tbutler

We went with a tow bar that mounts on the motor home. It is easy to work with, you never have to lift the whole thing, just raise it and lock it in place. Once it is there, it is out of the way. The car is clean, nothing hanging on the front. With our coach the tow bar on the back doesn't block the engine access and we've never had to remove it for oil changes, etc. I consider mounting on the motor home to be much more convenient.

The New York Times historical fact today looked back 54 years to the beginning of the space age. October 4, 1957 was the date of the launch of Sputnik which launched the world into the age of space. Thanks to NASA we kept pace with Russia and continue to lead the world in utilization of space. Of course we now rely entirely on Russia for transportation to the International Space Station. Still, we have hundreds of satellites in orbit which affect our daily life. With satellite technology we can receive a multitude of TV and radio stations almost anywhere we travel. We have actual pictures of the weather routinely available and weather forecasts that are increasingly accurate. Our phone and Internet communications are transmitted via satellite. We have GPS moving maps on our dashboard plotting our location within a few feet and providing us with turn-by-turn directions. The are many items we have in and on our motorhomes which draw their heritage from space-age technology. All this has developed in the last 54 years as a result of our push into space. We aren't the Jetsons, not yet, but we're well on our way!

When we bought our first motor home in 2001, we shopped for motor homes as we drove down the interstate. Motor homes were everywhere. We'd see dozens of them in a short trip on the interstate. Once we were in one we noticed even more of them. Then the price of fuel started rising and the number of motor homes we saw on the interstate started dropping. I remember a trip in 2005 when the price of fuel took a large leap. We noticed large numbers of motor homes parked beside the road with FOR SALE signs on them. I think that attendance at rallies and conventions reflects this decrease in use of motor homes. The pressure continues to drive down numbers of people who are active RV'ers. Cost of used motor homes are reasonable but the new units are considerably more expensive than when we first entered the market. Fuel prices continue rising and there is no reason to believe that they will come down significantly in the future. In fact, as world demand for fuel increases, cost of fuel is likely to continue increase. I believe that the motor home market will survive and perhaps see some revival as my generation, the baby boomers, retire. Many people can afford to own an RV while working but we were never able to do that. Only when we could retire and sell our home did we muster the funds to purchase a motor home and have the time to actually use one. As the last of the parents of the boomers fade from the motor home market, their children will be retiring in droves in coming years. I believe that many boomers will want to be RV'ers. How many of those are actually willing and able to follow their dreams remains to be seen. It is obvious that many still enjoy the rallies we've had in the past but I'm sure there are others who would enjoy other types of rallies. Those who want to see different styles of rallies should step forward and take leadership roles in their local and regional chapters and in FMCA itself. Bring your ideas forward and help shape the organization as you see fit. Try creative ideas on local and regional levels. When they show success in drawing increased participation they will be adopted and expanded. For myself, rallies and conventions are not the reason that I am in a motor home. I enjoy them but they aren't the purpose of my travel. I attend when they are convenient for my plans which is about once in three or four years for national conventions. We're never far enough north to get to the early spring conventions so the summer FMCA has been our primary contact with the organization. I've been interested in several regional and local rallies but they have never worked out with our schedule.

Getting away, feeling the cares melt into the background, dreaming about all the adventures to come, a motor home is terrific therapy. Best wishes for a fine fall camping season and some great holiday experiences with family and friends! Tom

I don't know how the transmission fluid is circulated to the radiator but if it is, I guess this could happen. We have a different toad, different system so it doesn't really relate. With over 100,000 miles towed mileage and another 107,000 driving miles, no transmission problems and all of the towed miles had the Guardian plus a tow car cover from Coastal Car Cover for the last 50,000. The latter covers the whole front end with a virtually air tight cover over the grill area.

You should check with a voltage meter to verify that these are 120V bulbs. They may well be but most RV's use 12V DC for the lighting so it is available with or without 120V AC. Given the vintage of your coach, I am certain these are quartz bulbs. We get our replacements for our quartz bulbs at Home Depot or Lowes. If you want to replace the fixtures and can get LED fixtures that give a pleasant light, they will use much less energy than either incandescent or quartz. LED lights are the most efficient lights available today. They also are much cooler than any other light bulb. LEDs are much more expensive than incandescent or quartz bulbs but should last much longer. Many of the LEDs come as a fixture with the light unit permanently attached. A trucker supply will have a wide range of LED light fixtures for external and internal use. I've seen a few Freightliner dealers with good inventories of LED lights. I switched out the light fixtures in my basement compartments for LED's because I could locate them easily and increase the light available. I haven't tackled the house lights yet but someday when we remodel I'll try to use LED's there as well.

