tbutler

I have made a discovery recently. Our Splendide went into an error mode a little over a week ago. I contacted Westland Sales (the Splendide sales and service for the US) and they were very helpful with diagnosing the problem (a partially melted plug on the control board) and getting me the materials (several new plugs and a new control board) I needed to repair the washer/dryer. In the process I had to remove the w/d from its cabinet. When I did, I noticed that one of the two 1" corner brackets that anchor the front of the machine was broken. When I put the w/d back in its cabinet I installed two new corner brackets. Now, we hardly notice the w/d when it goes into its spin cycle. Replacing the broken bracket has made an amazing difference. If your unit vibrates strongly, you might check to see if the machine is anchored to the floor with brackets. These are add-ons installed at the factory. Perhaps all machines do not have them and if they did at one time but the brackets break, they are useless. It took some digging to get to the brackets. Our w/d has a carpet strip on a 1x1 inch wood strip that covers the base of the machine. The brackets were under that and were screwed into the frame of the machine and the floor of the cabinet. There is a removable cover on the base of the Splendide that must be removed to get to the machine frame. The brackets were located near the corners of the machine where the front feet are. For replacements I went to the hardware store and purchased standard 1" corner brackets. The holes didn't match exactly but were close enough that I could use them on the washer. I put the screws in the cabinet floor in a slightly different location so they were in fresh wood.

Jose and Karen, You pose a good question here. The answer lies within you, not from others. I looked at your information on your profile and it looks like you enjoy the outdoors, camping near streams, fishing, hiking. I certainly haven't seen all the parks in any of these membership programs but my impression from what I have seen is that they are pretty much people who enjoy being in a retirement resort kind of community as opposed to a campground outdoors experience. You mentioned a favorite campground in Oregon. Did you get the same feeling about Thousand Hills? We are full time, no home to check on except where we are parked. We enjoy moving around and traveling to new locations. We hike, bicycle, explore and tour. The membership parks never seem to be near the places we want to be so we have never felt the need to tie ourselves to one program or another. Now, having said that, we do spend our winters in a retirement resort community so we get that experience during the time of year when we really don't want to be traveling most of the rest of the country. We have two almost opposite lifestyles with our two seasons of travel. In the winter we play tennis, golf, bowl and swim. We have happy hour with friends, eat community meals, have dances and musicals and plays for entertainment. When we hit the road we visit friends and relatives, children and grandchildren, travel to new parts of the country, attend rallies or conventions, whatever interests us. We like to get to national parks and nature areas that are often remote. Our campground fees go up in the summer but it isn't forever. People who have park memberships seem to talk about the money they are saving. We'd rather get out and see the things we want and not be tied to a few locations. Depending on how you want to travel, membership park programs could fit your needs or not. If you do decide to go with a membership park program, individuals who are members do sell their membership and you may be able to save some money going this route.

I would check with your transmission manufacturer's data on the transmission. The safe temperatures should be specified for your transmission. They will be a range of temperatures. With fairly level roads, temperatures should be near the middle of the range, with hills slightly higher. When you get to the mountains look for the temperatures to be nearer the high end of the safe range. Safe temperature ranges (probably referred to as normal temperatures) for the transmission are independent of the road conditions and load. The equipment is designed to operate within a specific temperature range and anything outside this temperature range may damage the transmission.

