tbutler

We use the Trailer Life Directory as our first choice. We also have Woodalls directory as they have campgrounds that aren't listed in Trailer Life. We alternate these, getting a new one every year, so our oldest is just 2 years old. You might also try RV Park Reviews. This can give you some first hand feedback from individuals who have stayed at a park you are considering. Rather than composite ratings, you get specific things that people noticed about a park.

Welcome Ed and Vicki, Retirement offers so many possibilities. It is an exciting time. Full timing is a great way to see the country or to just try out a few new fishing holes. Like you, Ed, I am a pilot. I'm a private pilot and have rented planes in numerous locations where we travel. I love flying over an area after we have been exploring it by car and on foot. One thing I will say is that you will never know the true freedom of full timing until you sell the house and start traveling in your motor home. That freedom comes from no longer having a house to worry about or return to for some reason or another. Once you hit the road in the motor home, everything you have is with you and you are free to make your schedule and determine your travels without restraint. Full timing is a big step to take but the rewards can also be great. Enjoy your journey.

I'll second Brett's statement. We are near the 150,000 mark in the US and Canada. We've had US Customs come on board several times when returning to the US from Canada, with our consent. Our experience is they just want to take a look around and ask a few questions. We've never had a problem with customs or any state or local police. We've never even been stopped in our motor home by the police. I pay particular attention to speed limits as I am almost always an out of town and out of state visitor.

We're parked at Wal-Mart right now, getting ready to pull out! We use Wal-Mart any time we are on the road pushing to get somewhere. Yesterday we drove 530 miles, today that can be less but may be the same. We are now assured of reaching our destination on Friday which was our goal. This Wal-Mart is on a popular route to Yellowstone and it is jam packed with RVs. Still we were able to find a parking spot without any difficulty. All that holiday parking space is unused this time of year. A few Wal-Marts in larger cities will have restrictions on parking overnight. This is not a Wal-Mart restriction but a community restriction. I've seen postings and even barriers that restrict tall vehicles at the entrance to Wal-Mart but those are rare. If you are on I-44 and I-40, you will find quite a few friends parked with you. The Wal-Mart in Amarillo is always popular. There are lots of RVs on that lot every night. If you are off the beaten path, you may be the only RV on the lot. When we inquire at the Customer Service desk, the clerks sometimes have to ask someone else because parking at that particular Wal-Mart is so rare. My estimate is that at least 95% of Wal-Marts allow parking.

Checking the ambient temperature also involves making sure there are no outside influences on the tire temperature. A tire sitting in direct sunlight will heat up due to the sun. It's temperature is not ambient air temperature. If you adjust the temperature of the outside dual in direct sunlight to match the temperature of the inside dual in the shadow of the outside tire, the two pressures will in fact be different. I always check my tire pressures before sunrise to ensure that the sun won't cause variations. Right now, my generator is running which creates artificial heat around the front tires. If I checked them after the generator runs for a while, they would seem to have a higher pressure than they actually do as a result of this artificial warming. Likewise, if the engine is running to inflate tires for instance, it will warm the inside dual tire raising its pressure artificially. It is only a matter of a few pounds but in the case of dual tires that can be enough to cause lower fuel mileage and unnecessary tire wear or worse. Seasonal adjustments aren't the only times tire pressure needs to be checked and adjusted as necessary. Yesterday I started driving in the plains, the temperature was 60 degrees in the morning. Now I'm above 5000 feet elevation, the outside temperature is 45 degrees. I need to check and adjust tire pressures here not because of altitude or seasonal change but because the ambient outdoor morning temperature is significantly different than the day before. That is one reason why we check tire pressures every day before we drive. The other reason is to discover slow (or fast) leaks which may be due to damage to a tire or valve which could result in failure if not detected. How important is tire pressure? A failed tire can cause a serious accident and you could end up losing your life. At best, a failed tire will cost you money you could have spent elsewhere. Check your tires every morning before you drive as if your life depended on it. It does.

Thank you for continuing to keep us up-to-date on your decisions and progress. It sounds to me as though you have a very thorough plan to dealing with the cold weather. Everyone who participated in this discussion has added valuable insight. Having the final decisions in detail is valuable for everyone who comes to this discussion in the future.

RV Park Reviews has numerous listings for Bend and other cities in Oregon. Each listing includes recent reviews of each of them.