When we are traveling we never schedule our campsites in advance. We pick destinations that we want to explore and then drive to those destinations. On the way if we find something interesting we'll stop and spend a few hours here or there. We might stop to walk around a small town just to browse the store windows and see what interesting shops there are. As evening or the next desired stop approaches we pick an area where we might find an RV park and pull out the campground guides. We carry both of the major guides. To avoid having to drive from one park to another to find a place, we'll start with the most desirable park (choose your criteria here) and we'll call them to confirm that they have a site (pull through sometimes) that will accommodate our rig for the desired length of stay. We seldom call and find a park completely full. If one park is full, we'll call another. Sometimes as we get a sense for how full the parks are or aren't we'll just pull in and ask for a site. Doing this completely eliminates the anxiety about driving to a certain spot for the day. It allows us to see something that looks really interesting and stop and spend as much time as we want before we continue on our way. If we really want to get somewhere at a certain time we'll just put our heads down and ignore any attractions on the way. We still don't make reservations in further in advance than a couple of days at the most. Where we are staying now, we called two days before we were going to arrive to find out if they would have a spot for us for one month. Regarding national parks, there are almost always private parks near the national park. We've stayed in a few national parks but as a rule we'd rather find a private park and then commute to the national park as desired. Our motor home is larger than most national parks will accommodate and we travel with a toad so we don't have to stay inside the park to enjoy it to the fullest. We'll leave the in-park sites to those who have a greater need for them. If you want to stay in the park, check their web site for campground facilities and registration procedures if any. If the park doesn't take reservations you can stay nearby for one night and then arrive early in the morning to get a space as they become available. We've done that with Big Bend National Park. We were third in line when we pulled in at 7:30 a.m. for a campground with 30 total spots. We got a spot that day. At Grand Teton National Park we simply arrived and got a campsite in the park without any advance reservation. We've stayed outside Glacier, Yellowstone, Yosemite, Death Valley and a host of other national parks. As you travel, you will find occasionally that you just need a day or two to rest and relax. There is no magic about how long you stay in a campground. Sometimes we spend three or four days in a campground and never leave the campsite. There are always a few things that need to be fixed, a little washing and cleaning to keep the rig looking good and just a chance to sit outside in a chair relaxing and enjoying the view or the weather or the quiet. Don't be a slave to the drivers seat, take your time and make your trip enjoyable.