And then you think you know your service people and this happens... We went to Cummins (not a dealer or third party, THE Cummins Shop) in the Denver area, Aurora I think. Anyway, we parked there overnight with electric hook up. The next morning we're in the shop early. These places have a knack for turning a one hour job into three. We're in the waiting room overlooking the shop floor and our motor home. There is plenty of time when no one is around the motor home, the job is going slow. A little later I look and the motor home is part way out of the shop. They are cleaning up something under the motor home. It turns out they had finished the job and started the engine when they realized they forgot to install the new oil filter. They cleaned the engine. When they turned the motor home over to us, I checked it and had them clean the rear tires and re-do the inside of the engine compartment. We needed some tire work done and Cummins recommended a tire shop in Denver that does work for them, TDS. We went there and got tires rotated and an alignment done. We were experiencing strong vibration on the front tires. After the job was done it was no better but we were down the road headed to Phoenix. We went to the Freightliner shop in Phoenix where they told us the front wheel was cracked. If it was cracked before TDS worked on it, they should have noticed it. I concluded that they over-torqued the lug nuts on the front wheels. Now when I go to a tire shop I tell them that I expect the lug nuts torqued. We had a flat tire at the FMCA Convention in Minneapolis in 2008. It was some road debris that we picked up coming into Minneapolis or at the FMCA assembly area. The tire went completely flat on the drive from the assembly area to the convention. We had the tire repaired on site but when the second dual carries all the weight it will be damaged so both tires were replaced at the Goodyear Wingfoot facility south of Minneapolis. I ended up basically giving them a lesson in tire installation. They were going to slop the tires on the rims and run me out of the shop. I had to instruct them in how to mount steer tires, check for out of round, how to correct it. After watching the first error from inside the motor home, I was in the shop watching the job and checking readings for out of round, watching the torquing of lug nuts. It was absolutely the worst tire job I have ever seen. I haven't decided if they just figured this RV rube wouldn't know the difference or if they really were that incompetent. Camping World in Mission, TX replaced the computer control board for our Splendide washer/dryer two and a half years ago. It just quit working again. I called Westland Sales this time with the error code and discussed the problem. The tech immediately identified the problem. I tore down the w/d and sure enough, it was a burned/melted plug on the computer board. I called the tech at Westland Sales back and discussed what I found. They shipped me a new control board and a new surge protector. The board comes with three plugs with pigtails to be spliced into the existing lines thus replacing the old plugs. The instructions are clear, the new plugs are to be used. Camping World hadn't replaced the plug that failed, it had never been spliced. Their short cut cost me nearly $300. I watched the whole job and never saw the replacement plugs. They had clearly removed them before they left the shop, I would never know the difference... but now I do! I had an awning failure, collapsed when filled with water. I went to Freedom RV in Wentzville to have a new Carefree Mirage awning installed. They removed the old one and installed the new one. They couldn't get it to fit onto the baseplate above the front door because of the curvature of the motor home. I should have blown the whistle right there but didn't. They put some extra screws in it and caulked it and we were on our way. Arriving at our first park, I opened the awning and noticed that the case pulled away from the motor home significantly as the awning extended to its full length. I called Freedom RV and we eventually took the motor home back in to have the awning re-installed. I had them start putting the awning on the base plate at the front of the motor home and then work it back. Pop, it went on perfectly! The senior tech remarked in amazement, "That was easy!" I knew that awning had to be able to go on the base plate properly, the old one was on there properly... I'm still trying to get the auto generator start to work properly after having Camping World in Wheat Ridge, CO install a new inverter and auto gen start last spring. I returned to get some work re-done before we left town but at our first overnight the generator wouldn't start automatically and it still won't. I have a service number assigned from Xantrex but after three weeks, haven't heard a word from their tech department. I've e-mailed them about this and they still haven't responded. I have an appointment in Tucson to have them take a look at the auto generator start. We've been on the road for eight plus years and have had many good repair jobs and proper service work, the above represent only a small percentage of the numerous trips to shops. If I do the work and screw it up because of my lack of knowledge, I'll accept that, I'm just an RV rube. I really resent it when the "pros" slop through a job and fail to complete it properly. So now I no longer trust anyone to do a job properly. Trust but verify. If you can't see the work being done, go somewhere else. If they won't let you in the shop and most places won't, watch from just outside the shop door. When you see a problem, talk to the tech doing the work. If you aren't satisfied, talk to the shop foreman or the service representative. I love to be able to watch someone work on my motor home, I figure I'm getting a lesson in how to do the work next time. Even if it is impossible for me to do the service or repair, it helps me understand my equipment.

Where is that darned pink bunny when you need him? Guess he was at the space station that day! Seajay you should share with us your technique for getting the last of the tooth paste out of a tube. If you can make a set of batteries last 6 years, you can probably make an empty tooth paste tube last for at least a week! I always enjoy your sense of humor. Thanks for the tip. Tom