Some states like Oregon have special pumps for commercial truckers only (lower tax). RV's have to fuel at the automobile pumps or special RV pumps. There are also states that have agricultural diesel (tax free or lower tax) so you have to use different pumps. I don't know of any other considerations. In all our travels we have rarely encountered these situations. Most Flying J's it makes no difference if you use the truck, RV or auto pumps. It is all the same diesel fuel.

Jim, You'll be interested in the pictures I posted with my article on Replacing a Norcold Refrigerator. Our experience with the gas flue damaging the ceiling is documented in my photos.

We've traveled over 100,000 miles in all 49 continental states and all of Canada except Newfoundland and Nunavut. We have never been stopped or questioned regarding our bike rack. We have a Draftmaster which holds the bicycles so they and the bike rack partially obscure our license plate.

What you have are calcium carbonate deposits. I'm not an expert but don't believe that it presents a problem for an aluminum tank. It will cost you a gallon of vinegar, maybe two. I'd give it a try. For the investment, your potential return is great. The cost of a new water heater is HUGE by comparison! If it leaks, it leaks and you can replace it. Of course from now on you'll drain and flush twice a year... right?

When you think about it, most of the heat that gets into the refrigerator comes from the motor home and the compressor and coils simply export that back out into the motor home. It is true that with the Norcold the heat was exhausted to the outdoors so we are bringing more heat back into the motor home than the Norcold did. I have thought of this but know of no good way to exhaust the heat outdoors without letting outdoor air, cold or hot, into the motor home on a continuous basis. We've been parked in 100 degree temperatures off and on all summer and the air conditioners are keeping up without a problem.

I had read that most people do add two more batteries when converting to a residential refrigerator but adding the two batteries was going to be a complication so decided to go it with the standard set-up of four batteries and see how it worked that way. I had a plan to move the engine starting batteries to the engine compartment and the put the additional two 6V batteries where the starting batteries had been. It was going to require quite a bit of creative welding, wiring, etc. So I thought why not try it to see how it works with four batteries. We haven't been unhooked that long, two nights at Wal-Mart and five days on the road, San Antonio to Denver to St. Louis. After the overnights, the batteries are in better shape than when we had the Norcold and the refrigerator is the only thing we changed. I just checked the label inside this refrigerator and it indicates full load 7.2 amps. I would assume full load implies compressor, ice maker and defrost all running at the same time. As indicated, earlier, I only see an increase of 1 amp when the compressor kicks in. Both the other applications involve electric heaters. This is an energy star appliance, the defrost cycle is not on a timer but is based on need which I would guess is how often and how long the freezer door is open. The statistics on the Norcold indicate a 5 amp fuse for the AC as well as a 5 amp fuse for the DC. It seems to me we are doing better with the domestic refrigerator than the RV refrigerator. I'll be keeping an eye on the battery situation, especially now with cooler weather and using the furnace at night. If it turns out we need to add more batteries, I'll post here to give my experience with that.

Chuck, When I called and talked to the owner, Daryl, at Iron Horse he quoted me a labor cost of two days labor, $1200, for the removal of the old Norcold and installation of the new refrigerator. In subsequent discussions he agreed we could purchase the refrigerator at Lowe's and have it shipped to them. That way we would get the refrigerator at cost instead of paying a fee to them for ordering, paying for and storing it until installed. I caught a sale at Lowe's (there is a Lowe's within a block of Iron Horse) and got the refrigerator for $999 with tax, $1061. When we finished, they honored the quoted labor price. I'm sure they would be willing to do another, it won't hurt to ask. All the people that worked on the motor home were quite experienced at doing this conversion. Our tech Tony would call on his radio when it was time to move a refrigerator and four guys would show up! There wasn't much discussion about what to do, it was like a regular drill for them. I left both the upper and lower vents in place. I figure the next owner of this coach may want to go back to a Norcold some day and if so, the vents are all there. I did seal both the upper and lower vents. With the Norcold, the refrigerator sealed the cabinet and cold/hot air and bugs could only get into the space for the cooling coils. With the new refrigerator, there is no seal so leaving the vents open means you will be admitting cold/hot air to the interior of your motor home, not to mention the bugs. I suppose you could construct a seal but the back of this Whirlpool refrigerator is closed with a cardboard cover. The coils are on the right side and the compressor is on the left. There is a fan on the right side that draws air from the motor home, over the coils and then the compressor, before expelling it back into the motor home. With this set-up I didn't see any advantage to admitting cool air if the weather was cool. I had the tech take some excess insulation (fiberglass) from the Norcold installation and put it in the upper vent. Then he sealed it by covering it with a piece of paneling. I sealed the lower panel by installing rigid Styrofoam insulation over the air passages and taping them down with duct tape. That gives me a tight seal so no air or bugs can get into the motor home. Cleaning the coils under the motor home is going to be a challenge. I'll tackle that when we return to Texas in about a month. I looked at the coils last week and they are already in need of cleaning. My plan of attack is to remove the front grate and have Louise hold the hose of my shop vac in front of the refrigerator (maybe taping a plastic trash bag in place to restrict the flow of air to the shop vac) while I blow out the dust and dirt with compressed air from the rear side. I'll either remove the cardboard to do that or cut out a horizontal slot 2" x 12" to allow me to get the compressed air directed over all the area of the coils. When finished I'll replace the cut out with tape or screws to close off the back side of the refrigerator as the manufacturer designed. You know what they say about the best laid plans of mice and men!