Our summer has been one of little travel and few activities beyond medical care. Fortunately, this has not been life saving medical care. The medical care was more like quality of life care. My left knee was replaced on June 2 and my right knee replacement was done July 28. As a result, I haven't been getting out and about as much as normal. Exploring has been a big part of our life since we started living full time in the motor home. We've traveled all 49 RV states and most of Canada. Along the way we drive, hike and explore our surroundings. This summer we have missed that activity until this last week. With the healing well under way, I'm becoming more mobile. A fellow camper here at Goldstrike Village in San Andreas where we are staying mentioned that California highway 4 was a wonderful scenic drive into the Sierra Nevada mountains. Having nothing scheduled on Friday we decided to explore that route. Our first stop was in Angels Camp to drop off our water pump at the UPS customer center. It's going back to the factory center to be repaired. Leaving Angels Camp our next stop was at Murphys to top off the gas tank, always advisable when heading into the mountains. From there it was a steady uphill drive. The highway is excellent here with a good stretch of new pavement that hasn't been painted yet. We stopped for lunch at Bristol's Ranch House in Big Trees, a fair sized town near the state park of the same name. Louise had the special for the day, stuffed peppers and rated it first class. I had one of the best French Dip sandwiches I've ever had. Prices were reasonable and we were able to eat outdoors on the deck and enjoy the nice weather, sunshine and comfortable in short sleeves and shorts. Leaving Big Trees we were headed into high country. We passed up Big Trees State Park wanting this to be a thorough exploration of highway 4. The state park is close enough to our base that we can visit it another day. Once we are at higher elevations scenic view points start popping up. We stopped at several, enjoying the view taking pictures and doing some light hiking. The first stop had just a short trail out onto the white granite bedrock. At the second stop we found longer trails through a feature named H*ll's Kitchen. The granite bedrock was strewn with granite boulders weathered from the native rock. I guess you could picture it as a very messy kitchen. We walked around the whole area taking our time and plenty of pictures. This was my first real experience with rough terrain since my surgery so I was slow and deliberate. My right knee is just nine weeks old and I'm still favoring it a little when it comes to up and down grades. I was also being sure footed when picking my way along the trail. Scattered over the landscape are giant sequoia trees which dwarf the tall pine trees among them. Still, these are not the true giants which are found in the state park and further south in Sequoia National Park. It felt good to be back out on a trail. As we left this area we passed a sign for the Spicer Meadows Reservoir on the Stanislas River. Louise asked if we could drive to the reservoir and I agreed. It was a ten mile drive into the valley on a smaller, unmarked road through some spectacular scenery. There was very little traffic and one hardy bicyclist on the road. We took our time and enjoyed the ride. The reservoir is beautiful with the surrounding scenery being truly spectacular. I've seen the California reservoirs dreadfully dry in past years but this year the level was quite good for the end of the summer. We walked onto the dam as far as the Department of Homeland Security would allow, then drove below the dam to hike to a view of the generator housing and discharge pipe which feeds the Stanislas River below the dam. There was a full flow of water coming from the six foot diameter discharge pipe and additional water coming from two active generators. This put out a nice spray which the wind drifted to us from time to time. We enjoyed viewing the resulting river rushing downstream as we walked over a low bridge. After returning to highway 4, we continued on east toward Pacific Pass and Ebbetts Pass. It was now getting late in the afternoon. As we drove the road narrowed and became serpentine. The road was entirely unpainted, not even a center stripe. Signs cautioned snow plows not to continue past the point where the road narrowed. They also indicated permits were needed for vehicles over a certain size. This was going to be true mountain driving. We continued on for about a half hour, passing over Pacific Pass and descending to the bridge over the North Fork of the Mokelumne River. We had about an hour of daylight left. I elected to abandon further exploration so we could return over the narrow steep curving road in the daylight. We had already had a pair of deer stare us down and there were sure to be more as darkness descended. Besides, who wants to drive on a narrow snake of a road in the dark with oncoming traffic. No thank you! We made it all the way back to the town of Big Trees before stopping for dinner. The final 30 miles back to Goldstrike Village were done in the dark but on much better road. We had seen some spectacular scenery, walked among some of the big trees. I felt like an infant that had taken their first steps, I was going to get better and we would be returning to our life of exploring.

