tbutler

Hello Rayinnc, Our preference for parks while visiting Yellowstone has been West Yellowstone, MT. There is a top quality park right at the park entrance, Grizzly RV Park. There is also a KOA in West Yellowstone. We stayed at Lionshead which should now be KOA. It is about 7 miles from the park entrance. Staying in or near West Yellowstone has you near food and groceries, etc. We have also stayed in Grand Teton National Park but Yellowstone would be a longer drive from there. Grand Teton Park RV Resort is right on Jackson Lake at Coulter Bay and a beautiful wooded campground. The Tetons also have plenty to be seen. You will be just south of Yellowstone and it can be a base for exploring the southern part of Yellowstone. You haven't given us your interests, history, geology, wildlife, hiking, boating, fishing or just general travel. What ages are your children? There are some great hikes in Yellowstone that will get you out away from the general tourist population but I wouldn't recommend them if you children are very young. We purchased a small yellow book that listed about 40 of the best hikes in Yellowstone. It was only a few dollars, written by a park naturalist. It described the hikes in terms of difficulty and what you could expect to see. I highly recommend this for an activity if your children are old enough. You are in bear country and small children can be a concern when hiking away from the populated areas. Also if your children are small, keep a tight watch on them when visiting the geysers and thermal areas as many of these areas have only a thin crust of material over pools of boiling hot water. A small child can dart off a boardwalk and be in bad trouble in a flash. Big wildlife, elk and bison are abundant in Yellowstone. You will likely see some moose as well. You don't have to look for them, look for the traffic jams. You will see people who have no concept of a wild animal and will get way too close to animals. Most get away with it but once in a while somebody finds out how fast a bison or bear can move. The results are not pretty. The thermal areas are all worthwhile. Some have geysers which erupt on varying and sometimes unpredicted schedules. It is a treat to get to see a geyser when you are only one of a few dozen people watching. Yellowstone is a huge and very beautiful park with a little something for everyone. Give us a little more information, tell us how long you plan to stay, where are you coming from? Do you have a toad? The better we know you and your family, the better your answers will be.

In a post on June 30 in the Legislative Action thread, on the topic of Rest Areas, I suggested that this very thing might happen. I would bet that this is just the beginning of a tidal wave of cost cutting by states that will result in a variety of problems for the traveling public and motor home enthusiasts in particular. It is short sighted, traffic safety will decline as a result of this action. But when there is no more money, some difficult decisions have to be made. Virginia was never a really friendly rest stop state by my experience. This will take Virginia off my travel list for the immediate future.