Several years ago our original inverter quit working so we replaced the old one, a Xantrax 2500, with a new Xantrax RS3000. This is a sine wave inverter with enough capacity for the refrigerator. There was an inverter circuit already in the refrigerator cabinet so we didn't have to do any rewiring. We have not added any batteries, we have the standard 4x6V battery set-up. We do not ordinarily dry camp for extended periods. When we attend rallies we get electric hook-up if it is available. If we are dry camping we'll run the generator at least twice a day, first thing in the morning for coffee and microwave and in the evening for lights, TV, etc. That charges the batteries and so far that has been sufficient. When traveling we are finding that the batteries last longer, in better condition than when we had the old Norcold 1200. When the compressor on the refrigerator kicks in the amp readout on the Aladdin System goes up one amp. The refrigerator has an automatic defrost (worth the price of the refrigerator right there) and I haven't been able to get a handle on the electric usage for that yet. It is hard to tell when it is defrosting! Anyway when we travel if we are boondocking, we'll use the same morning evening charging with the generator to take care of our batteries.

I am not familiar with your motor home model. Our generator has a time limit set by the inverter. Ours is set at the maximum of six hours for the generator to run. After six hours it will shut off and will remain off for a period of time before we can run it again. If your inverter controls the generator, it could have a time set that is less than six hours. That could explain the first incident if fuel cut-off wasn't the cause. It is possible it was fuel cut-off but shifting of the vehicle or fuel expansion with temperature might restore fuel to the generator for a short period of time. If it was fuel shut-off the first time, it should have required priming to get the generator running when you went back the next week. That means you wouldn't have been able to just press the button and have the generator kick right over. Assuming this is an Onan generator, there are a number of sensors that will also shut down the generator. Overheating, low coolant, low oil level are just a couple of reasons that the generator may shut itself off. If this is the case, the start button in your motor home should have a light that indicates the generator is running. If there is an error, that light will blink and the number of blinks, usually in two sets, is a code for the error. An error code is usually a series of blinks, a pause and then a second set of blinks. The two numbers together are a single error code number. After the two number set of blinks, there will be a pause and then it will repeat. If you don't have a manual for your motor home and generator, you may have to call your local Cummins/Onan dealer to discuss the problem with technicians who can tell you what the code means and what needs to be done to fix it. The second incident when the generator kept running but you lost electricity sounds like a completely different problem. If the generator is running, it is generating electricity. Something has broken the circuit between the generator and the rest of the motor home. There is a circuit breaker on the generator, look near the start button on the generator itself. Another possibility is a faulty transfer switch. The transfer switch will be buried somewhere in the basement of your motor home. It is an automatic switch which transfers power from shore power (the big heavy extension cord you plug into the power box at a campground) as a source of electricity or the generator as another power source. We had this problem with a motor home we owned several years ago. In the case of the transfer switch, you are dealing with 50A 220V electric within the box itself. Do not attempt to test or repair this device unless you are very confident of your skills with electrical wiring.

