tbutler

We have the ISL 400 and have experienced just brief periods of smoke recently. These have always occurred first thing in the morning as we are beginning traveling. Generally where we go from slow travel and turn onto a higher speed roadway. Ours clears after 10 or 15 seconds. The only other incidents of smoking we have had related to a broken oil line feeding the turbocharger. That was fixed by replacing the oil line. When you get a solution to your problem from Cummins, please post it here so that we can all learn about your solution.

Living full time in an RV, we are always planning trips. It starts with a general idea of where we would like to go. For instance we are considering taking a second trip to Alaska next summer. We began thinking about this trip in 2006 when we made our first trip to Alaska. We're planning this trip to be on the ferry so we can make stops at Ketchikan, Juneau and other coastal access areas of Alaska. When the time gets closer we'll look at our schedule of other events and try to decide when we can plan to get away and return. If everything works out, we'll confirm ferry arrangements and rates. When it comes time to go, we'll likely find campgrounds and make reservations while on the way to each campground. Since we'll be arriving by ferry, we'll call ahead before we board the ferry to be sure we have a campground at the next stop. We'll decide how long to stay at each stop initially before making reservations but if we like a place and there is space available we'll extend our stay. Sometimes we'll learn of some event, activity or feature that we want to see after arriving and that will trigger an extension of our reservations. If expenses are running higher than planned we will consider modifying our schedule to cut costs. This can be staying in parks that give discounts for weekly stays or shortening the trip to cut costs. In past years we have simply found a suitable park and stayed for a month making short trips to explore the area. We won't do that in Alaska! We are currently traveling with another couple. After linking up with them, we sat down and planned our whole trip based on our interests and the time available. Our planning session lasted about 4 hours, scheduling the route, friends to visit, sight seeing and RV parks we would stay at for each stop. We'll make reservations as we go, calling ahead once we know we are going to be on schedule. We allowed a little time so that we could add something to the trip. We scheduled the trip on a calendar and used a mapping program to identify distances between stops. We have checked to be sure that some museums will have RV parking and verified hours of operation that match our schedule so we won't arrive at a desired attraction to find they are closed on Monday's or something like that. We even have an idea of where we will pick up our mail each week. We have even worked out making an extra border crossing from Canada to the US and back for refueling and mail stop. Nothing is more than ink on a page until we make a reservation somewhere. As it is, we have reservations for tomorrow night (Tuesday). We'll stay there for two nights and then call ahead to make reservations at the next site. If we find parks are near full, we'll call a little further in advance but we aren't anticipating crowding to the point we have difficulty finding campgrounds with open spaces. We'll call ahead to friends we plan to visit as the visit gets closer. They will all know we are coming, just not for sure which day until we call to confirm. Normally when planning a trip we'll drift along at a pace that is comfortable to us. Periodically we'll just find a stop with good facilities and spend some "at home days." Some time to just sit and relax in the motor home and get things cleaned up. This trip won't have any time planned for sitting at home. We're going to be in vacation mode, on the road from one attraction to the next. The above example is the extreme in our planing process. In eight years of full timing, I have never scheduled a trip out like this one. I enjoyed the planning process but don't enjoy knowing that I have a fixed schedule to keep up with. I gave that up when I retired and I don't miss it at all! So we'll keep this trip flexible even though it is planned in detail.

Don, I'm so glad to hear you have a solution. Thanks for sharing what you found out with all of us so we can all learn from it.

I've been in several campgrounds in Ohio recently and they are really marginal. Sites that are not level, narrow, poorly designed, trees dropping hickory nuts on our roof along with lots of leaves and twigs, marginal 30 amp electric, the list goes on and on. The economics of campgrounds must be terrible. The land costs are high and once the utilities are in, it becomes economically impossible to make significant improvements. Imagine the tangle of water, electric and sewer lines under the ground. If someone asked me to come into one of these campgrounds and replace any of the utilities, my bid for the work would be really high because I would have to anticipate hitting an unexpected electric, water or sewer line and spending lots of time repairing things. There are some really nice campgrounds around but the prices are usually prohibitive. We did find a state park in London, Kentucky which had nice pull through sites with level concrete pads and good water/sewer/electric connections. The cost was $25 per night. The sites were wide with a nice gravel patio. Perhaps we'll see more modern campgrounds developed in coming years however the economy is really hurting many of today's campground owners. With increasing fuel prices, we may never see a recovery to the good ol' days!