I'm going to post here a response I made to Jack in a Personal Message. I asked that he edit the above to get his questions onto the board and hope that he will do so as it helps the rest of this make more sense. Jack, I enjoyed your note and will do my best to respond though I am by no means an expert in Canada. By the way, we attended a workshop at the FMCA International Convention in Minneapolis the summer of 2008 given by a lady that had all kinds of tips for going to Canada. Since we haven't heard from her, she must not be on the web site. I don't know if there is a way to get a copy of the program from the 2008 convention but if so, you might try to contact her. I'm fairly sure she is a FMCA member. I think she had some kind of materials she was selling. There is another book that has comprehensive information about Canada and that is The Milepost which is the "all about travel to and in Alaska" book. A new version is published each year but an old copy will be good for the border crossing and Canada information in general. Regarding mail into Canada, we have never had mail delivered in Canada so can't say how well it works. Our stays have always been in the four or five weeks then back into the US. We don't have that much mail that is time sensitive since we do all our bill paying on line. Our concern is that we don't know how long it takes the mail to get from the US to Canada and handled within Canada. We schedule our mail deliveries for places we know we will be and then move on to other locations. We don't spend weeks in one place when we are doing our summer travels so we want to be able to drop by the post office on a given date and know that the mail will be there. If you are going to have your mail forwarded to Canada, either a campground or a post office I would suggest that you allow at least two weeks from the time it is mailed in the US until it arrives at its destination in Canada. Then when you pick up that mail you will have some kind of time frame for how long it takes. I recently had a Priority Mail package that was mailed in eastern Missouri on Monday and it arrived in central California on Saturday. Five days for what the US Post Office should be 2-3 day delivery and that is within the US. That is why we usually have the mail in the US sent to a post office that we plan to visit one week later. We find Canada to be different enough that over time, dealing with e-mail connections without using our cell data connection, not using our cell phones (minimally at most), different stores (few Wal-Marts), we just get an itch to get back to the US and it does feel so much more like home. Two countries that are so similar yet we definitely feel like visitors during our time there. We love it and yet it feels different enough to wear on us. That is why we try to periodically return to the US as we travel through Canada. We wouldn't have to but sometimes you just want to get on the phone and talk for half an hour or more with our children and parents. Or we want to replenish a supply of some product we can't find (or can't find at reasonable prices) in Canada. Throw in mail delivery and cheaper fuel and we find it refreshing to be back in the US. As far as your travels, you will find much in the way of Canadian history that will be of interest. We loved Buffalo Jump Historic Site south of Calgary, AB. We enjoyed the RCMP Academy and Museum in Regina, Alberta. If you can catch the RCMP Musical Ride somewhere in the country, you will enjoy it. In Manitoba near Winnipeg there is an old trading post/fort that has been restored. We had a wonderful tour there with interpretive guides in costume. Much of that history was about the native tribes in Canada and their history of treaties with Canada. North of there we enjoyed a Viking Festival in Gimli. Through Saskatchewan and Manitoba look for any kind of Matis festival. The Matis as they are known are the culture that came from the French traders and their native wives. They still are regarded by some as second class citizens but are a fun loving very interesting people. We had a chance to see a dancing demonstration and some information about their history and culture as the lead in act to the RCMP Musical Ride. Some of this information came from web sites, some from local newspapers, some from travel brochures, some from maps that showed interesting sites to visit. I haven't mentioned the whole Jasper, Banff, Lake Louise, Rocky Mountain area of Alberta. This scenic area is well worth a visit, great things to see here. Northeast of Calgary is a spectacular dinosaur museum in Drumheller. There are also lots of colorful statues of dinosaurs that are more tourist draws than science. Canadian towns seem to have a thing about the largest this or the largest that. Drumheller has the largest dinosaur, about 4 stories tall. There is a town that advertises the largest Pisanka (A Chech decorated egg). Wawa has the largest Canada goose. You get the idea. Each of these things has something to do with the history or nature of the area. Calgary is a medium size city that has plenty of traffic during rush hour. Montreal and Toronto are major metropolitan areas with all the traffic headaches of any large city. I don't have specific experience with the smaller towns you mention but generally smaller towns in Canada are easy to explore. You will get a feel for Canadian roads, they are not difficult to negotiate with an motor home. We've driven the major highways, secondary highways and small roads thorough little towns without incident. When you get to Quebec province, all the road signs will be in French almost exclusively. Once in a while they have a token English word or two. If you know some French it helps! You can get pretty bewildered when trying to figure out signs at 100 kilometers per hour (I wonder what that meant - did you see that?). Your timing sounds good for travel, it will likely be cool in late May and New England in the fall can also be cool. A caution about New England, many campgrounds here (and I suspect neighboring Canada) close down completely in the winter. By early to mid-October many are closing up so check the campground guides carefully to be sure the campgrounds you plan to use will be open. Many of these campgrounds are "family" campgrounds. In these you will find perhaps 80 to 90% of the sites are permanent sites with trailers of various kinds. They are summer retreats for families with children. When school starts again, there are few people attending and they close. We were at just such a campground in Ohio this summer and they were celebrating Christmas in July because the camp is always closed at Christmas. We found all the state parks along the lakes in northern New York closed after Labor Day.