My first thought was to check the gas pressure as Brett suggested. I will say we have an Amana but it is a two burner. If you can give up the third burner and the Amana fits, it has worked very well for us. It puts out plenty of heat. You might call Monaco Customer Service, 877-466-6226, to see if they have suggestions for alternate cook tops for your coach.

If I were going for easiest, leaving the south rim of the canyon, I'd take Hwy 64 east toward Cameron where you can pick up US 160 toward Durango, Colorado. US 160 will take you past Hovenweep National Monument on the Utah, Colorado border and also Mesa Verde National Park. Stay with US 160 all the way to Walsenburg, CO where it intercepts I-25 which will take you into Denver. US 160 is two lane but good highway. You will see lots of good scenery but there are much more scenic routes which you could take. If I wanted the most scenic, I would modify the trip to include a look at the north rim of the Grand Canyon, taking US 89 where it splits with US 160 north of Cameron and US 89A which goes past the park entrance to the north rim. This is a fairly long drive to the rim but gives you a completely different view of the Grand Canyon. Continue NW on US 89A to Kanab, UT. There you can pick up US 89 toward Mt. Carmel. If you have a car or motorcycle in that trailer, you can drive or ride to Zion National Park. Do not take your motor home. There is a tunnel that must be run one way for motor homes as the only way to get through with a motor home is to drive the center line. People do drive this tunnel in Class A motor homes but I wouldn't recommend it. Further north, turn east on Hwy 12 toward Bryce Canyon National Park. Both these canyons are completely different from each other and from the Grand Canyon. Continuing on east on Hwy 12 takes you through part of Bryce Canyon and on toward Capital Reef National Park. Hwy 24 takes you through Capital Reef National Park and on toward the town of Hanksville, UT. At Hanksville turn south on Hwy 95 toward Three Forks and Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. You will find several scenic overlooks giving you spectacular views of Lake Powell on this route. Further south on Hwy 95 is Natural Bridges National Monument with more unique features and scenery. Continue on Hwy 95 to US 191 and turn south back into Arizona where you will pick up US 160 toward Durango and the route I previously described. All of these roads can be traveled in a motor home, they are two lane roads but when we traveled them several years ago the surfaces were good. Hwy 12 does have some mountain driving, hitting about 9500 feet north of Boulder, UT. You will then descend to about 6500 feet at Capital Reef. The views along this route are truly spectacular. As a final scenic part of the route, leave US 160 at Del Norte, CO on Hwy 112. This short link will take you to US 285 which goes north into Denver. You will pass near Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve as you drive north on US 285. You will encounter more mountain driving on US 285, again the elevation is somewhere near 9500 feet before you descend into Denver. We have driven all the above roads in the last three years with our 40 foot motor home towing a toad. If you aren't comfortable taking your time and traveling some narrower and steeper roads, you may not want to try the scenic routes.

In the photos with my article above is this photo. As you can see, the heat from the gas flue was damaging the surrounding materials. We felt real lucky that it didn't go further.