I agree with you that the Natchez Trace Parkway is one of the best roads in the country. Every RV'er should travel this route at some time to really experience a park that is made for motor homes. We have traveled it in both our 40 foot motor homes towing and found it to be very easy to navigate. Of particular help were the signs that indicated if there was no loop drive or turn around at attractions. There were relatively few of these but if you are towing, that notice will save your bacon. The only problem we had was early one spring when we found tree branches brushing us on the southern end of the route. We stopped at the visitors center and found the same condition getting into and out of the parking lot. I talked to the people at the visitors center and filled out an evaluation form. I haven't had a chance to travel there since but assume that alerted them to the problem and the trees were trimmed. Regarding states, each state has many thousands of miles of highways. Rather than rating by states, I think the discussion would be better focused if we discussed particular roads. Even some sections of roads are bad while others are quite easy to travel. As an example, we travel from Texas to Denver Colorado frequently and one route we take is US 87 and then US 287 in northern Texas. Until you get close to the Oklahoma border, US 287 is good road. At the town of Castaneda the road narrows and becomes extremely rough. It is about 15 miles of bone jarring driving in rutted paved road. US 287 continues in Oklahoma and is pretty good road, a relief by comparison to the highway to the south. Near the northern border of Oklahoma and Colorado US 287 deteriorates again into rough road. Once again, cross the border and it is a wonderful high speed highway in Colorado. There is little traffic on this route and few towns to slow down for. Approaching I-70 where leave US 287 for the interstate to Denver, the route is now under repair. We chose to detour to the west on a small road and that was a mistake. No delay in construction could have been worse than the alternate we took! That brings up another topic. We've traveled in all 49 RV states and most of Canada. There are states that we've only traveled through 2 or 3 times in ten years. There are other states we travel almost every year. So any discussion of road conditions is time dependent. A road that is rough and almost impossible may be repaired several years later and become a fine easy to travel road. Another factor in travel is also the amount of traffic you encounter on a road. Some roads are heavily traveled by trucks, others are auto racetracks. Both these factors make the driving experience less enjoyable. I recently wrote up some highway information in my Blog here on the FMCA site. Like you, I find the roads in my home state to be flawed in many cases. I lived most of my life in the St. Louis area. I-70 from St. Louis to Kansas City is a traffic nightmare. I-70 through Kansas City is its own special category of nightmare with left exits thrown in just to keep your attention. There are lots of trucks and heavy auto traffic on I-70 and everyone is in a hurry. Travel on a weekend when the U of MO at Columbia traffic is on the way home or on the way to a football game and this is even worse. Add in some section of the road that needs repair and it is one highway that I'll try to avoid when possible. As a result we altered our usual route to visit friends in South Dakota. The usual route would have been I-70 to I-29 to South Dakota. This time we went north from the St. Louis area on US 61 and US 218 and I-380 to Waterloo, Iowa. Roads were generally good and traffic was light until we hit rush hour traffic from Iowa City to Waterloo. We then headed west on US 2. We found this highway to be lightly traveled and in excellent condition until we got about 100 miles from Sioux City, IA. There it gave out to two lane with an irregular route through small towns. Parts of this section were rough and in need of repair. At Sioux City we joined I-29 for the final leg of our trip. Continuing on west after our visit with friends we decided to rejoin US 2 across Nebraska. There were several sections under repair but we found the road to be lightly traveled and in generally good condition. There were a few widely scattered towns to pass through most lowering the speed limit to 50 or 45 with no stop in town. The route was relatively easy and became quite scenic in the sand hills of western Nebraska. US 2 becomes even better in Wyoming. We enjoyed the ride into Casper where we stayed at Wal-Mart for the night. The road from Casper to Rawlins was not quite as good. That got us back to I-80 and our usual route to northern California.

We frequently drive Hwy 69 in OK when traveling from Texas to Missouri. I drive at speeds that match the road as much as possible. It surely is rough but there are also other roads that rough in Alabama, Mississippi and other places. Taking Hwy 69 saves me time and money so it is a regular route for us. Our most recent passage was in 2010. I say tighten up the TV!

I'd want to be there for the installation. This said after I was there for the only replacement I've had done. The company that installed the windshield on our current coach did an acceptable job but I was very skeptical about it at the time. They had to struggle to get it to fit into the rubber seal. I questioned the fit since they couldn't get it to fit as the original. The rubber seal still isn't flush with the body all the way around as it originally was. In fact the upper left is bulged up enough to block the water trough that is part of the top of the rubber seal. I talked to tech support at Monaco and they said that the company should have broken the seal loose from the body all the way around the window frame before installing the glass in the rubber seal. I noted the problems on the bill before paying my deductible. It has been five years and the windshield is still good. It has survived several rock chips and subsequent repairs, so I'd have to say that the job was good enough. Next time I know what to suggest if/when they have problems with the rubber seal.

To the best of my knowledge, if the coach can not be repaired on the spot, they will have the coach towed to where it can be repaired. We've had them tow us several times and I can say they won't always tow you where you want, they'll take you to the nearest place where you can get service. As an example we had a warranty issue but they would only tow to a shop that could fix the problem. We lost the warranty coverage. Fortunately it wasn't a huge bill. If it had been a very large bill, I'd have paid for additional 70 miles of towing to get to a Cummins shop. Coach Net will not pay to replace the tire, only get the mobile service there to replace the tire. You pay for the tire and any other needed materials. They pay for the service call. It is no different with Good Sam road service. We had them at one point. They wouldn't even help us get the correct size tire. We were going to have to take a tire and rim that would have both been scrap because the shop that showed up for the service call didn't have the correct size tire not to mention a matching rim. It would have been $500 for scrap just to get us off the road. Once the road service showed up that was it for the Good Sam service. One service call is all you get. I had to call a dealer with a tire we could use. I paid for the service call and ended up buying a rim that would be replaced. At least I had something I could keep out of the deal! It would be nice if the road service contract would work exactly as we want but it is a business and they will do what they say they will - and no more. They will get you off the road, what it costs you from there is irrelevant to them. Count yourself lucky if you get a skilled rep on the phone when you call for help. There are times when you will know more than they do about a given situation.