Our '94 Dynasty had the same size tires as standard truck tires. The truck tires were cheaper and worked fine. We were advised to get the "steer" tires, not the drive tires. If you can find a standard truck tire to fit your RV, there is no reason I can see to go with the RV tire. The claim is that the RV tires give a softer ride but honestly, I can't tell the difference. We have the 670RV on our rig now, came on it when new and I'm replacing them with the same size RV tires. I'm on a rotation replacement plan of my own design. I had a flat tire in 2006 and replaced two tires. Last year I replaced two more and next year I'll replace the last two original tires. As a result, I only have to buy two tires at a time. The down side of this is that I need to keep the same size/type of tire so I can move them from the front to the rear axle. As to the Cooper or Toyo tires, I believe many motor homes come from the manufacturer with Toyo tires. I'm a Goodyear fan myself (If I buy six more I get a free ride in the blimp! )so no experience there.

Thanks for your thoughts retiredblade, I'm curious as to what it was that you didn't like about Joshua Tree. We thought there were many things to explore there and enjoyed the hiking and exploring. I'm sure our interests are somewhat different and that affects our impression of one desert or another. We haven't been to Organ Pipes National Monument so I'll put that on our list. Tom

When I needed a wiring diagram for my Chevrolet Trailblazer I went to my Chevrolet dealer and they copied the page I needed from their technical manual. I would expect the brake light switch to be under the dash attached to the brake pedal assembly but I guess it could be somewhere else. If you don't find it there, go to your GM dealer. The cold side would be the side that has no power until the switch is activated by pressing the pedal. With a switch there really isn't a neutral, the cold side of the switch becomes hot when the switch is activated by pressing the pedal. Use a multimeter to check for cold side of the switch.

Russ & Marcia, Welcome to the world of road warriors! I guess we should start a survey on the one thing that pushed you over the edge to become a full timer! I hope you have a wonderful journey and don't ever have to rake leaves or shovel snow again!

Carl, Check the discussion on Drivers Licensing in Other States. There is some information on the requirements for drivers of RV's in Texas that you should know.

We haven't run into the utility bill requirement yet. I don't know if South Dakota is requiring this. Guess I'll have to print out the electronic bill I get on the internet for my cell phone or satellite TV bill. These have my SD address on them. Perhaps I'll have to request a bill be mailed to me so it will be on the "official" paper. Ironic isn't it? We finally get to the point where we can eliminate paper billing and now we need it to get drivers licenses. If anyone getting a South Dakota license this year has some feedback and/or suggestions for meeting any SD requirements, please post your experience to help the rest of us be prepared.

Bob and Freda, Enjoyed your note. Eighteen years full time! But how else could you get around to see all the children and grandchildren? What a great lifestyle being full time is. I can't imagine giving it up until I am forced to by health or finances. Enjoy your trip. Maybe we'll see you on the road. We're leaving California the end of the month headed to Texas for our winter stay.

We have always been welcome at rallies when we have attended. Sometimes we arrange with friends to be at the same rally together and other times we go on our own, not knowing anyone. We've attended rallies where everyone was welcoming and friendly and occasionally we've been to rallies where we don't make many connections. For us as full timers, we travel on our own agenda and don't want to be tied to having to be in a certain place at a certain time. We belong to the Monaco International Chapter and the Full Timers Chapter and try to get to those rallies if we are "in the neighborhood." Otherwise, we take advantage of the rallies of other groups when we are near their rallies. If you enjoy rallies, make them a bigger part of your plans. If you don't find them to fit your style, you certainly don't have to feel like you should be attending them. If you find a group that you really want to be a part of, make their rallies a priority. Life for the full timer is a buffet, take what you like and leave the rest for someone else!

Welcome grmalv1, If you haven't already read the discussion Full Timer's Residency Requirements in this Lifestyles section of the Forum, you should take some time to read and follow that discussion. There is a post there citing another thread, Registering Your RV Using a Montana LLC, which deals with some legal complications that is directly applicable to your situation. I won't go into details because there is simply too much in the above cited discussions to summarize in a short posting. You create genuine problems for yourself if you don't clearly have a state of residence. It is something like standing with one foot on the dock and one foot in the boat. Both states may apply their laws to you or your estate, and next thing you know you're needing a life preserver!

