tbutler

Louise and I were invited to dinner Friday night. The campground owners here at Sandpipers Resort where we have stayed each winter for nine years now invited 14 of us to dinner. It was seven couples who have assisted them in improving the resort in one way or another. Most of them were involved in the construction of a new shower house for the resort this past summer. Louise and I contributed other skills. Louise is writes the publicity materials for the resort and occasionally has articles published in magazines or newsletters. I have been the camp photographer for a number of years providing publicity photos and doing photos for campground documentation and history. This was a gourmet dinner for 16 people. The chef for this magnificent meal was our neighbor in the park last year and we got to know him well then. Chef Robert is from Quebec. He and his wife, Lucy, have returned for their second year. Chef Robert worked for a major airlines at their Canadian headquarters, preparing food for the airline executives. He began preparing sauces and other parts of the meal on Wednesday. All day Thursday and Friday he was in the kitchen, chopping, peeling, cooking. When Friday evening came, the community room had been transformed into a fine restaurant. Chef Robert was busy making the final preparations for this nine-course gourmet meal. His assistants, Lucy, and another long-time campground resident, Marijanne, were servers bringing each course of the meal to us in turn. The meal started with a little wine and appetizers, an assortment of bitesize crackers, breads, cheese and various additions from peppers to seafood. Then there came Crouton with Camembert Mediterranean, which was listed as each item was on the menu in French with the English translation below. We had Les Antipastos "Sandpipers," Comcombre farci aux crabie et cury (Stuffed cucumber with crab meat curry), soup garnished with pears and carrots, asparagus au gratin. Then came the salade of Padre Pius. The main course was a choice of salmon with side dish, chicken with pink pepper or pork bourguignon. Finally there was desert, a bananas Foster, ice cream, cake combination. Just naming these preparations hardly does them justice. Each involved intricate preparations and were presented in a beautiful arrangement on their own plate. Sauces provided flavors that were spectacular. I summed it up at the end of the meal saying, "I have never had such a sophisticated meal." So this is how the other half lives! Wow! We were all satiated. The meal, three days in preparation, had been served over almost three hours and we had ample time for conversation in the meantime. I chuckled to myself as we left, thinking that most people would never expect to get such a marvelous meal at a campground. Even more amazing is that the talent for preparing such a meal was right here in the campground with us. But that was the point of the meal. Gary is a retired carpenter and contractor. He has his own wood shop here at the campground. He helped me with my TV remodeling last year. Tony and his wife, Sherry, are in charge of general maintenance, landscaping and mowing, etc. Jamie and Tonya have constructed a wonderful gate and entrance for our park. Jamie did much of the custom metal work, including custom made heavy duty stalls in the shower house. Tonya works on landscaping and grounds maintenance on a regular basis. Bill helped with the carpentry and his wife, Karen, has created a variety of campground logo merchandise. Garland was also a carpentry assistant. Together all the carpenters constructed and shingled the roof of the shower house, built storage shelves, etc. Roy has been the electrician for the project and for other work in the campground. All these amazing talents and more right here in this community of mostly retired people. What a wonderful community we have. The owners, Karen and Jay, have plans for more of these dinners for others in the park who have contributed their talents. It is a community where everyone pitches in to help with meals, entertainment, social events, recreation activities and so much more. There is the fudge lady, the blogger, the wine experts, the DJ, the bike ride leader, golf organizer, water volleyball leader, sound technician, plumber, computer expert, welder, truck driver, Spanish teacher, charity organizer, and blood drive organizer. Everyone brings talents and willingly shares them with the community.

