fact when we are on the north shore of Australia we’ll be well within the tropics (in April and May, think October and November weather in US) and will see tropical rain forests at or near the end of their wet season. This time of year is also typhoon season. We get alerts from the US State Department regarding travel safety including notices about typhoons and tropical storms near where we are. What great service!

On Friday, January 24, 2014, just five days before our scheduled departure for New Zealand, we stopped on our way into the park to pick our mail. In the mail was a summons for jury duty for me, Tom. Oh, Great! I read the information carefully. The report date was scheduled for after our departure. There was an information sheet to be completed and returned within 5 days. It was possible to submit the information by computer, so I logged on and filled out the required information. At the end were a series of reasons that would exempt me from jury duty. None of them mentioned New Zealand or Australia! There was an opportunity to request a postponement, so I checked that. Then it wanted a date for the postponement. I submitted June 23, a week after our planned return. That was accepted immediately, no questions asked. I was told I would get a confirmation e-mail within a day or two. On Tuesday I called to confirm that they had indeed received my information as no e-mail ever came. All was good, I was free to go. January 29, 2014, arrived and our much-anticipated trip was under way. We left the house at 5:00 a.m. on the way to the airport for a 7:00 a.m. flight. Our friends Bill and Laura drove us to the airport. It is a 20- to 25-minute drive to the McAllen, Texas, airport. There are four gates for commercial flights, so the long security lines at some airports are usually not a problem here. We approached the access ramp to US 281 South, only to find the ramp closed. This was odd, we’ll just go on to the next ramp, who knows what the problem could be. The next ramp was also closed. Hey, there is no one on the highway. Well the temperature was near freezing, there was a light drizzle and no one in this part of Texas has a stock of salt to deal with ice nor the equipment to spread salt if they did have it. We had to take the trip through town and found the ramps on the expressway, U.S. 83. also closed. As we approached the airport, the street crosses U.S. 83 and that overpass also was closed, so we had to detour onto the access road and cross under the highway and return to the street to the airport. This was absolutely crazy. Guess what, we got to the airport and our flight was delayed. The 7:00 a.m. departure would now be leaving at 11:00 a.m., maybe! We checked bags and cleared security and waited. As we waited we began to see the news reports from Atlanta. Yes, this was the day of the great highway disaster in Atlanta. Obviously, the road officials in Texas were watching the news and decided to head off their own disaster. That was why all the major highways and overpasses were closed. Our plane was coming from somewhere in the southeast and weather was delaying it also. Louise investigated and found a connecting flight in Houston that left later than our original but allowed us time to get to Los Angeles in time for our flight to New Zealand. We made all connections with no further complications. At 9:10 p.m. on January 29, 2014, the Boeing 777 pushed back from the gate and we were on our way. The flight was scheduled to arrive in Auckland, New Zealand at 9:00 a.m. on January 31, 2014. We would cross the equator and also cross the International Date Line. We arrived in Auckland at 6:30 a.m. thanks to a ferocious tail wind, more than 100 mph as we approached New Zealand. On the trip we had a seatmate who was making a return trip to New Zealand after going to the Netherlands to visit her mother. She was a delightful young woman, an educator and statistician working on testing and assessment in New Zealand. We had a very nice discussion as we were all waking up from our long flight. She suggested several things we should try to see while in New Zealand. Tomorrow I’ll share my first impression of some of the myriad of things that are different down under.

Here are links to several my blog entries that describe trips we've taken with our grandchildren. You have a wide range of ages which means a wide range of interests and also a wide range of attention spans. With a 2 year old, there will have to be frequent changes of activity which means lots of work for the rest of the family keeping the youngest entertained and involved during those long drives. Fun With the Girls is a California trip but the ideas here could apply as you travel elsewhere. Our granddaughters in CA are 5 and 8 years old. Granddaughters on Board - The First Day is a California trip as well. Granddaughters on Board - Days Two and Three is also in California, again look for these kind of activities to keep the children involved. We all Live in a Yellow Submarine! is the first posting of the Indiana and Illinois trip. A variety of activities for young children. We especially recommend the Indianapolis Children's Museum. The boys really liked all these activities. Grandchildren Rule, Grandpa Drools is an Indiana and Illinois trip with our grandsons. Listening to Little Voices is a trip with our grandsons in Indiana and Illinois. We did other trips with our grandsons and granddaughters that I blogged but those entries are missing? Anyway, we took the girls on the same trip that the boys had above but took them to the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington, KY. They had a great time seeing horses, riding horses, learning to groom horses and learning all about horses. We took our grandsons to Nebraska and South Dakota when they were 11 and 12. We visited Custer State Park, Mount Rushmore, The Mammoth Fossil Site in Hot Springs, SD and The Ashfall Site near Royal, NE where they have fossilized remains of Hippopotamus. We visited the Nebraska State Museum in Lincoln which has spectacular exhibits of the many ancient animals that lived on the great plains. We also went to Fort Robinson State Park in Crawford, NE and the Trailside Museum to see the many fossils and ancient animals on exhibit there. We also took the boys to the Crazy Horse Monument for the Volksmarch which occurs in early June each year. We walked up onto the developing statue and right out onto the outstretched arm. These are just a few ideas to keep the children interested in the trip.