Welcome to the Forum! Nice history, looks like you have some fun planned. There is a whole section of the Forum on Full Timing. If you haven't looked at it yet, take a look. There are discussions of a number of aspects of full timing and some references to further information about going full time. You might share some of this with your copilot. We've were full time for 9 1/2 years before we went back to a house part time. It's a great experience.

I just checked the NADA Guides on-line for our motor home, just to get a value for determining our net value. Looks like I should be calling it a submarine instead of a motor home. Actually it wasn't that bad, we're just a little underwater. Sort of like a boat sunk in shallow water I guess. Thanks for the resource, no matter good or bad news, it is useful information. When I consider the travels and experiences we've had over the last seven years with this motor home and the three previous years with its predecessor, the loss in value is really a fantastic return on our "investment." Price out ten years of travel in hotels and eating at restaurants. Add in the convenience of being at home - everywhere we traveled - it can't be beat!

Welcome to the Forum! Help is one of the primary functions of the Forum but what you have given us is a real challenge! If you don't get a response from someone who owns an '86 Aluma-Lite HRC XL, my suggestion would be to check with RV salvage dealers. There have been several references for salvage yards in past discussions. I had to search for this reference as it has been moved, this is a listing of salvage yards with descriptions of their specialties. These are located all over the US but they ship anywhere. If there is one near you, you might contact them and enlist their help in searching for your manual. If this listing of salvage yards is not productive, use the search box at the top right of this page. Put in salvage and search forums (instead of this forum). You should get a dozen or so discussions with other references to salvage lists. Good luck.

Keep us posted with your travel stories here on your Blog. For answers to your questions you will get a better response by posting them in the Forum rather than here. I would suggest that you post two queries on the Forum, one for the dog-friendly parks and a second for the diner/dives along your route. I like the way you plan a trip. We do this often, pick several key destinations and then just set out and find what we can along the way. It looks like a good plan to me.

I had a gauge go bad. Cummins told me that if the engine, which has its own sensors, senses low or no oil pressure it will shut itself down. Therefore, it is likely that you have a faulty sensor that is setting off the manufacturer alarms while the engines own sensors tell it that all is well. This would also explain why it runs and the temperature remains in an acceptable range. Check with your dealer to get the factory installed sensor replaced. I'm betting that will solve your problem.

Gary and Sharon, Welcome to the forum. I'm going to make a suggestion. Since this is a completely different topic, I would suggest that you copy your post above, open a new topic, and then paste the contents to that topic. That way, your query will have a title that will attract the attention of people who have information for you. If you do this, I'll post my response there as well. In answer to your query, we winter in the Rio Grande Valley (RGV) in Texas. We are within minutes of the Mexico Border, less visited in the last couple of years due to violence across the border. Still, we are as far south as you can get in the US other than Florida. We have a couple in our park from Alaska. They return each year bringing a supply of fish and moose meat to share with friends. They have lots of friends! You will find the cost of living quite reasonable and we have major shopping centers and every kind of dining experience you could want readily at hand. There are over 50 parks in the RGV, most in an area from Harlingen to McAllen. Some of these parks have 50 sites, others have 500 sites. The area hosts many migrating birds and is unique as a spot to see Central American birds that live along the river and are found north of the border frequently. There are RV parks with dance halls and dance lessons, a symphony orchestra, several convention centers, minor league baseball and hockey, hiking and biking trails, wildlife refuges, state parks, world birding and butterfly centers and ocean fishing out of South Padre Island. The climate matches your criteria in December and January and is better the rest of the time. Parks vary from the minimum to parks with luxury facilities. Many parks have a full set of organized activities within the park, card games, athletic games, outings to local areas, group meals, happy hours, etc. If you come, you might want to plan to stay a week or two in one park and take a look at what is available before committing for a full season. I'm sure you will find a park that suits you. One final bonus with south Texas. We aren't snow birds, we're winter Texans. The local residents accept us and enjoy our presence. We are enough of an economic impact to the area that the local communities celebrate our presence. Local businesses are geared to accommodate our needs. There are communities of snow birds all along the southern border. Some of the more popular in the west are Yuma, AZ, Quartzsite, AZ. Yuma has numerous large parks with full facilities and organized activities. Quartzite has parks but also hosts a huge population of snow birds who spend little money and camp in the desert with no facilities. Most southern cities in Arizona have large parks for winter residents, we've been to parks in Phoenix and Tuscon. Florida is the other major community of snow birds. There are parks along the Gulf of Mexico further north in Texas and in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama as well. As you know, north means cooler weather but ocean modifies that when the wind is blowing off the ocean. You can also find more information in several discussions that have been posted in the past. You can use the search box at the top, right side, of this page to search for key words such as winter, snow birds, etc. You should find several lengthy discussions with recommendations from a number of people. Here are a couple I found: Winter Home Away From Home and Wintering in SW.