Louise was cooking several days ago and the windshield fogged up (all the others are thermal windows and never fog). I opened a vent for an intake and turned on a different vent fan and the window fog was gone in ten minutes. It was raining and cold (low 40's) outside and this still works. I'd much rather use the vent fan, low cost operation, doesn't take up any additional space and it works fast. Ours came with the motor home (in fact we have three of them) so there is no additional expense. You bring in a little cold fresh air (not a bad thing) and the furnace ran once. We sat down to a good meal and had a nice view! This process works if the temperature is 20 or 0. In fact it works faster and better the colder it is outside. The colder the outside air is, the drier it will be. And, yes, even if it is raining or snowing, the outside cold air will dry the air in your motor home when it replaces the moist warm air the vent fan is removing. When you warm up the cold outside air, the relative humidity in that parcel of air drops like a rock. Cold air holds hardly any moisture and warming it increases its capacity to hold moisture, thus the amount of water in the air compared to its capacity to hold water becomes very small. It becomes very dry air. It will quickly pick up any moisture off windows and other cold surfaces thus drying out your motor home. It is not necessary to leave the vents open or to run the vent fan continuously. Moisture in the motor home is event driven. You take a shower, the moisture level goes way up. Open a vent, run a fan and the moisture goes back down to normal levels. Turn off the fan and close the vent. Cook a meal and the moisture goes way up. Open a vent, run a fan and the moisture goes back down to normal levels. Turn off the fan and close the vent. You come in with wet clothes or wet towels from the campground showers and the moisture goes way up. Open a vent, run a fan and the moisture goes back down to normal levels. Turn off the fan and close the vent. I'm not anti dehumidifier, I'm pro vent fans! Vent fans are a cheaper more environmentally friendly solution (made of less material and use less energy) to moisture in a motor home.

A heavier fabric will make a slightly larger roll when the slide is retracted. As long as there is room on the roller, I'd go for the heavier fabric. I don't think they make a fabric that will stand up to a hail storm though so if you get caught with your slide out in the hail, you'll likely have the same problem. Maybe it will take larger hail to damage a heavier fabric! I would definitely contact A&E for instructions on how to do the removal and replacement. The springs that wind the rollers are strong and if you let it get away, they can be dangerous. With CofC they insert a locking pin in the roller when it is wound tight (slide fully extended). Then you bring the slide in part way to release the tension on the fabric and remove it. The roller remains locked by the pin until the fabric is replaced. I've seen several queries about increasing the tension on the fabric on the slide out. For those who are interested in increasing the tension on the roller, it is possible to get a good grip on the roller and remove the pin and put an extra half turn or full turn on the roller to increase tension on the fabric. Remember that this also puts an increased pull on the slide out and will increase the work load on the motor moving the slide out. It might seem like a small force but could lead to problems if the motor is not strong enough to move the slide in all conditions with that additional load. Also be aware that it simply may not be possible to put enough tension on the fabric to keep water from collecting on the cover and sagging (a common complaint). Let us know what you finally end up doing with this. Good luck.

Thank you Ambyn! It is good to get a first hand account on your repair job and the information of how it was handled including the amenities at the company. So many of these threads end with no information about how a problem was solved. I wish more people would share their success (or failure) stories as a thread progresses.

The awnings on our slides are from Carefree of Colorado. We went to them (their dealer, they don't deal directly with the consumer) with the serial number off the roller and got a replacement cover that was an exact match for the original. I consider dis-assembly pretty easy. If your covers are CoC, they have the instructions on-line if you don't have the original documents for the awnings. It gives step by step instructions which are easy enough to follow. Tools needed included a set of socket wrenches, screw drivers, a cotter pin or nail. You might use a little silicon spray to slide the bead on the awning out of its slot. You'll want a little caulking to seal the screw that locks the awning in the slot. Treat the spring apparatus with respect, follow those instructions to the letter. I took both our slide awnings off and took them to a repair shop when they were ripped from wind during travel. Just wear and tear over 4 years of continuous use. Put them both back on a few days later and have since replaced one with a replacement awning. It is about a two hour job to remove one and replace it. Maybe a little more if it is your first time. Taking them off can be done single handed but putting them back on it helps greatly to have someone to assist. A friendly neighbor in the campground where we were helped me with the first job, I had Louise on the roof to help pull on the new awning while I was on the ladder pulling the awning onto the roller. That was one of only a hand-full of times I've managed to get her on the roof of the motor home in eight years!