OK so it is June 2012 and you are retired. You have plenty of time. You are not full timers but since you have plenty of time, lets quit thinking about vacation travel. Your destination is Yellowstone but you haven't traveled much so everything in between is more than just interstate highways. There are lots of things you could see on your way west. In fact, when you return you should take a different route home to see more sights! Don't plan just a few days in Yellowstone. Give this spectacular park the respect it deserves. Take time to hike around some of the features to see more than just a cursory view. I'll use a trip we made to Yellowstone NP in 2004 as an example. In April of 2004 we started a journey that led to Yellowstone and beyond. We decided the focus of our trip would be the journey of Lewis and Clark as they explored the western US along the route of the Missouri River. After wintering in south Texas, we spent several days in Natchez, Mississippi enjoying their spring house tours. We then drove the Natchez Trace Parkway (I highly recommend this trip to all RV'ers) to its end near Louisville, KY. Along the way we were surprised to find the tomb of Meriwether Lewis. In Louisville, Kentucky we began our journey in earnest. On the riverfront at the Ohio River you will find a statue of York, Clark's slave who made the entire trip with Clark. Across the river in Clarksville, IN is the Lewis and Clark Visitors Center and not far away is the cabin of William Clark. At the Lewis and Clark Visitors Center we picked up a guide book which included excerpts from the journals of Lewis and Clark as well as a guide to the entire trip. Louise would frequently read a selection from Lewis' journal that would describe the part of their journey that related to our days travel. The guide book we used, Along the Trail with Lewis and Clark was a real asset for our trip. We would have missed so many aspects of the trip without it. The trip was an amazing journey through American history and geography. From Louisville to St. Louis and then St. Charles where Lewis and Clark linked up in 1804 and set out, upstream on the Missouri, River. There is the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, AKA the Gateway Arch which will provide an excellent overview of the remainder of your trip. The view from the Arch gives another kind of overview if you are so inclined to take the ride to the top. There is a Lewis and Clark Visitors Center in Illinois near the site where Clark and the company of soldiers spent the 1803-1804 winter waiting for the arrival of Lewis. In St. Charles, MO near where the full expeditionary force set out there is an excellent statue of Lewis, Clark and Seaman, their Newfoundland dog. You will find a variety of restaurants along the riverfront in St. Charles, the old state capital of Missouri. You can walk or bicycle part of the KATY Trail, an old railroad route that follows the Missouri River up stream from St. Charles. Follow the Missouri River to Kansas City, MO where you can find some excellent BBQ. In Sioux City, Iowa is another Lewis and Clark Visitors Center. The only member of the expedition to die was buried in what is now Sioux City. There is a nice memorial on a cliff overlooking the river. Each one of these visitors centers gives local information and usually specializes in a specific aspect of the exploration. Travel on north into the Dakotas where you will find more visitors centers and interesting roads to travel, places to explore and things to see. Explore Ft. Mandan in North Dakota and learn how they survived the winter. On to the west in Montana you will find the Fort Peck Reservoir, a large earthen dam on the Missouri River and a Corps of Engineers campground near the dam site. Travel on to Great Falls, Montana and explore the falls along the river. A visitors center describes how they managed to portage their boats and gear up above the falls. The stories are gripping and inspiring. This was no pleasure trip for the men of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. From there we went to Three Forks, Montana to see where three rivers, the Madison, Gallatin and Jefferson, join to form the Missouri River. From Three Forks, you are just north of West Yellowstone, Montana. We found this an excellent location for exploring the park. There are multiple private RV parks just outside the National Park. You have the stores and restaurants of a good size town and the park is just a few minutes drive away. RV Park Reviews lists 14 RV parks in West Yellowstone, MT. The Lewis and Clark trail continues on through the mountains of Montana and Idaho and into Washington, Oregon. We followed Lewis and Clark down the Columbia River and on to Ft. Clatsup. This was a spectacular trip. For us it was an exciting and interesting exploration, not at all what Lewis and Clark faced only 200 years before. To see the countryside tamed in just 200 years was truly awe inspiring. Here we were, traveling in a modern motor home, communicating with cell phones, linking to the internet, shopping at grocery stores, getting fuel at a variety of fuel stations, looking at modern dams, passing fields of crops, and visiting towns and cities that didn't exist at all only 200 years ago. Reading excerpts from Lewis and Clark as we traveled brought the reality of all this home. We traveled in comfort and luxury where they struggled to survive every day. I notice that you feel you will need to disconnect your toad to travel in the mountains. We have never done this. When you encounter mountain driving, stick to the major highways at least until you feel comfortable with tackling more demanding driving. There are things to know about driving your motor home in the mountains, how to use the exhaust or engine brake, how to best use service brakes, how to handle climbing mountain grades, etc. There are posts on this forum that give advice on those techniques. Use the search box on the menu line at the top of this page to search for articles on mountain driving. Your motor home is capable of handling your toad up and down mountain grades. We really didn't face any severe mountain driving in our trip across country. We did bypass some of the most direct routes in the mountains after driving and exploring the area with the toad. You will find RV parking at all the visitors centers. It may not be labeled for RV's but the parking lots are all large and you should have no problem finding an empty place to park (sort of like finding a spot on a Wal-Mart parking lot). On the return trip you might explore a little of southern Oregon and northern California. You could stop to visit volcanoes, Crater Lake NP, the spectacular redwoods, gold mining country around Sacramento and then pick up I-80 east which is the easiest fast route through the Rocky Mountains. The Great Salt Lake and Salt Lake City, Utah could be interesting stops. Along that route you will pass the salt flats in eastern Utah that are where the land speed trials are held. You'll go back into Wyoming and pass the southern route into Grand Teton National Park and then Yellowstone. You could head south from Sacramento to Las Vegas, NV which has RV parks at several of the casinos. Visit the spectacular Hoover Dam, see the Grand Canyon. There are numerous national parks in southern Utah and more to be seen in southern Colorado. The possibilities are endless! If you aren't interested in the Lewis and Clark trip, take any other special interest you have and construct a trip based on that. There are people who want to visit every baseball park as they travel, people who follow the NASCAR race circuit, visit museums of any and all kinds, visit factories or any other places that are of interest to you.