We stayed in the national park in both places. If you make reservations you can get full service sites. We didn't make reservations in Jasper and had to wait a day for a full hookup site. The parks in Jasper and Banff are close enough that we didn't find a need to camp in between.

Yeah, we're rolling up the miles! We're here in California with our two granddaughters and their parents. We'll leave here in mid-October, make a short stop in Albuquerque, NM and then head to our winter quarters in Edinburg, Texas. You can follow our travels on our Blog here on the FMCA site. I try to post every few weeks when we are on the road. Once we park for the winter, I usually don't post as the RV adventures are harder to imagine than actually live.

I hadn't responded, hoping you would get some responses from some local people. You didn't mention if you travel with a toad, or a bike. We travel with a toad so we can park at an RV park for several days and explore with the toad. If you are traveling in a motor home without a toad, you will have to park it anywhere you stop to explore. In New England this is a particular challenge. It doesn't make the trip impossible by any means but does eliminate some things you could see. We've made several trips through New England and find it to be well worth the trip but also a bit high tension for RV travel. The roads, except major highways and interstates, tend to be narrow. We found frequent signs obscured by vegetation. This led to discussions that started, "That was our turn now how do we turn around?" On one small road to a campground I actually got out of the motor home, climbed on the roof with my camp saw and cut several branches so we could get through without being scraped by branches. I swore if I ever won the lottery I would buy chain saws for the Massachusetts DOT. We also came across routes that were blocked by low overpasses and bridges. We ventured onto the New York Parkway and immediately bailed out as the overpasses were not suitable for RV's with no warning or indication of overpass clearances given in advance. Get a good truckers map or GPS to help you assess routes. You will want to be careful about taking any route not designated a truck route. A good truck atlas will have a state-by-state listing of low clearances on truck routes. For all of these reasons, you will have to stick with the major US highways and interstates unless you have a toad. Upstate NY offers great scenery, we particularly enjoyed traveling along the St. Lawrence Seaway and Lake Ontario from the Eisenhower Locks to Buffalo. In the NE part of this route, Hwy 37 runs close to the seaway and gives some spectacular views. There are also large pull-outs with good views and picnic tables. These are suitable for overnight stays and we enjoyed them very much. We made this whole route without unhooking the toad. We enjoyed Newport, RI. We stayed in a park there, drove the toad around town to visit places. There is a walk along the bay, on one side water on the other side the mansions of the wealthy from the late 1800's to early 1900's. Many of the mansions are open for tours. Cape Cod is interesting but I really wouldn't recommend it without a toad. The roads are small and traffic is heavy. We stayed at a park on the western end of Cape Cod and then explored to Provincetown with the toad. Boston has spectacular Revolutionary War sites including the Freedom Trail. Cemeteries with tombstones of the founding fathers and many famous buildings and war sites are highlighted along this trail. There is an aquarium with whale watching day trips into the Atlantic. Further north, you can travel along the coast in Maine on US 1 which gets you to many coastal cities. We enjoyed Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park, both are best seen with a toad. We particularly found the coastal area north of Acadia NP to be beautiful and interesting. Again, much exploring with the toad here. In western Maine, Hew Hampshire and Vermont we traveled US 2 and made several stops at RV parks to explore areas nearby. Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream plant tour is good, you get free ice cream! Their parking lot is motor home friendly. We drove through the Lake Champlain area with the motor home. We also enjoyed Mt. Washington (definitely with the toad) and visited Dixville Notch of national election fame (first voting results). It turns out to be a huge hotel resort, worth the stop. Campgrounds in New England are typically family campgrounds. They have hundreds of sites, most of which are occupied on a seasonal basis as families come for weekend or vacation retreats. As a result, there tend to be few sites for travelers. Also, when the families stop coming to stay at the campgrounds they close for the season. This usually is immediately after Labor Day. Get a good guide to campgrounds, Trailer Life or Woodalls, and look carefully for the closing dates for campgrounds before planning to stay at any particular one. We stayed at several Wal-Mart stores when traveling and also found some locations that restricted overnight stays. Near the heavier populations there tend to be restrictions on overnight stays.