We've been over the Top of the World Highway in our 40' Windsor in 2006. In Canada the road is high and wide and mostly gravel with good shoulders. In the US, the road narrows and is all gravel. I met a tour bus on a section of the road in the US where there was a big drop. The tour bus (by the drop off) wasn't giving me any break, stayed a good 3' from the edge but I made it by between the bus and the hillside with no problem though I was going real slow! You would have to remind me of the Taylor Highway, I don't think we took that route but I can't remember. I posted another response about Alaska recently see North to Alaska for more information about our trip. I'm going to add something after reading the post from Chickadee. The Taylor highway is a paved road and is in good condition but when we traveled it, it had been raining so we pulled off at a rest area/scenic overlook and trail. When we pulled off we noticed a wrecker approach and stop just down the hill from where we were. The wrecker proceeded to extract a pickup truck with fifth wheel trailer from the brush along the downhill side of the road. They pulled him out in one piece and once on the road, the pickup with fifth wheel drove off. He had flattened several hundred feet of brush but apparently nothing too large since he was able to drive away. There was damage but nothing too serious. I'm sure once in Tok he went into a shop to get everything checked. My point is even good roads can be hazardous. I don't know if the driver fell asleep or was dodging a moose or bear or just took a turn too fast. Maybe he hit a wet spot and lost control. We decided to stay the night at the rest area rather than continue on in the dusk and rain.

Peggy, I've stayed in and around Cincinnati on several occasions but not where there was fishing at the campground. I've done a little research (Trailer Life) and found several suggestions. Little Farm on the River in Rising Sun, Indiana, just across the border looks like it might meet your requirements. It has both a lake and is on the Ohio River. Cincinnati South Rose Garden Campground, Crittenden, KY, 859-428-2000 lists fresh water fishing. Indian Springs Campground, North Bend, OH, 888-550-9244 lists a lake and freshwater fishing. All of these are commercial campgrounds and do not list any restrictions on length of stay. They also are more expensive than the state parks but those all have length of stay restrictions. I just wanted to give you a few examples of what I could find. I would suggest that you purchase a copy of Trailer Life or Woodall's Campground Directory if you don't already have one. It's a great resource to have handy even if you aren't on the road frequently. Good luck, I hope you find something that you like.

Good spot 'em Green Beaver! I have taken a look at the proposed directives and have submitted a comment by following the link provided. I'm posting my comments here to encourage others to jump in and have their say. Feel free to use any of my ideas but please add your own concerns as well. My comments completely filled the allowed space. My comments on Document ID: FS-2009-0001-0001: Proposed Directives for Forest Service Concession Campground Special Use Permits As I read the provisions of these proposed directives, they would increase the fees charged for senior citizens for "camping" facilities and then further down I find that if they increase income for the concessionaire they would increase the rental rates for the concessionaire. So in effect the directive suggests that the concessionaire needs more income so the rate increase (reduction in discount) should be instituted. Then it says if the concessionaire makes more money, they will have to pay higher rental fees to the government. It looks like this is pretty clearly a pass through provision which means the concessionaire won't make too much money and the government ends up the big winner in it all. As a senior citizen (I just got my senior pass in the fall of 2008) it looks to me like the rug is being pulled out from under me just as I qualified for this discount. Yes, there are going to be lots of us seniors qualifying for the discount in the coming years and yes, younger people (who are working) will be subsidizing the discount, just as I have done all my working life! Why now that I qualify do you suddenly realize that someone is in effect subsidizing my discount when you never noticed it when I was doing the subsidizing? It seems to me that it is finally my turn to collect a benefit that I have been contributing to all my working life and now you are changing the rules. Personally I never was a fan of the commercialization of the park/forest service concessions. For my money, you can close down all the commercial operations in the park/forest service. Then they won't be complaining about not making enough money. As to the incentive (or lack thereof) for off season utilization, that is completely bogus. Most seniors I know prefer to visit our parks and national forests during the off season when the crowds are smaller and the atmosphere is quieter. In fact, I'd bet that most concessions would close off season if it weren't for senior citizens.

Since we've been full time we've used My Home Address, Inc. in South Dakota. It is a commercial company and like Escapees, they provide a home address. Unlike Escapees, they provide vehicle registration as well. It is set up to be a home address so you will need a South Dakota drivers license for vehicle registration. The costs are very reasonable and the web site will give you some good reasons for choosing to register in South Dakota. They will ship your mail when/where you want. They ship mail via first class or priority mail (whatever you want to pay for). They will also forward only those classes of mail you want forwarded. If you tell them to forward only the first class mail, that is what you will get. We send them the mailing address to use via e-mail or you can call on their 800 number. There are several other companies out of South Dakota. Alternative Resources in Sioux Falls and Hart Ranch in Rapid City are two that I have on file. One other resource for mail forwarding is storefront operations in most medium to large cities, Mail Boxes, Etc. or other similar operations. These are available nationwide if all you want is to have the mail forwarded. One of the considerations in choosing a mailing service for full timers is the choice of state of residence. Going with a full service program allows you to establish residency in the state where your mail is handled. If you do this, you should look at all the costs, registration, property tax, drivers license requirements, inheritance laws, etc.