Jack & Peg, I wish you luck in selling your home! Like you, I need to digitize my collection of slides from the pre-digital age. I've delayed longer on that than I should. We were through Maine this summer. We really enjoy the scenery in the summer, we're past enjoying the winter scenery though I'm sure it is delightful. When you get ready to head for Texas give us a holler! DaSwansons, I hope your full timing experience continues to be everything you want it to be. We're still enjoying the road after 8 years. Where do you plan to spend the winter?

In our first year of full-time living in our motor home we enjoyed a number of deserts in California. Since then we have visited deserts in other areas and always enjoyed the experience. Having taught school all my life, I had never had the privilege of traveling extensively in the cooler months of the year. This, it occurred to me, was the reason I had never spent time in any desert. Our first real desert experience was Joshua Tree National Park near Palm Springs. We stayed in Indio, CA, for a week in early March while exploring the southern part of Joshua Tree. We hiked to several oasis and gold mine sites enjoying exploring the unique terrain and identifying various kinds of cactus. Following that week we had a meeting in San Diego and spent a week there. When we left San Diego we decided we had to see the rest of Joshua Tree so we headed north to Twentynine Palms. Twentynine Palms is the "home town" of the U.S. Marine Corps Desert Warfare School and a more appropriate place couldn't be found. The Marine Corps Base is just north of Twentynine Palms and Joshua Tree National Park. We stayed at Twentynine Palms RV Resort, which offered a free round of golf per person per day at the adjacent golf course. They even had tennis courts, though they weren't well cared for, they were playable. We took advantage of all those resources as well as the national park. We stayed for two weeks before departing there for our next desert. While at Twentynine Palms we explored one of the most spectacular oasis I have ever seen. Just west of town is Fortynine Palms Canyon. The hike from the parking lot takes you up and over a ridge and then down into the canyon. Along the way there is a spectacular array of cactus. As you approach the canyon, you see the palm trees around the oasis. They stand as a glaring patch of green against a backdrop of desert brown. There at their base flows a spring that supports a whole living community. In the dead fronds hanging from the palms a world of birds live. There is a constant coming and going and a cacophony of chirping comes from within the dead foliage that most homeowners trim from their palm trees. We rock hopped around the pools of water and enjoyed the view before returning to the car, the setting sun lighting our way. Our most extensive hiking experience in Joshua Tree was the seven-mile loop at Lost Horse Mine. We followed the trail from one gold mine to another. There is a large stamping mill at Lost Horse Mine while the rest of the mine sites along the way were mostly holes (deep foreboding holes) in the ground. A few had remnants of the equipment used for mining and at one site we enjoyed the sight of the old rusted box springs of a bed in the corner of the remains of an old mining shack. Most of the miners lived in tents so this was likely the mine owner or superintendent's home. The last mile of the hike was the toughest, slogging our way through the sandy bottom of a dry creek back to the parking lot. We also enjoyed climbing over large granite boulders at Jumbo Rocks Campground. This same granite formation provides some excellent rock climbing experiences in the northwestern part of the park. We saw hundreds of climbers out scaling the sheer faces of rock. There are numerous schools that will take you out here so you can learn the skill of rock climbing. We passed on that! The Cholla (Teddy Bear) Cactus Garden has a spectacular assemblage of Teddy Bear Cactus. These when viewed at sunset are as beautiful as they are painful! The sun shining through the thousands of slender spines catch sunlight forming a halo around the cactus. From Salton View you can look out on the Salton Sea and the area around Palm Springs, California. You are also looking out at the southern end of the San Andreas Fault. This was one of our last stops before leaving Joshua Tree National Park.

We had a Splendide vintage 1994 that was not vented. The dryer operates by circulating cold water through a jacket that surrounds the drum. Water from the clothes condenses on the inside of that cold jacket and goes down the drain. Substantial cold water is used to keep the jacket cold and it will remove water from the clothes but not very effectively. A vented drier is a much better option. We have a Splendide vintage 2003 in our current coach. It is vented and works much better at removing moisture. Heavy clothes such as blue jeans still require some air drying or a second run in the dry cycle. If you have a vented dryer and it isn't drying most of the clothes in a load, you are either overloading it or have a blocked vent. Our dryer is so close to the outside wall of the motor home that the dryer vent is flattened considerably. Even with this, it functions well. Doing a new install, be sure that the vent on the outside wall lines up properly with the vent on the rear of the dryer if possible. Ours is offset about 8" and that is where the vent is flattened.