Preparations for the trip took much of my time in the months leading up to our departure. We had passports but needed international driver’s licenses to be able to rent and drive cars and campervans. The international driver’s license is actually just a translation of the provisions of our US driver’s license into four languages and converting weight and vehicle restrictions into metric units so that someone in a foreign country can assess our driving qualifications and understand what our license entitles us to drive in their own language. For New Zealand and Australia the language isn’t a concern but the type of vehicle we are allowed to drive is specified with a letter or our license that would mean nothing to someone in New Zealand or Australia. These are easily obtained, send in a completed form along with photocopy of the driver’s license and a fee of $15 each. We sent ours to AAA in Austin and had the required international license in hand within a week. We did need travel visa's for Australia. These were easily obtained on the internet. Australia links our passport numbers to our travel visa and we don't have an actual paper visa, just the link to our passports. If all goes well when we present our passports the visa should be there for the customs agent. Neither New Zealand nor Fiji require travel visas for US citizens. Having been full time for years, I’ve been handling our finances on the internet but with uncertainty about internet access, special steps were taken to ensure that insurance that renews during our trip would be paid up on time. We also set up all our credit cards to pay automatically so we wouldn’t have to worry about getting internet service to pay those bills. I searched and found two credit cards that do not charge a fee for foreign transactions from banks that we already use for other credit cards. Those are the two credit cards we will take with us for the trip. I have contacted the banks and given them our travel plans but one only accepts such plans for 30 days so I’ll have to renew that as we travel. The other accepts travel notification for 90 days and that too will have to be renewed. We have friends who will take care of our house while gone. I’ve programmed the furnace and air conditioner settings into the thermostat and all they have to do is switch them from heat to cool as we go from winter to summer weather. We investigated and found no suitable way to handle mail other than just have someone collect it from our box and store it until we return. We should have nothing in the mail that will require our immediate attention, mostly magazines, advertisements and charity requests. Then it occurred to me that I won’t be able to file taxes so I had to file for an extension. I dropped that in the mail on the way out of town. All utilities were put on vacation hold, phones, DirecTV and the home internet service. We had our car and motorhome insurance cut back during our absence since they won’t be driven. Just when I began to think it was all covered, I found out that the holiday trip to Target has put one of our credit cards at risk. Fortunately it wasn’t one we planned to take on the trip. I called the bank and requested a replacement. They gladly complied so that I should not have to worry about that problem. The airline allows one checked bag per person, one carry on and a personal item. So we’re going to have to pack very carefully. We have good sturdy suitcases but we don’t want to deal with storing them in the campervan. We purchased two roller duffel bags (at Target) and ordered two carry on backpacks from LL Bean. That would carry all our clothes and gear for a four month stay. Careful packing was necessary to make sure each bag met weight requirements. We could have paid to take additional bags but that would mean dragging additional bags when we moved from one means of travel to the next. During our stay, the southern hemisphere will go from summer into late fall and our latitude will vary from 46 degrees to 15 degrees so we need clothing for a wide variety of temperatures as well as for all occasions.