Welcome Ductedfan, No one wants rate increases. Even at $10 per month, I suspect you'll find it a hard price to beat. Our service is one of the least expensive and it costs $125 per year plus a fee of $1.00 for each mailing. When we signed up it was $100 per year and the fee for each mailing was $0.50. Of course we have to pay the actual cost of the postage and any packaging for each mailing as well. The fact is that not all FMCA members use the mailing service so in effect all dues paying members of FMCA were contributing with their dues to pay the cost (or later, part of the cost) of the mailing service for you. Faced with increasing costs, the choices were likely raise the fees for those who use the service or raise dues for all members. Dues have already been raised several times during our membership so there is pressure to keep the dues from going higher. I would guess that the new fees probably reflect the actual cost of providing the mailing service for those members who use it. It still looks like a pretty good deal to me.

Montie, Sixty days is better than those who take a week or two for a cruise to Alaska! You'll never see everything there but you can get a good swipe at it. From Tennessee to California (California is several summers at least by itself) and on to the Canadian border I would suggest rapid travel. You can visit these places at another time. I'd focus your trip on the most distant places that are the hardest and most costly to get to. The must have book for going to Alaska is the Milepost. It is available at CW and on-line from a number of sources. It will detail what to see along the road through Canada and Alaska. It covers all the side routes as well as the Alaska Highway. It does an excellent job of identifying places you'll need like fuel, groceries, etc. It lists museums and other attractions so you can choose what you want to see. As the title suggests, this is done on a mile by mile basis. It also has excellent advice for border crossing and regulations in Canada that will help you plan your trip. The Milepost is updated each year so be sure to get the 2010 issue. We spent over 3 weeks traveling through British Columbia on the way north and a week there on the return. We really enjoyed Vancouver Island but you may not want to take the ferry there. We had friends there to visit and they guided us to the best places to see. You could take your toad over on the ferry for a day or three just to see the capital, the Provincial Museum, Buchart Gardens, and more. We took the Sea to Sky Highway from Vancouver north to Cache Creek and Highway 97. This goes through some spectacular scenery including where the winter Olympics will be held in January 2010. Highway 97 takes you to Dawson Creek which is Mile 0 of the Alaska Highway. There is a great museum there that details the building of the highway that is a must before you go. It puts the trip in real perspective. We traveled north to Dawson City in Yukon. From there we drove the toad north on the gravel road 460 miles to Inuvik, NWT. We went there to see the midnight sun. We took the Windsor over the Top of the World "highway" to Chicken Alaska and from there on to Fairbanks. From Fairbanks the motor home made the circle down to Danali, Anchorage, on to Copper River and Tok. We spent a week in the Kenai Peninsula visiting Homer, Seward and Whittier. We only took the Windsor to Seward, the remainder were trips with the toad out of a campground nearer the center of the Kenai Peninsula. We spent two weeks in Fairbanks and two weeks in Anchorage. In each case we had friends to visit that made the visit extra special. In Fairbanks we spent a weekend at our friends hunting cabin about 45 minutes by river from the nearest road. There we had moose wandering right by the cabin each evening. I got some great moose pictures! We also flew from Fairbanks to Barrow and had a fantastic flight and tour. In Anchorage our friends took us to their island in a lake and we spent a lazy Sunday afternoon with them at their cabin on their own island. We visited the museum of art and hiked Earthquake Park, both worth the time. We took side trips to Valdez (great waterfalls along the road), both roads into Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Skagway. In Wrangell-St.Elias we drove to McCarthy and took the shuttle to Kennicott and stayed at the lodge for two nights. On our return trip we drove the Cassiar Highway to Stewart, BC and Hydar, AK where we had our best bear encounters. Watching the bears catching salmon (late August) was spectacular. We were 20 feet from bears crunching into salmon! We also visited Prince Rupert on the BC Coast on our return. We finished by returning to the US on Highway 1 along the Frasier River. We left the US on Memorial Day and returned just before Labor Day. I'd recommend any and all of these places to go and so many things to see that I couldn't begin to name all of them. If you have to do this in 60 days, you'll see a lifetime of fantastic oohs and aahs. There are always road repairs which are dirt/gravel wet down with calcium chloride (YUK!), sometimes these will be ten or more miles in length. Travel slow and wash often. We found almost all campgrounds offered some kind of RV wash. I washed the Windsor nearly every time we moved from one place to another and I came to call the rain my spot free rinse! Once you get north of Whitehorse, you'll begin to notice dips in the road caused by the freeze/thaw cycles of the permafrost. In our motor home we found 40 to 45 to be about the right speed to travel. It allowed us to slow down as we approached a dip and come through it without a big bounce. The first campground we stopped at north of Whitehorse (Dawson City), everyone, fifth wheels and motor homes, were talking about the "closet dumpers" which is what we called the dips in the road. Every item on hangers in the closet was on the floor because it took us two or three of these to get the idea we were going to see lots of them and we'd have to drive slower. The Top of the World Highway from Dawson City, YT to Chicken, AK was mostly gravel in Canada and all gravel in the US. It was also narrow but I managed to get by a tour bus going the opposite way (and the woman driving wasn't giving me any break - she was on the edge of the hill). Also the Cassiar highway had several 20 mile stretches of gravel. Those were the only real gravel roads we took the motor home on other than the road repair sections. We did all this the summer of 2006 so conditions will have changed by now and you may or may not see less gravel. We are planning to put the Windsor on the ferry for the inside passage so we can visit some of the places that are accessible only by water and then returning on land but that is another trip sometime in our future.