It isn't GPS but you can get a Truckers Atlas at Flying J for a reasonable price. All the truck routes are shown on the maps and there is a list by state of any routes that have low clearance. It works for the truck routes but if you get off those routes, then you'll have to rely on other resources. We've had a hand full of problems in eight years and we aren't on truck routes all the time, not even most of the time. Once you are off the truck routes you are pretty much on your own. If you want to be sure a route is clear then you'll have to stick to the truck routes or inquire locally about the suitability of routes. Most non-truckers and non-RV'ers really can't answer that question because they don't give it a second thought traveling in their cars.

Jerry and Diane, Our favorite chairs are directors chairs with a side table. They are very sturdy, relatively light. Ours have a carrying strap so we can carry them easily. We had a wooden set when we started motor home living and eventually the fabric gave out and we couldn't find replacement fabric. The current ones are aluminum frame and are much more compact. There are many variations of directors chairs. Ours came from Monaco but I'm sure you can get them from other suppliers.

This is the text I have posted on Destinations. Note that this greatly modifies my recommendations on all posts related to West Yellowstone as a base of operations for visiting Yellowstone National Park. Study this web site carefully and plan your stay accordingly. In light of this information I am not making any recommendation for where to stay while visiting Yellowstone N.P. It all depends on what you want to see. Several people have asked about routes to Yellowstone NP. I picked up a caution from another website and visited the Yellowstone web site for the official word. The bridge at Gibbon Canyon is being replaced and this road will be completely closed on August 17, 2009. If you are headed to Yellowstone this summer, be sure to check this web site: http://www.nps.gov/yell/travelalert.htm This road section links the West and South entrances of the park to the North and East entrances. There is no way around within the park, so it essentially cuts the park in two. The road is scheduled to reopen in December. This may affect your decision of where to camp when you visit the park.

This is the text I have posted on Destinations. Note that this greatly modifies my recommendations on all posts related to West Yellowstone as a base of operations for visiting Yellowstone National Park. Study this web site carefully and plan your stay accordingly. In light of this information I am not making any recommendation for where to stay while visiting Yellowstone N.P. It all depends on what you want to see. Several people have asked about routes to Yellowstone NP. I picked up a caution from another website and visited the Yellowstone web site for the official word. The bridge at Gibbon Canyon is being replaced and this road will be completely closed on August 17, 2009. If you are headed to Yellowstone this summer, be sure to check this web site: http://www.nps.gov/yell/travelalert.htm This road section links the West and South entrances of the park to the North and East entrances. There is no way around within the park, so it essentially cuts the park in two. The road is scheduled to reopen in December. This may affect your decision of where to camp when you visit the park.

Several people have asked about routes to Yellowstone NP. I picked up a caution from another website and visited the Yellowstone web site for the official word. The bridge at Gibbon Canyon is being replaced and this road will be completely closed on August 17, 2009. If you are headed to Yellowstone this summer, be sure to check this web site: http://www.nps.gov/yell/travelalert.htm This road section links the West and South entrances of the park to the North and East entrances. There is no way around within the park, so it essentially cuts the park in two. The road is scheduled to reopen in December. This may affect your decision of where to camp when you visit the park.

The previous replies just about cover it with one exception, no one has mentioned a washing machine. This is frequently a source of odor for us. If it hasn't been used for some time, the drain can go dry. Sometimes I think it isn't dry until we drive and then because it is low the remaining water sloshes out of the trap which opens a direct route to the gray water tank. Any dry drain will allow odors from the gray or black water tank to enter the motor home. A gray water tank can smell as bad as a black water tank. Check all your drains for dry traps.

Jim, When you get your Blue Ox system you should receive some answers to your questions. They should recommend how to connect the safety chains. Our Roadmaster system came with safety cables (instead of chains) which are attached to the loops on the hitch. I crossed them as is conventional but don't recall anything that specifically said what to do. The reason for crossing the chains is so they will catch the hitch arm if the hitch on a trailer comes disconnected. This would keep the hitch arm from hitting the road and digging in causing further damage. With a tow bar, the bar is unlikely to come loose. The failure will likely be in an arm of the hitch so crossing the cables won't help. Our automatic braking system is part of the Brakemaster system also made by Roadmaster. The cable that pulls the plug in case of break away is not long enough to allow the safety cables to work without activating the brake. So in the event of a broken tow bar, the brake on the toad should be activated. This should give us a good tug letting us know that something is wrong. If the safety cables (chains) break then the car should come to a safe stop on its own. If the safety cables (chains) don't break, the braking action we would initiate with the RV should allow the toad with its brakes set to come to a stop without running into us.