I'll weigh in on the side of turning off the water heater! That is if you really want to save propane, turn it off. If you don't care about the propane, leave it on. It really depends on your use of water. If you are going to turn it off, do so before the last shower! Then let your wife shower last! If you shower serially, one after another in quick succession, there may not be enough water in the hot water tank for the last person. If you have some time between showers, there will be a full tank of hot water for the last shower and you should be able to turn off the hot water heater before the shower and not notice the difference. By doing this you will be storing a tank full of cold water which will likely warm up (if the outside air temperature is above the ground temperature) even if only slightly. If you turn the water off after the shower, the water heater will have been working hard to heat that water and then you turn it off with a tank of warm water which will cool. You will have wasted the propane used to heat that last bit of water while you were showering! Now, here is the kicker. You probably will save water and propane by showering serially, one after another and then turning off the propane at the end of the second shower. The reason is that you will likely use most of the hot water in the water heater and the water in the water heater will be mostly cold water. You will have avoided having to send hot water through the pipes to the shower twice. For even more fun, you could turn off the water heater before you shower together! But then you might run out of hot water and there goes all the fun.

One of the big errors in storing tires that I have seen on occasion is to store the tires with part of the tire off the side of a board or other surface. If a tire is stored on a surface other than the pavement beneath the coach, the material under the tire must support the entire tire footprint evenly. If part of the tire is off the material, the cord of the tire will be damaged. A friend of ours purchased six cutting boards at Wal-Mart and uses them for parking his motor home. I personally use boards, 2x12's, which on our sloping parking spot bring the coach to nearly level when using two layers on the drivers side and one layer on the passenger side. I always check carefully to make sure that each tire is entirely on the board before hooking up. I also inflate the tires to as near the maximum pressure allowed as I can get them. I have tire covers that protect the tires from UV radiation.

After we hook up, Louise does the light check. When the lights are OK, then she watches me pull forward to see that our toad is free wheeling and also checks the tow bar to make sure the arms have locked. Only after that will she get on board. It has worked for us so far. I have a set of plastic wheel chocks that I use when we park. This summer after parking and hooking up the electric I decided to move forward. When the coach didn't move easily I pushed harder on the pedal. Now we have one wheel chock! I've scraped up the coach on a couple of occasions by moving without having my guardian angel watching while I move. The insurance company paid for both repairs but of course we paid the deductible and suffered the lost time while waiting for repairs. You know the saying, slow but steady wins the race! I've learned that it really helps to have a second set of eyes on the outside whenever I move in close quarters.

Welcome Jack, I can't give you a book but there are numerous resources on the web. There are web sites for the border services for Canada and the US. Look at the discussion under this forum titled: Border Crossing web sites... There is also information on documentation required for the border crossing to Canada and the return to the US. You will also find sites for each province and many of the cities in Canada. We have traveled through all of Canada with the exception of Newfoundland. You will find the campground facilities similar to the US for the most part. You will find almost no campgrounds with 50A service as the cooler weather and the native clientele simply don't demand it. Also you'll find that the Canadians call full hookups three way hookups. Just a little different terminology. Canadian campgrounds are listed in both the major campground directories and I would recommend that you get current copies of both before going to Canada. You will find the best roads in Canada to be similar to good roads in the US. Secondary roads are another matter. You don't have to get far off the traveled path to find narrow, rough roads. That doesn't mean you shouldn't take them, just be prepared for their condition and travel accordingly. A toad is useful for getting to the remote areas that are very interesting to visit. We seldom use phone service in Canada as the roaming rates for cell phones are so expensive. We use Wi-Fi when we can. Most campgrounds along the routes to Alaska have good Wi-Fi. We found good Wi-Fi service more rare in eastern Canada. Many campgrounds there charge for service. The exchange rate for the US and Canada fluctuate constantly. Currently the rate is in our favor but that may change by next year. We were getting about a 10% break in our favor this past summer. We charge many of our expenses on a credit card which has a small exchange charge. We always get Canadian money after we have crossed the border. We use an ATM and get the cash we expect to need. Putting most major charges, campground fees, etc. on the credit card we find an amount near 300 dollars to be sufficient for a month of cash expenditures. Visa and MasterCard are welcome throughout Canada but you will find few if any places that accept Discover cards. Canadian fuel prices tend to be about 25 to 40% higher than in the US so be sure to take a full tank across the border! We have on several occasions returned to the US from Canada to get mail, shop and refuel. This only pays if you are close to the border and the fuel stop is conveniently close also. Sometimes as we travel in Canada we just need to get back "home" for a little while. We enjoy having our phone and cell internet service working. It gives us a good feeling to have all our regular services available. I have blogged our most recent trip through Quebec province into Ontario here on the FMCA site. Share a little more specific information with us, where do you plan to start, when will you be traveling? What are your interests? We have many Canadian members who can add information and make suggestions for things to do and see.