Most state and national park volunteers receive a free campsite which reduces costs so it could be thought of as workcamping in that the free campsite is a form of compensation. If you pay for your own site while working at a state park then it would be volunteering.

Tom and Mark, This is one of those thorny issues... First, I would point out that this is not a government agency or branch of government. The freedom of religion issue in the courts is a matter of government not choosing one side or another. It came out of the history of the split in the Catholic church which had Christians persecuting Christians throughout Europe. Some fled to this country seeking freedom to practice their religion without the influence of a government dictating their religion or persecuting them for their religion. They devised a system of government in which the government was to remain neutral in regard to religion. That means that any government agency was not to pick, choose or encourage any particular religion. It is the thing that has held our government together for so many years. Theocracies inevitably self destruct as one religion attempts to control another. Iraq would be a prime example of the problems of a theocracy. We have done our best to try to establish our kind of government but they still choose up sides based on religion. Now, FMCA is not a government agency. FMCA is a private and social organization. As such, the freedom of religion issue is not applicable. Having said that, I carefully examined the FMCA documentation available on the web before I joined. I wanted to be sure that the Family in FMCA was not a code word for a right wing religious organization. The word family had been co-opted by the religious right at the time. On the official level, I continue to see no religious expressions which indicates a desire to appeal to a broad section of society. However, on the chapter level, there are groups which are clearly religious. I can't remember the exact name but I saw a coach at Bowling Green last year that had a chapter sign that indicated Christians ... something. I think that is fine. A group with similar interests have assembled and formed a chapter. Their name clearly indicates their religious nature and that is that. Those who want to join know exactly what they are getting into. I joined a chapter several years ago and shortly after received a religious mailing. I sent them notice to cancel my membership immediately. There was nothing in their name to indicate their religious nature so I assumed this was an open organization willing to accept all individuals. That may be true but their religious response to my membership cost them my membership and participation. I attended a program and meeting of FMCA at the Redmond National Convention and sat through a thoroughly disturbing diatribe about religion in the guise of a Red Skeleton performance (recorded). I sincerely hope that FMCA as an organization does not endorse any religion and I haven't see signs that it officially does. There will always be those who feel they have found THE right answer and will try to impose their right answer on everyone else. When someone uses the podium at a FMCA Convention to promote religion, it is their personal expression, not an official position of FMCA as far as I can tell. If a chapter posts religious information on their web site, then they are in essence saying to everyone, you're not welcome unless you believe what we do. If that is what they want to do, so be it. I'm sure they'll find plenty of people who believe what they do. If they don't, their membership will dwindle and they will either drop their position or fold up their tent. As an individual member then our challenge is to find a chapter that is tolerant of various viewpoints and will connect with other people on issues other than religion. Sometimes the best we can do is to find an organization that at least isn't in our faces about religious issues. There will always be someone in a group that feels there must be a prayer before a meal. When it goes beyond that, we can argue/object or move on.