Thanks for the note. We looked at the dates for the convention in Albuquerque in 2010. We already have booked a cruise to Hawaii for exactly that time so we'll be at sea instead of in Albuquerque. We always try to get to FMCA if it is possible. We've made it to four in the last 8 years. We'll be at another in the future. Thanks for all the work you did for the convention!

I've traveled through some of this country but not on US 20. I plotted it on my GPS program and it shows elevations from about 200 feet above sea level to almost 5000' in several spots along the route. The worst grade looks to be a 1400 foot drop in elevation in 9 miles of road. As you go east from the last high spot near 5000' there are plenty of curves and plenty of hills and valleys which suggest very slow travel. My GPS shows a difference of 64 miles vs. going north to Portland and taking I-84 from there to the junction with US 20. Unless you really want to see something along the way or just want to see the scenery, I wouldn't take US 20. Someone local may be able to give you a better answer about US 20 and I hope we'll hear from someone with better information. By the way, if I want to go somewhere specific, I'll take my motor home on most any road if I can get information that the route has no low overpasses that would present a physical barrier to travel. We have driven the loop through John Day Fossil Beds in northern Oregon and those were some real curvy steep roads. Hitting 20 miles per hour was a real accomplishment on some of those roads. I will take shorter routes and slower roads if I have the time available. I would likely take US 20 just to see the scenery if I wasn't in a hurry.

Thanks for the information SEAJAY! This is something I had never heard or thought of. I guess you may not have regular roaming service but may be able to roam on any network in case of emergency. Everyone should know about this. Perhaps it should be confirmed with the cell companies and then published in Family Motor Coaching magazine.

Thanks, Jerry, for the information. We appreciate the detailed information about the decision. I thought about it later and I would bet that the comment by the incoming president was not meant as any kind of suggestion that the concert was canceled so the officers could sit around and visit. Those who are in leadership positions come to these conventions and work pretty much all the time, going from one venue to another to meet with various groups. I understand the Governing Board meeting on Monday went for over 12 hours. I believe his comment was an expression of joy at being able to have time to visit, which is so unusual for the organizational leaders. People who reach the top echelons of leadership do so after years of dedication to the work of the organization and likely haven't had much of a chance to relax and visit with people during conventions. I thought the convention was very well planned and run. Louise and I had a wonderful time and if you followed my BLOG, we did our best to keep the vendors happy as well. Thanks again for the information and all the hard work you do for us.

I am sure that everyone would have preferred to have the concert on schedule. As I recall, Wednesday night it rained and the concert was scheduled for an outdoor venue. Perhaps my memory fails me, but I know there was still rain on Thursday morning, which triggered the move of the general meeting to the indoor venue. Even if it wasn't raining during all of the scheduled concert time or not at all, the threat of rain or storms during the concert may have caused cancellation. Cancellations of events such as this one often have to be made hours in advance. All of the electronic equipment has to be set up for the concert and/or taken down before it is damaged by rain. Perhaps we'll get some answers from someone on the FMCA Staff. Remember, all of our officers are volunteers; they aren't getting paid for their endless hours of work on our behalf. Personally I am thankful we have people who are willing to take the jobs they do. The newly elected president didn't take office until Thursday morning, so I presume someone else made the decision on Wednesday.