It is hard to describe the wonder of watching close to 3000 motor homes assemble in one place in a matter of two days or so. Think of the dynamics of it, a city of 6000+ people (official estimate) and 1000+ dogs (my estimate) and who knows how many cats, suddenly assemble in one place. For the most part we are self sufficient. Sure, some of us have an electric supply but we could do without it. It really is quite an amazing event simply to watch the parking lots fill with motor homes and find yourself in the middle of this mass of humanity, all living in a few hundred square foot living space. We were up early this morning to attend a workshop on the Canadian Maritime and Atlantic Provinces. Timely information since that is our goal this summer. We have been there before but want to go to the extreme, Newfoundland and Labrador. The workshop was presented by representatives of Adventure Caravans but gave a fair account of the travels without mentioning the caravans until the final few minutes. The information was quite helpful to those of us who are more likely to travel on our own schedule and with our own interests in mind. We were uncertain about the additional expense of taking the motor home to Newfoundland but have decided it is definitely the thing to do. After that workshop I took a break to take a trip to town to get an inner tube for my bicycle. I had three tubes for the rear tire but none for the front tire which was now flat. The cause of the flat was a leak in the valve stem, not the valve but the side of the stem! I found the bike shop on the internet and picked up a tube and installed it on the bicycle. Shuttle problems solved. The shuttles seem to still be rather random. They are functioning but not by any system that I can discern. Now I have my bicycle and I am free!!! This afternoon we enjoyed a performance by the Bowling Green State University Brass Ensemble. The initial minutes of the performance was interrupted by the random activity of the lawn sprinklers! But after resolving that problem, the performance was wonderful. A wide variety of music was performed for a standing room only audience. In the end, the entire audience stood for a round of applause. The motor home exhibits were opened at 1:00 p.m. promptly and were well attended. The exhibits were a little more austere than in past years. Smaller, much less carpeting, and apparently the vendors were prohibited from offering the motor homes for sale by Ohio law. Ironic, we came here to celebrate the motor home lifestyle and the sale of the motor homes which is horribly depressed today is prohibited by Ohio. I guess Ohio doesn't need the income from this city of 6000+ motor home enthusiasts. We looked at a number of motor homes and as Louise said when we got home, our motor home looks even better now. We returned to our motor home late in the afternoon. I have a project in progress and spent most of the afternoon and evening working on trying to run the video cable from the dish on the roof to the rear bedroom. I am over half way with only a few obstacles yet to conquer. I passed the cable through the floor under the cockpit with great difficulty and spent much of the rest of the afternoon working under the motor home threading the cable over and through compartments. The neighbors were much amused at my obsession with completing the job. By the time Louise called me for dinner, I needed a shower badly before coming to the table. Tuesday brings the opening of the vendor exhibits and the regular operations of the motor home exhibits and the service center. We have scheduled a routine generator service with Cummins/Onan and it will be performed in the next few days. That will save us a stop somewhere on the road in the next month or so. If you haven't been to an FMCA Convention, the service center is one attraction. If you have a problem with certain systems, the vendor will schedule maintenance to repair you system if possible and it is done on site. That difficult problem that no one else seems to be able to repair is tackled by the people who built the system. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday in full swing and then it all ends and in a day the whole village of motor homes disperses to the four corners of the North American Continent. Poof, we'll all be gone! But that is yet to come there is so much more to do and see! I'm looking forward to talking to Xantrex at their booth. Our inverter is very important to our lifestyle and we are having some problems. One more problem to be solved. There are many interesting workshops to attend tomorrow and many new friends to meet.

The Monaco International Pre-Rally for the FMCA Bowling Green Convention got underway on Monday, July 13. We had about 165 coaches on the grounds and one dealer, Paul Evert's RV Country from Fresno, CA, who had about 12 coaches for sale. Some sales were made but mostly people were looking. Louise picked out one she likes, I would go for another but not until we win the lottery! Mike looked up the blue book value of our motor home and it was an eye opener. We knew the value would get there eventually but were surprised to see it there already. The new Monaco, Navistar-Monaco LLC was at the rally and got a warm reception. Monaco remains alive and the company is rebuilding slowly. New coaches will come at a rate supported by sales. The new company has about 12% of the employees that were working a year ago. Without Navistar we would all have orphan coaches. To know that the parts and technical staff is coming back is very reassuring for all Monaco owners. We all had a good time. Some of the vendors were busy, others saw hardly any business. Service and repair were popular. We picked up a used satellite dish system to replace the one that came with our motor home. The old one was tied to an outmoded receiver due to the need for a slow speed data port. The new dish has all the software built into the dish unit. It does not need the receiver to identify the correct satellite. The vendor installed it for us. Now we are working on getting the new receivers installed. We added an incoming feed from the dish so we can have different stations in the living room and the bedroom. I moved the receiver in the front to a cabinet with a mesh front so it will work with the non-radio remote. I have run the new incoming cable to the floor and am ready to run it under the floor to the bedroom. The weather was excellent. We arrived in Springfield just behind some heavy thunderstorms. Those were followed by sunshine and moderate temperatures. The golf tournament had excellent weather as well. Our closing event was Friday evening. Three motor homes were sold during the rally. Saturday morning we left in a caravan to Bowling Green. We were number 24 in a caravan of 45 motor homes. Quite a sight to see that many motor homes all traveling together. An early start at 6:20 helped to get us down the road with minimal disruption of traffic. We arrived in Bowling green about 9:10 a.m. Attendance looks strong here at Bowling Green. I have no idea how many coaches are here and more will arrive today. The parking crew really has their act together. We arrived, unhooked toads and were in our parking spots in 15 minutes! It is a pleasure to see a great team effort, everyone knowing their job and getting it done! The electric was even turned on early and there are portable showers near the Bowling Green State University Stadium, just a short walk from our coach. The cool weather continues with early morning temperatures in the 50's (10's for the Celsius crowd). If you are in Bowling Green, look for our coach on lot 6-4, 1st Street, 14th coach on the south side of the street! F294521.