In 2012 Louise and I celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary. We couldn't decide what to do or where to go for the celebration. Living in south Texas now, we didn't want to travel north in December so we decided to postpone the celebration for a special trip of some kind. We received an advertisement for a cruise from a company we had cruised with once before. This was a really exotic cruise, perfect for an anniversary celebration. Two weeks cruising the Fiji Islands, Vanuatu and New Caledonia. We put our deposit down with about a month before the commitment date. The no refund date passed without much discussion, the trip was on. Scheduled for the first two weeks of June 2014, it seemed quite a long way off. Soon after making the decision to take the cruise, I pointed out that Fiji wasn’t really too far from New Zealand and Australia. Can you see where this is going? We discussed that and put it aside. From time to time one of us would bring up the idea of extending the trip for the cruise to include New Zealand and Australia. At FMCA in Gillette, Wyoming last spring we attended a session on traveling in New Zealand and Australia in campervans with the tour group associated with FMCA. The presentation sounded great, we made notes and inquired about the price. It all sounded good until we sat down to discuss details, the price quoted was per person, double it for the two of us. That was a lot more than I was prepared to spend for a six week trip to the two countries. Louise and I are not tour people, we don’t like to be on a schedule when we travel. We’ll do it when we must but we much prefer to make up our own schedule as we go. So we decided to go it on our own. Finally last fall, we decided that if we were going to see New Zealand and Australia we need to start making arrangements. Louise took the lead contacting New Zealand Airlines to get prices and information on flights. They service all three destinations so we settled on them. Louise started planning a three week trip extension for the two week cruise. I said that I wanted to make the trip a full year to allow us time to see everything we wanted. That’s when the fight started! I found a set of suggested drives for Australia, two week loops that covered most of the country. There were about ten of them so this was far beyond what Louise wanted. We talked and settled the argument on a four month extension of the cruise. We would spend one month in New Zealand and three in Australia. I anticipated doing this following the cruise but Louise wanted to be back in the US following the cruise. So I agreed to scheduling the trip before the cruise. Somewhere in there is a lesson for the US Congress I believe. Louise began to go to work with the airlines and their travel agency. We booked flights for the entire circuit from Los Angeles to Auckland, New Zealand then after a month we would fly from Christchurch, New Zealand to Melbourne, Australia. At the end of three months in Australia we would fly from Sydney to Nadi, Fiji for the cruise. Then at the conclusion of the cruise we would fly from Nadi, Fiji to Los Angeles. From there we built in the details. We would rent a campervan in Auckland and return it in Christchurch, making a ferry trip from the north island to the south island on a ferry so we reserved the ferry trip. In Australia we would stay in a hotel in Melbourne for three days then take the ferry to Tasmania where we would stay in a hotel for a week traveling by rental car to tour the island. When we returned to Melbourne we would pick up another campervan and travel for 10 weeks going north along the east coast up to Cairns then traveling west along the north coast to Darwin and finally traveling south to Perth. We would leave the campervan in Perth and fly to Sydney. Our visit to Sydney, would involve a hotel stay for a week then fly to Nadi, Fiji. All this was going to cost us in the neighborhood of what the six week trip with the FMCA travel agency was charging but we would get four months on our own schedule seeing just what we wanted. What will follow in the coming days and weeks is a running commentary on this trip. I just checked my records and this posting is number 100 for this blog and comes at the end of 5 years of activity on the FMCA web site.

Another thing to be aware of is that the tank will empty better if you empty it after driving rather than before leaving a campground where you have been parked. If you drive several hundred miles, it will stir up the solids and they will be flushed out better when you dump the tank. When we dump I pour buckets of water directly down the toilet once the tank has emptied. We have a built-in sprayer that helps but I still get significant solids out using the bucket flush as evidenced by the color of the water that comes through the transparent coupling that I put on between the tank fitting and the sewer hose. The bucket dump also effectively attacks the pile that Lenp mentions above. We've never had a problem with the tank backing up and the two of us usually go a week and a half to two weeks between dumping. And I agree with Lenp, we've been using regular toilet paper without any problems.

When you purchase the wire, be sure to purchase multi-strand wire. Ordinary wire with a single copper conductor will break when bent back and forth repeatedly. You don't want the standard 12-2 w/ground or 10/3 w/ground which is household wiring. You haven't said what model your generator is but if it supplies dual 30A circuits like ours, you would want #10 wire and each wire (hot(s), neutral and ground) should be multiple fine strands of copper, not a single large copper wire. A wire made of multiple strands of fine wire is designed to be flexible.

What a great idea. We've been through southern Ontario several times, Windsor, London, Cambridge and Stratford to name just a few. Point Pelee and that area is a favorite of ours. Just met and made friends from Kincardine, down south for the winter! I had to look up Elora but found it. The web site looks great and you even have international posters. We're headed for New Zealand and Australia so may be able to stop in several of those places. I'll look forward to more of your posts.