Friday brought the end of the FMCA International Convention in Bowling Green, Ohio. Everyone was up and moving early. Neighbors said good-bye, caravans formed up, a few wise individuals sat in lawn chairs and watched the parade of motor homes. The electric was shut off as I was winding up my cord. We were away a few minutes after that. The parade out of the campus was orderly and didn't take long at all. The police were manning the signal light to ease our way onto the highway. Louise and I set out for Fremont, Ohio and the Hayes Presidential Museum and Library. We were the second motor home to arrive at the museum. The RV and bus parking was back in only so we circled through the parking lot and found a spot to park along the road. I checked in the office and they said that would be fine. A little while later motor homes 3 and 4 pulled onto the grounds. Apparently there were four people who wanted to sign up for the tour during the convention but the tour was canceled due to lack of interest. We had a lovely tour of the home. The Hayes home is quite stately. The museum was interesting as are all Presidential Museums. There was a special display of the gowns of the First Ladies which Louise thoroughly enjoyed. Leaving there we were headed for an RV park near Bellevue but found the park to be less than expected. We cancelled out of our reservation costing us the fee for a one night stay. It was a misunderstanding. We asked for full hookups with the expectation that included water, electric and sewer. At this campground, full hookups meant water and electric. Somehow that was never conveyed in the conversation. We called ahead to the campground we planned to stay at near Salem, Ohio and they had a site for us so we traveled on. Two and a half hours later we were welcomed into Chaparral Family Campground. It is Christmas in July here. Everyone is wearing Santa hats and decorations are up all over camp. Santa arrived this morning in a fire truck! We have just been joined by friends who will be traveling with us for the next few weeks. We will visit a number of our winter Texan friends as we work our way to the northeast. We'll work out our plans as the trip continues. Tonight we're doing dinner out with one of our friends from Berlin Center, Ohio. RVing makes great lasting friends!

Hello Patty, We have traveled much of this territory but don't know all the roads well. I can tell you that the best route through the Rockies is on I-80. The elevations and grades are not as extreme as other routes. Given that, I would suggest dropping west and south from Rushmore (Don't miss Badlands N.P. for scenery and Custer State Park for Buffalo) to Cheyenne, WY. Take I-80 across Wyoming to Rock Springs (Look for antelope along the highway on this stretch). From there US 191 and US 189 will take you to the Tetons and then on north to Yellowstone. 191 and 189 are two lane winding roads but nothing extreme as far as mountains. Beautiful scenery! We like West Yellowstone, MT for a base to explore Yellowstone but you may prefer another area. From West Yellowstone, US 191 or US 287 will take you to I-90 for your trip on to Portland. This won't be the shortest route but I think you will find it to be without the extremes of high mountains and steep grades for the most part. Enjoy your trip!

Today is the final day of the FMCA 2009 International Convention in Bowling Green, Ohio. We woke this morning to dripping rain. Not heavy but definitely wet. I left the bicycle at home today as our first meeting was at the stadium - or so we thought. Since it was raining they moved the general meeting of FMCA to an indoor location. Makes sense but no one told us. Worse, we didn't find a notice posted anywhere near the stadium so after exploring a bit around the stadium to ensure that the meeting wasn't there, we headed for the big tent. The big tent is where the morning coffee and donuts are doled out every morning. I figured there would be notice of the change in venue there. Before we got there we finally found an official who knew where the meeting was. He offered us a ride in his golf cart. A few hundred feet down the sidewalk we encountered another couple who asked our question and got a ride also. We arrived in time to get in on the drawing for the door prizes, cash money! We didn't win, oh well. But I did hear the name of Roger Marble called but Roger wasn't there! After the general meeting we hoofed it over to the vendors. I talked to Martin Perlot of Silver Leaf Electronics to let him know that he had solved my problem with the install on my new system. Then we renewed our Coach Net Membership for a sizable discount. We saw many people in the vendor area and noted many carrying goods out of the venue. I think the vendors had a pretty good convention. The official numbers on the convention were 2725 coaches, of which 299 were commercial coaches. Not a bad turn-out but slightly less than hoped for. I didn't see an official number but heard that there were more than 1000 volunteers who made this convention work for the rest of us. From an attendees viewpoint, this has been a wonderful convention. After visiting the vendors, we went to the session on Full Timing. Presented by the Full Timers Chapter of FMCA, this workshop addressed many aspects of living full time in an RV. There were four presenters and a moderator. Unfortunately, there was no time left for questions. The level of attendance suggested that there could be more done here. I suspect that this chapter could face substantial growth with the wave of baby boomers retiring in the next ten years. While retirement factors currently look discouraging, time may change the equation and I suspect there are many who would love to move to full time life in a motor home. We returned to the motor home and began preparations for breaking camp Friday morning. The electric goes off about 9:00 a.m. Friday and we hope to be ready to roll by that time. I made a quick trip to town for a few groceries. These trips are always easier when you know where you are going. We had been around Bowling Green long enough to find the basic stores. Karen Rambow called before I returned to check with me for departure time. Finishing our headlights required dry weather and while it had been dry for a while, there were still large cumulus clouds about. I asked Karen to go ahead with the job and we'd take a chance on the weather. She arrived within a few minutes of my return. The job was finished and the skies kindly cleared. I'll have clear headlights again. One more problem solved at this convention. Louise took a walk to the recycling and trash and busied herself with preparing the indoors for travel. I got the toad and motor home ready to go. We are essentially boondocking with electric right now. Tomorrow we'll get breakfast, hook up and be on our way. Many of our neighbors left during the day today. Maybe 20% of the attendees are gone by this evening. The grounds will be clear tomorrow. Those who want to stay in Bowling Green can stay at the fairgrounds. We will be on our way to Fremont, Ohio to visit the Hayes Presidential Center. There was a scheduled tour to the center but not enough interest so I told Louise we'd make that our first stop. We plan to park the RV somewhere near the center and spend some time touring before going on to the Lazy J Family Campground near Norwalk, Ohio.