Use the search function on the right end of the menu line at the top of this page. Put SALVAGE in the search box and be sure the right side says forums or all forums. You should get references for several recent discussions with lists of salvage dealers. Some of them specialize in users manuals. You may be able to get a manual for your year and model though it may not address all the options specific to your coach. As Tim said, Safari was acquired by Monaco but it was sometime after 2001. Still, they support all Safari models and years as best they can. Your motor home would have come with a manual specific to your model and options. Now you will have to be happy to have a general manual that will cover most of the features of your motor home. Monaco service and parts will be helpful, their customer service phone number is 877-466-6226. Beyond that, you may want to join a chapter of FMCA that addresses specifically Safari motor homes. Monaco has several chapters for their coaches and since Safari is now part of Monaco, you are included. They have service available at their rallies and you will find many owners who are more than helpful in answering questions.

The weather is taking one last lash at us. Temperatures have been in the high 90s and into the 100s the last three days. Friday and Saturday are forecast to be in the 100s and then we should see cooler temperatures for the remainder of our stay here in Missouri. My right knee was replaced on July 28 and is now 5 weeks old. I'll see the surgeon for the 6 week check on September 7 and then we are leaving. I will need to come back for a 12 week check and will do that by flying back to St. Louis for the appointment and then returning to the motor home the next day. I got a bargain fare out of Albuquerque on Southwest Airlines that will be cheaper than driving the motor home all the way back to Missouri before heading to Texas for the winter. Meanwhile we have two granddaughters waiting for us in California. Next week will be busy. After being parked for over 3 months, there are always plenty of things that need to be stowed in the motor home. In addition, we've collected some family heirlooms from my mother who is cleaning house. We'll take them with us to California and then to Texas. Mom saved all kinds of memorabilia from my childhood and career. I'd have discarded lots of the stuff at the time but now, looking back they are more interesting. Some make me laugh, others are serious stuff. It is funny how our lives seem pretty routine, just getting by one day at a time. When you look back at it from a historical perspective, it becomes so much more interesting - at least to me. So we'll head west the end of next week. I sure hope the fuel prices plummet after the holiday. It is funny how the price of gasoline fluctuates wildly while the price of diesel remains pretty constant. I guess the trucking industry keeps the demand pretty constant. I checked the fuel prices along our route and as usual they increase as we go west. We'll pay about $0.30 more in California than we do here in Missouri. That means that as a rule, I'll keep topping off the tank before leaving each state. I'm looking forward to getting the wheels rolling again. Even though we've been over this route dozens of times over the years, it is always good to be rolling down the road. There is no greater freedom!

Hello Sugarsuhweet, Don't toss those pictures. You might want to store them with a family member until you work out exactly what you want to do with them. My daughter has done pictures as transfers for T shirts, etc. I have a cousin who took one of my pictures and turned it into a quilt for her husband - his John Deere in a parade! So if you really meant a blanket, yes that can be done. You can have the pictures professionally scanned into digital format. Assuming you have a computer, you can set your screen saver to randomly display pictures from your photo files during idle times. There are also electronic picture frames that will display your digital pictures on a screen in the picture frame. You can put these electronic frames on a table or counter in your motor home, anywhere you can find an electric outlet. You can set it up in two minutes and always have your pictures there to be seen. We also have several Showbox Magic Picture Frames. These are about one inch think and stand up like a picture frame. They hold about 40 4x6 prints and you can periodically flip the picture over to a new one. It only physically displays one picture at a time but you can walk by it and flip to a new picture in the stack stored inside it with a two second pull-push motion. This is a perfect way to display your physical photos where you can see them in a motor home. I built a little wooden table that fits over our steering wheel. Louise puts a table cloth on it and then fills it with our pictures in various frames. They greet everyone who enters our motor home. Of course the grandchildren and children get top billing. We look forward to the new school photos every year. I consider pictures to be wonderful family heirlooms. My mother has several albums from her early days with pictures of people who I barely knew if I knew them at all. My brother recently was laid off from work so he digitized her photo albums and had her annotate the photos so we had names to go with the pictures. They are priceless, all those serious faces, everyone dressed up for the pictures. Mom recently asked me what to do with their travel photos. She guessed she would just pitch them. I told her - no way! I'll be glad to have those pictures and preserve them for my children. If you decide you simply can't take the pictures with you, I would think someone in your family would love to have them.