Ray, I had to do some checking to answer your question about the blog. I've been blogging here for about three years and once set up, you don't have to do the set-up again. You can start a blog by going to your user name at the top right of this page. When you left click on it you will get a drop down list. Look for the item that says Manage Blogs. When that page comes up you will see a button that says Create a Blog. Click on that and follow the instructions to set up your blog. You will want to give it a name that is more general than your entry title above unless you plan to have lots of misadventures! You can post photos in the album section and then link them to a specific blog entry but you certainly don't have to do that. Before you actually create a blog, take a look at several of the blogs and get a feeling for how others have set them up and what they are writing about. That might help you give yours a title and suggest other things you might write about. Once done, you can go to this entry and copy the text then paste it to a blog entry. Give it a title as you did with your posting above and then post it. You will have your first blog entry. You won't actually move this entry from here to there. You can leave this posting as it is, it won't matter. From then on you won't have to do the Create a Blog bit, you just keep adding stories. You can do one or more in a day or one a year. Right now we have about half a dozen active bloggers. The more the merrier. Join us.

We fall in the same camp as Rocky. We do minimal detail planning. We pick destinations based on our interests and then head in that direction. If we see something interesting on the way we'll stop enjoy and then continue on. If a place is really interesting we may end up staying 2 or three days or more. Otherwise, when we're feeling ready to stop we hit the reference materials, sometimes Trailer LIfe, sometimes RV Park Reviews, other times we pick up the iPhone and use the ALLSTAYS Camp and RV app. On occasion we simply drive along looking for a good stopping place, an unmarked rest or picnic area or a large parking area. Sometimes we call ahead if we have reason to believe that campgrounds might be full or nearly full. Other times we just go check out a campground and if we like stay and if not we continue on. If we are on a schedule and we have to be somewhere at a given time we end up passing up some really great finds along the way. I hate it when that happens. Some of our most memorable trips have been when we have literally tripped over some spectacular event or location we didn't even know about when we started the trip. Being flexible, not having specific plans or reservations ahead of time allows us to pause and enjoy everything we want as we travel. Of course we are retired and that adds a dimension of flexibility that many people don't have. We have a trip in the final stages of planning right now. We will spend a month in New Zealand traveling in a CamperVan. Other than the airline reservations in and out of New Zealand, I have only a hotel stay the night before we leave to allow us to get the camper turned in the day before we fly out in the morning. We did make reservations for the ferry from the north island to the south island since we'll be there during their summer. That is it. We'll pick up advice and information on the road as we travel. I've looked at some of the information available on the internet to get a general idea of what kind of activities and events look interesting. When we leave New Zealand we'll fly to Melborne, Australia and will spend three months in a CamperVan in Australia. We have ferry tickets to and from Tasmania, a hotel in Melborne for a few days before we pick up the camper and a hotel in Sydney for a week after we leave the camper in Perth and fly to Sydney. I have a stack of suggested loop touring routes from the Australian Tourist Bureau and that is about it. I'll be blogging this whole trip on the FMCA Blog so you can follow along to see what we're up to as we travel.

With the title indicating "so far," this kind of post would be better suited for the Blog section of the web site though we all hope for a happier post next time. Blogs are continuing posts, more like serial stories about our motor home travels and experiences. I post a woe-is-me story on my blog once in a while but try to keep it upbeat for the most part.

For obvious reasons, once we hit the Rio Grande Valley in the fall I have a hard time heading north until late spring!

We sure enjoy watching the weather from where we are! Smug and Warm

Already in Galveston! Come on down... My GPS map shows 380 miles and there may be shorter routes to get you here. Happy Travels.