Mike and Christina, Glad to hear your results were good. As the weather gets colder, you'll find these same principles work but you'll have to be more aggressive with them. Turn up the ventilation when at times when cooking or showering to keep the moisture from accumulating in the air. The colder the surfaces of the motor home the easier it is to get condensation on them. Enjoy your travels.

Well, it had to happen. We had a rainy day. Now this wasn't the frog strangling rain you might expect with an FMCA Convention. This was a slobbery drizzly day. In fact I rode my bicycle to and from the activities I attended today and did not get wet on any ride. I picked up a few rain drops but never really got wet. Louise walked to her activities. To be honest, there weren't many bicycles in the bike racks early this morning. My first session was Tires 101 by Roger Marble. Roger is an engineer and has worked with tires for his entire career. His talk gave us the real scoop on tires, tire dynamics; how tire wear affects traction; how tire damage occurs and when to discard a tire that looks like a good tire but likely is damaged. He showed us tires that had failed and tires that were going to fail soon. Being a motor home owner himself, he was able to relate the entire talk to motor homes and a few references to toads as well. After a seminar on tires I went to the advanced class on satellite TV. A panel of experts, representatives of several satellite dish producers, answered questions from the crowd. A wide variety of questions and problems were addressed to the satisfaction of the crowd. I got several answers that will help me with my project to get a satellite feed to the bedroom. Many of the answers were for people to stop by the booth of their satellite dish manufacturer and fill out a service request to have them come take a look a their equipment. Again, the value of being here at the convention is apparent. I always figure that one way or another I get my money's worth from by registration fees in being able to talk to experts, face to face, have service personnel come do work on my coach while I'm enjoying the convention and knowledge gained in the sessions. It really doesn't cost to attend these conventions, it pays. After the session on satellite dish TV, I contacted Louise on our walkie-talkies to see where she was. As planned she was on the way to the big tent to get ice cream. I asked if she had our mail and she said, "No" so I said I would pick it up on my way to get ice cream. The volunteers in the information booth were friendly and delivered the mail package in a moment. I'm always happy when the mail arrives on time! From there it was straight to the big tent. After parking and covering the bike seat, I went looking for Louise. I called on the radio just as I walked up to her. She gave me ups in the long line waiting to get ice cream. As soon as I was in line, it started moving. It didn't take a minute for us to get through the line. Ten minutes later the line was still there as others joined almost as fast as the volunteers could serve up the ice cream bars provided by Miller RV Insurance. There is another $3.00 of our registration fee! A quick visit to the vendor area and I had the answer I needed about the problem I was having with the Silverleaf engine monitoring software. Louise picked up easy care slacks, blouse and jacket while I grabbed several FMCA T-shirts. On our way back out of the vendor area, we passed the big tent and people were still getting ice cream bars. We were met by two young men from the local sandwich shop distributing sub sandwich samples! Then it was back to the motor home for the afternoon. Our next door neighbor has packed up and moved out. A few people will make an early exit. He had the Goodyear tire truck at his site yesterday. They installed two new tires on the front of his motor home. Shortly after we arrived back at the RV, Karen Rambow arrived to work on the glazing on the headlights on our motor home. She spent several hours buffing and polishing them to near perfect clarity before quitting for the day. She will return tomorrow to apply the Nanotec coating to protect the surface for the future. This evening I spent some time arranging our meeting with friends for a trip following the convention. We'll link up several days after the convention and start our caravan toward Canada. My favorite weather program, The Weather Bug, shows 0.04 inches of rain today. There is more rain on the doorstep so tonight will be good sleeping weather if you enjoy the sound of rain on the roof. We'll see what tomorrow brings.