Are the vanity lights incandescent or fluorescent lights? Florescent lights sometimes do strange things if the voltage is low which could be caused by insufficient wire size or weak connections, the batteries could be fine but getting the electricity from the batteries to the lights could be your problem. It is possible that when you reset the inverter that drops its draw on the batteries enough to allow the voltage to "start" the fluorescent lights. Incandescent lights are not subject to these problems. Most lights in motor homes are 12VDC, not 120VAC. Resetting the inverter suggests that your lights might be 120VAC though I would be surprised at that. When the inverter is turned off (unplug shore power) do your lights work? If they do, they are 12VDC from the battery and the inverter would not be in that circuit. If the lights are AC and don't operate unless the inverter is turned on, then it makes sense that resetting the inverter would restore the lights. That would suggest a breaker in the inverter is tripping due to a short somewhere in the vanity lighting. If this were the case then I would expect that one of the usual two AC circuits coming from the inverter are lost and lots of lights and/or equipment would not operate. If the lights are incandescent one suspect could be a faulty switch which is shorting out as it goes from off to on. This could be tripping a breaker somewhere which is reset by resetting the inverter. Once the switch is on, the lights may come on and stay on. When you say all the lights go off are you referring to all the lights in the motor home or all the lights on the bathroom vanity? A little more information should help us diagnose the problem.

Quite impressive. It looks better than new! Like Wayne, I don't have the experience to even think of tackling something like this project. I'm up to simple woodwork but the fancy stuff I'll leave to others. Your article is a fine how-to example for someone who wants to fix their motorhome. I really enjoyed looking at all this work. Thanks.

As a general guide, 6 batteries of the normal 6v deep cycle (golf cart batteries) should be enough to power the refrigerator for several hours which will give your generator some rest. How long they will power the inverter to run the refrigerator depends on the amount of power needed and percent of time the compressor runs as Brett mentions. You can lengthen this time by making sure that you have everything in the refrigerator at a cold temperature before traveling. Don't stop at the grocery store after leaving the campground and put a bunch of warm things in the refrigerator or freezer to chill, that will make it run more often and use more power. If you want to stop at the grocery before reaching your next campground make that a stop just before you arrive at the campground and plug in. If you find that 6 batteries aren't enough, you could add several more if you have room for them. Most people who are converting to household refrigerators are finding that six batteries work well in most cases. P.S. I assume that your coach has an inverter. If it does, it must be of sufficient capacity to power a refrigerator. Find the model of your inverter if you have one and then compare its capacity to the power needed by your refrigerator. We recently replaced our old inverter with one with greater capacity in anticipation of replacing our refrigerator with a household model in the future. If you don't have an inverter or it is small capacity and unable to power the refrigerator, you will find replacing it to be an expensive proposition. In that case you might try this suggestion... Household refrigerators are well insulated and leaving it off for several hours shouldn't damage the food inside or allow any frozen goods to thaw (try not to open it unless you absolutely have to). You could set the temperature to maximum cold the night before you leave home or an RV Park. In the morning when you unplug from shore power, simply turn the refrigerator off and leave it off for several hours before running the generator. You might put a remote reading thermometer in the refrigerator so you could monitor the temperature. When it starts to get too warm, run the generator long enough to cool it down and then shut off the refrigerator and let the generator rest for a while.

If this is actually an exhaust residue, you could try a petroleum based cleaner. Use a tar remover sprayed on a cloth and try that on the glass only. Avoid contacting the rubber seals along the edges of the glass. If this works, simply take your time to clear the glass. Our generator exhaust is below the drivers side window. I have over 700 hours on the generator and have never had a problem with the drivers side window. We use the generator when parked and when driving. I am wondering if the film is actually a fog between the two layers of glass in a thermal window. The drivers side windows are frequently the first to show the broken seal between the two layers of glass. Once this seal breaks, the interior of the two glass layers fog with moisture. No amount of cleaning the outside of the glass will resolve the situation. The only answer here is to replace the window. There was an earlier discussion along these lines, see Replacing Windows.