As my granddaughter would say, "Ewww." Cathe, I hope that Wolfe10's post helps out. There is indeed nothing you could have done to prevent this assuming that your engine had oil! In terms of a blow-up diagram of your engine, you may not be able to find something specific to the Cummins 400 ISL but you could look for a blow up of any kind of gasoline or diesel engine. The rod is connected to the crankshaft with a u-shaped piece that completes a circle around the crankshaft. This u-shaped piece (I don't know its proper name) is held in place by two bolts, one on each end of the U. This is a little different than the description of the defect referred to in Wolfe 10's post. That failure would have occurred at the connection of the rod to the piston itself. Either way, the result would be similar to what you describe. At the very least, Cummins should give you a sizable discount on any costs if not paying for the entire cost of repairing the engine. Cummins engines routinely have a 5 year warranty. Best of luck and let us know how things turn out.

In most motor homes there is a large (6" x 8" or so) gray box somewhere in the basement which is a power transfer box. If it has been an instantaneous change in the past for your motor home but is now delayed, it indicates a failure of the electronic components which sense the source of the power and make the switch without delay or interruption. There are many varieties of these switches. If you replace yours, find the exact replacement. I replaced one once that had a momentary interruption with each transfer and it meant resetting every clock in the motor home!

Hello Jack and Jo-Ann, We have spent our winter in the McAllen-Edinburg area each winter for the last 8 years, number 9 is on the horizon. Besides birds which you'll be able to explore to your hearts content, there are bike trails, fishing on the gulf, trips to Mexico, museums, performances of the college groups-sports-orchestra-or any other interest. We love to play golf, swim all winter and join a bowling league. There are dance classes for any kind of dance you want to do. If you want to volunteer, there are opportunities at schools, parks, museums and civic organizations. Various RV parks have entertainment in the parks and there are events that visit the Rio Grande Valley or "the valley" on a regular basis. South Padre Island and McAllen both have convention centers that draw major entertainers on a regular basis. Corpus Christi and it's many entertainment opportunities are a day's drive away. We've spent weekends in San Antonio to see events and to simply spend time walking the River Walk or celebrate the New Year. We always try to make a stop or two when coming into or out of Texas. It is a great state to explore. Take your time coming and going. The Natchez Trace is a great way to get from south to north or vice-versa. Each spring and fall in Natchez there is the pilgrimage which features tours of twenty to thirty homes of the 19th century. These are home tours like no others. The home owner usually greets you at the door. Assistants are all dressed in period costume. Stop and visit parks in states along the way, next thing you know it will be May before you get back to Michigan and you'll be leaving in October and you won't have to winterize at all! If that isn't enough, there are many flea markets. There is a publication "The Winter Texan" which lists all the events at other parks throughout the valley. Many of these events are y'all come type events. They range from dances to performances to dinners (we have lots of dinners). You could just sit and enjoy happy hour with your friends and neighbors. We make friends easily in the valley. Feeling young and crazy, you can join the spring breakers on South Padre Island! Regarding winterizing, we avoid it at all costs! We arrive in the valley in late October or early November and leave in mid to late April. We've spent time in winter climates on occasion. Yes, we use the propane furnace when traveling in cold climates. I would regard the heat pumps as useful only in the 45 degree and above range. We have a winter package with heaters for all our water/waste tanks and use that with the generator if temperatures outside are well below freezing. We've never stayed north in cold enough weather to have to winterize but if you are in Michigan in December, you should probably do the whole bit. When we have had reason to be north in December, it has always been a short stay and we've been able to avoid the full winter treatment. I've always regarded my wheels as the best winterizing method! See you in the valley.