OK Gary, I don't know the kind of motor home you have or what your standards for campgrounds are. The closest community with campgrounds for the airport according to my Garmin MapSource and the Trailer Life Campground Directory is Frankfort Springs, next closest is Beaver Falls and then Darlington, PA. Frankfort Springs has one campground listed, Raccoon Creek State Park (888-Pa-Parks). it has 172 sites, 20x35 ft. size. and 50 amps. There is a dump station. If you are longer than 35, this won't work. Garmin shows the shortest distance from Frankfort Springs to the Airport road to be 13 miles and the fastest to be 17 miles. Beaver Falls lists Harts Content Campground, 724-846-0005, 110 sites, 30 available (transient), 22x38' size, sites have water and electric 20/30A and water. There is a dump station. Also at Beaver Falls, Shawnee Sleepy Hollow Campground, 814-733-4380, 76, 60 available, 4 pull throughs 55x80, back ins 45x50, sites have water and electric 20/30A and there is a dump station. Garmin shows the distance from Beaver Falls to the Airport road to be 27 miles by the shortest route and 31 miles by the fastest route. Darlington has Crawford's Camping park (724-846-5964) listed with 20 sites available, 30x90 pull throughs and 30x50 back ins, 40 have water, 7 have sewer, 40 have electric 20/30 amps. Garmin shows the fastest route here to be about 31 miles and the shortest route to be 31 miles! So there you have it. There is the usual disclaimer for variations in distance, these were calculated from city center, not the actual campground location. The Trailer Life Campground Directory is 1.5 years old (I get one every other year, alternating with Woodall's) so the information may not be entirely correct. Contact the park for specific up-to-date information and reservations. These locations were all to the NW of Pittsburgh. Since the airport is NW of Pittsburgh I would assume the easiest access to the airport would be from that direction. You may find some campgrounds closer to the southwest but would have to traverse what looks like urban traffic to get to the airport. If there were anyone from Pittsburgh keeping up with this forum, you might get a better answer. I have never camped anywhere near Pittsburgh so this is the kind of information we use for selecting our campgrounds. We, Louise and I, are adventuresome. Sometimes we find a gem and sometimes we find a real dog. Louise loves dogs, the tail wagging kind. We avoid the other kind. Still, it is only for a weekend I assume so you can live with the dog if that is what it turns out to be. As long as you dress well and shower before you go to the reunion, who is to know where you are living. Interesting that no one near Pittsburgh seems to need a sewer connection. Either no one there ever ... or maybe no one ever stays there long enough to ... This is free advice for what it's worth! P.S. Note to readers. Valuable resources: A Campground Directory (even if it is older) and a good mapping program. Google works but having one on the computer is so much faster and doesn't require an internet connection. Personally I find Trailer Life much more useful than the Woodall's Directory so even though I have a newer Woodall's, I didn't bother to dig it out because I wasn't being paid! We use it if we absolutely can't find anything satisfactory in the TL Directory. Woodall's doesn't give any indication of rates/prices on way too many of their entries. They do however occasionally have an entry that TL doesn't have. That's my opinion, I could be wrong.

Hello ChunkyB, I posted a list of salvage yards in the General Discussion under the title "An Excellent Source of RV Information." There is an extensive list with their specialties listed. I think several of them mentioned manuals. If you can't find the manufacturer (a real trick these days), give the salvage yards a try. By the way, I'm sorry to hear that you had such a bad experience from the dealer you purchased your motor home from. Thanks for warning the rest of us of this kind of conduct. We travel through New Braunfels every spring and fall. We love that area of Texas. We purchased a motor home at a rally from a dealer that went out of business a year later. They re-opened on the same site with a different name. This was four years ago, long before the current financial situation. Perhaps we'll put part of the payment in escrow next time! I don't know what other recourse we have, frustrating and costly for us. Fortunately, there are some really good dealers out there who will take us in and give us service when needed.