I'll throw in another factor. When we have looked at motor homes, we noticed that many have few windows and frequently the windows are small. This limits the amount of light admitted into the motor home and also cuts down on the air circulation when you can open the windows and ventilate. I've walked into more than a few motor homes and looked at the windows, their size and locations, and walked right back out. I've got to have large windows for light and ventilation.

There have been a number of previous discussions on this topic. There are companies across the US who do this kind of work. I'll include a link to one of the articles which I found by using the search function at the top of this page. This discussion had numerous replies citing other companies, Suggestions on Removing Glass. You will find other discussions and more references in other discussions.

We have just completed our trek across country from Missouri to California. We've done this trip many times since we have grandchildren in both states. The quickest route is to travel I-70 west to Denver then jog north on I-25 to Cheyenne, Wyoming where we pick up I-80 on to California. This trip we decided to take a different route. We planned to visit friends in Yankton, South Dakota so it seemed that going north into Iowa and then west to Sioux City, Iowa would be a nice change. Interstate 70 across Missouri is always a race track, loaded with trucks and lots of auto traffic. Avoiding the interstate tangle of Kansas City was another plus. So we decided to drive north on US 61 and US 281 and I-380 to Waterloo, Iowa. That was the first leg of our trip. US 61 is four lane from I-70 almost all the way to the Iowa border. The road surface is fair to good and traffic is light. US 281 is good surface and four lane most of its distance. The only heavy traffic we encountered was on I-380 from Iowa City to Waterloo. This may not be consistently busy, it was Friday afternoon about 4:00 p.m. when we passed through Iowa City. We arrived at the Wal-Mart just off US 20 in Waterloo about 5:00 p.m. I spent an hour or more working on replacing our water pump. When we unhooked and switched to the water pump preparing to leave my daughters home, the water pump wouldn't work. I found a blown fuse, replaced it and it blew again. Calling ShurFlo I found that we would have to send in the old pump to get warranty service. I wasn't ready to do without a pump for a week while we waited for a replacement so picked up another matching pump at a local dealer before we left town. Now I'll return the defective pump for an exchange and have a spare on hand. Saturday morning we drove west on US 20 through central Iowa. Traffic was very light and the highway was excellent. About 100 miles from Sioux City the four lane pavement gives way to the old two lane highway which wanders from town to town, up hill and down dale. That part of the trip was slower but still comfortable travel with very light traffic. On our way, our friends from Yankton, South Dakota called to let us know that I-29 was still flooded by the Missouri River and was closed south of Sioux City. We laughed, if we were on our regular route to their home, we would have been searching for a route around the flooding. As it was, we would not be affected at all by that closure. We took I-29 north from Sioux City to US 50. The final ten miles of I-29 was littered with orange barrels and two way traffic which slowed our travel before we arrived at Junction City and US 50. We spent two days with our friends, sharing our summer experiences. They took us to the Gavin Point Dam on the Missouri River to see the water being discharged from the dam. We marveled at the 90,000,000 cubic feet per second discharge from the dam which was considerably smaller than the 160,000,000 cubic feet per second discharge that was occurring in May and June of this year. The force of water is a spectacle not to be missed, whether from a dam, waterfall, rapids, or waves on a shore, water is awesome. Of course that force is also threatening as the people downstream from the dam learned this spring. We enjoyed dining out at a nearby restaurant overlooking the Missouri River. We went bowling one evening which gave me a chance to try out my new knees. I didn't have my ball or shoes so bowled using a spare ball loaned to me by my friend. By the end of the evening it felt like my own ball! I was back to bowling my average. That was reassuring to everyone as the four of us are a bowling team in the winter in south Texas. By the end of the evening I was ready to get off my feet and ice down my knees. With the recommendation of a neighbor we found a