I'll make a couple of suggestions for places to visit. These are on I-40 east of Flagstaff. Petrified Forest National Park has an abundance of petrified wood logs scattered over a large area. The park straddles I-40 so you don't have to go out of your way. It is RV friendly including large RV's towing smaller vehicles. This is truly a spectacular location to see petrified wood in original location. There are many rock shops around the park that sell petrified wood from sources outside the park. You can purchase anything from lamps made with petrified wood to massive slices of petrified wood logs. The second site is just six miles south of I-40 between Winslow and Flagstaff. Meteor Crater is a spectacular example of a crater formed by a meteor impact. Its age is very recent in geologic terms. You can walk to the rim of the crater and tour a museum. This is a private enterprise (not National Park) but is very well done. There is a large parking lot with plenty of room for RV parking.

For Bill and Jon, I will recount an interesting trip that we took in 2004. We were moving my mother-in-law from Lake Havasu City, Arizona to Arvada, Colorado. Louise and I had emptied the house and loaded a rental truck with her mothers goods to take to Colorado. Her mother would be moving in with her youngest daughter and her husband so she didn't need all her furniture, only a few selected pieces. Another of Louise's sisters had arranged the rental van which we picked up the day before the move. Louise's sister and brother-in-law were coming from Colorado to help bring mom to her new home. We pick up the van and it looks like a rental van that has been painted over with some pale yellow paint. It wasn't even a good paint job. So the truck looks like a stolen truck with a quickie paint job. Our brother-in-law will drive the truck. Lou is immigrant Italian, dark skin, hair and a bit of a beard. We will convoy. Lou leads the way in the truck. I will follow with the motor home complete with our toad. Louise and her sister will follow driving their mother's car. So we have a convoy headed down the highway. Lou was stopped by police in Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado. We teased him that he was wanted in three states! There was never a ticket issued. I can recall only one excuse for making the stop. That was in Arizona. We pulled off the interstate to go to a motel. Turning left onto a divided four lane road with no traffic in evidence, Lou turned into the right hand lane instead of the left hand lane. It's an improper turn and the excuse needed for an officer to stop and investigate. The convoy pulled in behind him on the shoulder and following a short conversation with the officer, he was allowed to continue on his way. Had there not been a brand new motor home and a nice car pulled in behind him, I'm not sure how this would have turned out. This kind of encounter happened two more times. I think part of it was the appearance of the truck but I also think part of it was a reaction, legal or not, to the appearance of Lou. This was post 9-11-2001 and also in an area where there is plenty of drug smuggling so a suspect looking truck might have been all that was needed to make a stop. If you fail to signal a turn, have a burned out signal or tail light, appear to be weaving too much, drive with a varying or inconsistent speed, drift off onto the shoulder, or exhibit a number of other minor behavior variations, you may be pulled over and have a license checked. In fact, in our last stay in California, last year I pulled into a gas station to fill up the toad. It was about 10:00 p.m. and the station was closed but it leaves the pumps on for credit purchase all night long. After filling up, I hesitated to record the mileage and then had a problem with the headlights. It took me a minute to shut off the car and restart before we were on our way. As I pulled out of the service station I noticed a police car behind me. It was a CHP officer, not local police. At the first wide spot in the road, he pulled us over and requested my license then proceeded to question us as to the reason for the delay in our departure from the gas station. I don't really look like trouble, I'm always respectful of law enforcement officers, so after a couple of minutes visiting with the officer we were allowed to go on our way. My experience is that if an officer wants to pull you over he or she can generally find a reasonable excuse to do so. They may not get every RV but if they can see anything suspicious they may be stopping RV's and then investigating the license as part of the follow-up.