The flags and gizmos are flying high today. The parking area takes on a festive look with numerous coaches flying flags or wind toys of various kinds. There is a stiff breeze right now and they are in their glory. We just heard a clap of thunder from a storm that has been building over Toledo. We might have some rain tonight. Meanwhile, I am relaxing in my easy chair, dinner is a few minutes away. I have the Trailer Life Campground Guide on the floor next to me. I have been appointed to find a campground for several friends that are meeting us on Sunday. We will tour eastern Ohio visiting fellow Sandpipers (our winter resort) then set out for New York to pick up more Sandpeeps (another name for those of us who stay and play at Sandpipers)! Three or four of us will go on to Maritime Canada. Louise and I are resolved to continue on to Atlantic Canada. Atlantic Canada, that is the term the residents of Newfoundland prefer. I learned that at the seminar I attended yesterday. While all this planning and writing is going on, I have a Cummins technician busy changing the oil and filters in our generator. If the rain holds off I'll get a professional polishing of our headlamps which have clouded over so badly that I hate to drive at night. One of the benefits of the convention is the accessibility of service personnel for taking care of problems. Another is the vendors with all the stuff you must absolutely have for your motor home. I'm doing my very best to keep them in business. I was there when the doors opened this morning. I bought a set of plug dogs to help me separate my power cord from the extension cord or adapter I use. One yank and they are apart. Great invention! Motor Coach Designs had just the window shade I needed to fill the gap between the power sunshades on our windshield. How many times have we been driving with those shades down in early morning or late afternoon when the sun is right between the two shades? Now I'll have that solved. I found the waterless cleaning solution (Wipeout) that I use for keeping the coach looking good when we can't wash it and purchased a supply that will last me for a while. Much cheaper than ordering it and paying postage. And then there was Camping World. Some water filters with a special sale price and a spare hose. I stopped at a Pressure Pro dealer and picked up a couple sets of mounting brackets. The sticky Velcro tape gave out a few weeks ago. I'll see how permanent the suction cups are before I take them off and screw the clips to the wall! After this I had to make a run back to the coach. Any more and I wouldn't be able to carry it all back on the bicycle. This morning Louise and I got a run down on the National Highway System. Kent Lande is a civil engineer and a motor home owner. He gave us a fact filled presentation spiced up with photos of outrageous overloads from around the world and the ever popular road kill recipes. Louise packed a picnic lunch for us so we relaxed between sessions and had lunch. Then she was off to the vendors to purchase some sheets while I attended a workshop on the Silverleaf engine monitoring system. After that workshop I had to have that system. I purchased the computer version and will install it this evening. I also picked up a replacement cable for the break away system of our Roadmaster tow bar and braking system. I wasn't kidding when I said I was doing my best to keep the vendors in business! I enjoyed music while eating a doughnut and drinking some hot chocolate (never did develop a taste for coffee) for breakfast this morning. On our bike ride to the morning seminar, Louise and I enjoyed the sight of the children's activities. The youngest ones were busy rolling down a hillside, one after another. The older children looked to be on a field trip of some kind. Everyone seems to be having a great time. The buses seem to be keeping up with the moving crowd so I would have to say that transportation looks better but then I'm riding my bicycle!

Jose and Karen, I have had Coach Net Service for the last five years and have been very satisfied. I had Good Sam earlier and had some issues with their service. I have had good experiences with both when they have provided service promptly so can't say it is all bad. They will deliver a big wrecker as soon as they possibly can. When we were stuck in the mud with several thousand other motor homes at FMCA in Hutchinson, Kansas in 2002, we called GS and expected to be number 500 in line. We had a wrecker in about 15 minutes and were out and on our way in short order. We had one experience when GS told us no wrecker was available until tomorrow and we would have to call back tomorrow when we were ready to tow. They wouldn't make an appointment for tomorrow. We were in an RV park with an engine breakdown so it wasn't like we were in danger, just inconvenienced. On another occasion, they sent out a truck with a tire and wheel neither of which we could keep but would have to purchase to take care of a flat tire. I told them no deal but they said that was my service call. I had to arrange service on my own. I had to buy a wheel I didn't need but at least got the proper size tire. In the long run I came out cheaper getting my own service than I would have been taking their service. My expense wasn't their concern, they wanted to send the closest repair service. That was the last straw with their service. I'm renewing my Coach Net service at the FMCA Convention in Bowling Green. They are offering a $20 discount for renewals here at the Convention! If you are a first time customer, they should give you a better price for the first year. If you are renewing you could ask for the convention rate! Doesn't hurt to try! If they say no, you can always drop by the convention!!! Then again, the drive from California might cost more than your savings.