welder to fix part of our towing linkage. One of the two brackets that link the car to the tow bar had developed a crack. The welder was able to clean up the crack and put a good weld on the crack. It is holding well and should get us home for the winter. Then I'll have to pursue a replacement. Leaving Yankton, we drove south on US 81 to US 20 in Nebraska. This is the same highway we were on in Iowa. Right away we experienced several sections of road repair. We were beginning to question our decision when the repairs stopped and we traveled many miles before encountering more repairs. There is very little traffic on US 20 in Nebraska, the road surface is generally good and travel is surprisingly fast. The towns are small and widely scattered so you travel many miles before the next town. Most of these small towns don't even have a stop sign so you can keep on rolling. After miles of crop and pasture lands we reached western Nebraska which has beautiful scenery of sand hills. These are ancient sand dunes, now supporting grasses and trees. As US 20 continues into Wyoming, there are more rocks and mountains. The scenery is beautiful. We encountered a few showers but arrived in Casper, Wyoming before dark. The Wal-Mart parking lot, our overnight stop, is packed with RV's, many are on the way to or from Yellowstone we suspect. US 20 joins I-25 about 50 miles before reaching Casper. Wyoming 220 from Casper south to Rawlins, Wyoming gets us back to I-80 and our normal route west. Rain hit us again on I-80 in western Wyoming and eastern Utah. Louise and I are sharing driving duties. I simply can't sit in the drivers seat for an extended time. I set the timer at 2 hours and when it goes off I look for a spot to pull over so we can change drivers. Louise takes the wheel for an hour then looks for a stopping place. While she drives I have my legs propped up on pillows on the passenger seat leg rest. That coupled with wearing the surgical stockings from the hospital keep my swelling in check. Louise drives the approach to Salt Lake City until we reach the Park City area where the slopes become steeper and the curves tighter. I'll get us through the city and to our fuel stop at Lake Point, Utah. From there Louise drives to our next overnight stop. Near Knolls, Utah is a wonderful rest stop which we have used frequently. Most of the truck parking is on a slope but there are a few nearly level spots at the western end of the west bound rest stop. The rest stop is well off the highway and high above the highway so there is no highway noise. A truck pulls in next to us late in the evening and immediately shuts his engine down. We both sleep well tonight. Thursday morning we are up and away about 8:00 a.m. We've been making really good time and our scheduled arrival in San Andreas, California is assured. We're stopping for fuel as we travel west because the fuel keeps getting more expensive as we travel. We'll grab some more fuel in Winnemucca, Nevada and then head on to Fernley where we leave I-80 for the short cut to Carson City, Nevada. We find the Wal-Mart posted "No Overnight Parking." This is a change, we have stayed there many times before. We continue on south on US 395 to Hwy 88 which will become California Hwy 88. This will take us over the Sierra Nevada. It is now late and we're not going to tackle that highway at night so we find a wide area along a river and park for the night. We are alone and it is quiet. I bookmark this spot in the GPS for future use. Friday morning Louise fixes a fine hot breakfast and we're on our way. Only 90 miles to Gold Strike Village in San Andreas, California. These 90 miles are real mountain driving. We're on two lane roads, plenty of turn-outs and lots of tight turns. The engine brake gets a workout on the down slopes and the engine has lots of exercise on the climbs. We arrive in Jackson, California just before noon. Louise wants a grocery stop so we make our way to the Safeway in Jackson. After shopping and eating lunch we are into our campground by 2:30 p.m. Saturday morning we are watching our five year old granddaughter play soccer. It's just too much fun to be missed. It makes the whole trip worthwhile. We'll be here for a month enjoying both the 5 year old and our 3 year old granddaughters. More soccer games, reading books, babysitting, and just being grandparents. The girls want to know what the scars on my knees are. They trace the line of the scar on my right knee and talk about stitches. I laugh and tell them they used staples. Ewww! Wait until I get the x-rays on disk. They should arrive in the mail next week. That will keep the girls entertained for five minutes.