The Rio Grande Valley of Texas is in the throes of a cold snap right now (Saturday), it is 40o this morning with winds from the north at 8 MPH. It occasionally gets colder than this but not very often and we very rarely get freezing temperatures. By Monday, it will be in the 60's again. Last week we were in the 80's. We'll be cool like this through January and then it starts to warm nicely in February. Spring here is February through April when typical temperatures are 60's in the morning and 80's for high temperatures. After that it gets real warm. All of the parks here are geared for the Winter Texans (called snowbirds and other names elsewhere). The parks have a variety of activities, some more than others. Bike riding, golf, bowling, swimming (we have a heated pool for year round use), hot tub, card games, tennis, shuffleboard, basketball, water volleyball, dances, happy hour, dinners, karaoke, book club and bingo are just a few of the things that our park offers. There are small parks and large ones here. Some are located next to state parks, others are located near urban centers and shopping areas. The parks range from humble to luxury parks with storage sheds and paved pads. We have all the chain restaurants and big shopping mall stores as well as many unique BBQ and Mexican restaurants and shops. You can find a wide variety of flea markets if you enjoy those and the ladies in the park enjoy an occasional trip to the Ropa Usada (used clothing stores). There are three state parks, two national wildlife refuges and a number of nature parks operated by cities, counties and organizations like The Audubon Society and The North American Butterfly Association. We have birds from the tropics as well as the migratory birds from all over the US. There are miles of trails to ride or hike. South Padre Island has beaches and deep sea fishing and is pretty quiet and low key until spring break. Living is not too expensive here and there are over 80 parks to choose from. I just ran your route through my GPS program and it shows just under 1400 miles to McAllen Texas in the heart of the RGV. We're right down on the Mexican border but you could also stop anywhere along the gulf of Mexico on your way south if you are driving and find a place you like. If you come in your motor home, I recommend coming without reservations and sampling several parks but you could do your shopping on-line with the links above and reserve a specific park. We have commercial airline service to McAllen, Harlingen and Brownsville so you could fly in. Some parks have rental units or apartments. We've been coming here for 12 years and love the area enough to put a manufactured home in our park. We settled here after almost 10 years full time on the road.

Or the sail switch itself could be faulty. We had one quit several years ago. Replacing it solved the problem. On our furnace the switch is easily located on the fan housing and it is an easy replacement. Try Brett's list and it that doesn't get it, order a new switch.

We're back in our winter campground. Southern Texas calls us back each winter. It could be the warm weather. It might be the wonderful people. Maybe it is just the memory of winters in colder climes that makes us feel as though we are cheating mother nature staying where it is warm (remember, warm is a relative term). As I write this our temperature is 50oF while much of the central US is facing a night of negative temperatures. Here in our park we have an active group. I fell in with the tennis crowd in my first year. Nothing is more fun for me than playing with and learning from players who are better, quicker, faster, hitting harder than I. I learned that from my father who taught me to play croquet, table tennis and baseball. My father was a fierce competitor and always had a good sense of humor about it all. He enjoyed playing games from Monopoly and pinochle to those mentioned above. Dad never threw a game, he always gave it his all. My parents were fast friends with Dutch and Anna Mae Lightman. We would go visit them and while we played with their children, they would play pinochle. As we played we could hear them in the kitchen. Dad and Dutch would razz each other as they pulled off a particularly good hand. Laughter roared from both as the evening went on. That is how Dad played all games. I was in my 40's before I began to beat him at table tennis. I played table tennis with him for much of my life and never won but I learned to play well. Slowly I've been learning to play tennis and improving even as I grow older. I had several years of limited activity. In 2010 I had my right shoulder repaired, the torn rotator cuff was repaired. That was followed by total knee replacements for both knees in 2011. This summer I had cataract surgery for both eyes. Now I can swing the racquet, chase the ball and even see what is going on! My game is better than ever. Earlier this week I had a rare day. Playing with some of the best players in the park, I dominated the court. We rotate partners, playing with each other player on the court for one of three sets. Each player who played with me that day won that set. We have friends who have tickets to the concert series in McAllen. They had to be out of town for the November concert so they gave their tickets to us. We enjoyed an evening at the Community Center Auditorium being entertained by Pavlo, a Canadian entertainer of Greek ancestry. His group, three string instruments and a percussionist played a variety of Mediterranean music. I had to laugh, they would excite the crowd and get everyone clapping to the music but as soon as they quit clapping on stage the clapping died out in the audience. I looked at the crowd during intermission and mentioned to Louise the preponderance of gray hair in the audience. This audience was so different from the people in our park. We have many people who would be clapping all through the whole number. One of our golf friends will celebrate his 90th birthday this month. Lester still plays every week unless the weather is too cold. Several years ago he started playing from the senior tees when a friend of his also began playing those tees. Before that he toughed it out with the rest of us playing from the regular mens tees. Two years ago he got a hole-in-one, the first in his life. A couple who bicycles with our bike ride group regularly also ride about 10 miles making circuits in the park. Mary Anne has had diabetes since her childhood and keeps moving and exercising regularly to ward off the effects of this debilitating disease. Another friend had a heart valve replacement several years ago, had a heart attack this summer at the time of his wife's death. Bob bought a Harley and is riding with the regular motorcycle group. Laura is recovering from back surgery. She and her husband had planned to be at the FMCA Convention in Gillette, WY this spring but her back surgery intervened. She has struggled back from the surgery and though their arrival in south Texas was delayed, she is here now and getting better each day. These are my hero's. They are people who have managed to maintain their health despite setbacks and advanced age. Occasionally I rent an airplane at the McAllen airport and go flying just for the fun of it. Several weeks ago I took a fellow pilot with me. New to the park, staying for a month, he flies in Canada. We connected immediately with our interest in aviation. They have joined us for our weekly bicycle ride and we have played several rounds of golf with them as well. One of the hallmarks of our park is the immediate and warm welcome that newcomers enjoy. Invitations to participate in activities inundate people when they arrive. Getting them involved in various activities brings them into the family of friends in the park. Frequently casual visitors become regular visitors and return each winter for longer and longer periods. Many, like us, become residents and stay for as long as they are able. There are enough activities in the park that no one can take part in them all. We have our bicycle ride friends, our golf friends, our bowling friends and more. Louise enjoys the park theatrical performances, I prefer karaoke. She plays cards with several different groups of ladies, I'll spend my days volunteering on behalf of the Rio Grande Valley Chapter Texas Master Naturalist at nature parks here in the RGV. We are both thankful that we are in good health and able to be as active as we are. One of the down sides of living in a retirement community is watching your friends age and their health deteriorate. We all know that this happens to everyone. Knowing this makes us appreciate even more our good fortune. For us, these are the best of times.

I second that! I started late with a simple hand-held Garmin e-trexGPS mounted on a gravity/friction mounted stand. I still use that on hikes and on my bicycle. Two years ago I replaced that in the motor home with a Garmin 3450LM with a 4 inch screen. I like it and move it from the car to the motor home as needed. One GPS for both and I know how it works. I don't have to deal with two or more operating systems. That will end this summer, I'm planning to get the new Garmin motor home GPS. It is larger and I believe an adaptation of their truckers GPS. Anyway, I'll take a look at it in a few months and decide. I get lifetime map updates, they are not that expensive and get you the latest road information. If I end up getting this one, that will be the third GPS in 6 years. I can't afford to trade motor homes that fast to keep up with the latest GPS technology. By the way, each generation of these has been better than the last for less money than its predecessor. It isn't as handy as built-in to have something sitting on the dash but updating and replacing is much easier. Maybe someday they will be like car radios, buy any of several dozen kinds and they all snap into the same dash opening. Wouldn't that be revolutionary! By the way, I still haven't seen the GPS that is perfect so I've learned to keep listening to my copilot and she gets the final word when there is disagreement between them. I've found that works best, the GPS doesn't tell me "I told you so." when I don't follow it!

It all depends on what you are looking for. If what you want is wildlife, the Gulf of California is hard to beat for whales this time of year. In California, the elephant seals can be seen at Ano Nuevo State Reserve north of Santa Cruz. The best bears near campgrounds are found at Salmon Creek north of Hyder, AK and Stewart, BC. Camp in Stewart, the bears are across the border in the late summer, early fall. For antelope you can't beat Wyoming. Elk rule in Rocky Mountain National Park, you can see them in Estes Park! Turkeys are abundant along the Natchez Trace Parkway in the fall or spring. Birds are everywhere, there are books published on the best places for birdwatching. We are near one of the best North American areas in Texas along the Mexican border and the Gulf of Mexico. Several migration routes funnel through the area and we have an abundance of waterfowl as well as tropical birds seen nowhere else in the United States. Hawaii has some great snorkeling as do the Florida Keys. If what you really want is Wild Life, I recommend HBO, Starz and Showtime!

In January the routes would basically be the same initially. Head south to Jacksonville, Florida. Then choose to continue south or turn west toward Texas and Arizona. For a first year out you may want to spend a few weeks, maybe a month somewhere in Florida, then move on to Texas and finally spend some time in Arizona. Then you will have a good basis for deciding where to go next winter! Yes, there are shorter ways to get from New York to Texas or Arizona but in January I like to point the nose at the big letter S until it gets nice and warm! From Western NY, I would work my way to the coast initially to minimize the effects winter weather on the roads. Looking at cross country routes that time of year would require a serious look at the weather forecast and continual updates daily to ensure that your route is going to be clear of winter storms. Enjoy your trip and be thankful for the wonderful experience of traveling south in the winter in a motor home.