I'm hesitant to weigh in on this one. As Cookie & Gary said, beauty is in the eye of the beholder! I have been able to park my motor home in my mother's driveway when we visit her for several years now. I'm not sure if the town where she lives has any regulations but I do my best to keep a low profile while there. I'm sure if any of the neighbors were to object the police would come calling to ask me to move even if there weren't a regulation. Mom is in a sparsely populated area, nowhere near the heart of town, I think that helps. When we bought our motor home, I checked with the police in the county where we lived. It is an urban area and they would allow street parking for two days which is what we did when we were ready to move into our motor home. When the neighbors came by, we showed them through the motor home and told them of our plans to live in it. Everyone was friendly and we heard of no complaints. It is nice to be able to do things like this from time to time. Much like the overnight parking that some states limit or prohibit, parking and/or storing a motor home at your home should be done with the objective of being a good neighbor and keeping a low profile so as not to call undue attention to your motor home. By doing so, you may be preserving the rights of other motor home owners to continue parking at their homes. All it takes is one "bad" apple to spoil it for everyone else. If you are moving and know that you want to keep your motor home at your home, even if for a short period of time, you should check the community rules before purchasing the house, just as you would investigate the schools in a community to be sure your children will get a good education. If you are faced with a law limiting or prohibiting RV parking in residential areas, you can fight to keep your right to park at home. If it looks like the support for the law is strong, then you may have to seek some compromise that might set conditions (set backs from streets, screening, covers, time limits, etc.) for keeping the motor home at your home. If all else fails, you might try to get a grandfather clause written into the law. That would at least protect the rights of those who purchased their homes with this right.

We have a full width mudflap at the rear of the coach as well as a mudflap behind each rear dual tire pair. In addition, we have the Roadmaster Guardian in the link that Brett mentioned above. When we went to Alaska, we added a tow car cover from Coastline Cover Company, http://www.coastlinecover.com/ based near Los Angeles, CA. We went to the factory and they made a cover for our car and coach, custom on the spot. They have hook-ups for power and water available at the factory. At the time, they were offering to make the covers in custom colors. I don't know if they still do that. Anyway, they used our custom job to make a pattern for others who have our vehicle so they can enlarge their offerings. They didn't charge any more for the custom job than for the standard cover they sell. Given all this protection for our toad, we still find bits of gravel on the roof if we go over 20 MPH in a construction area with gravel (chip seal kinds of sites). We also get sand and grit in the sweep pads of the side windows. When you roll the window down after traveling, you will hear scratching and see the result of this. You can try to wash out the window sweep pads but can't get everything out. This sand and grit will be found when traveling any road, interstate or gravel, coastal or inland. We have had no major damage to our toad while in tow behind the motor home but there will be minor damage to paint and windows on an ongoing basis. We figure we'll keep the toad until the wheels fall off!

Hello Qjequack and Grammak! We are a friendly group! Except for a few marines and sailors who are busy scrapping with each other. There is a service star to put in your "window" for your son (look on the photo section of the community) and that will make any sailor and marine stand up and salute! We are coming through the NE this summer, join us and we'll get you out of state. NH isn't so big that you can't get out of state! Go to Ben-N-Jerry's Ice Cream in Burlington, Vermont! RVing is about exploring and having fun, even if just for a day or two. Spend a weekend in Newport, Rhode Island and explore the mansions along the sea. Take a drive to the Finger Lakes in New York! Just get out and go. If you catch the fever, follow it to where it takes you! If you think Clarke is going to quit working when he retires to go RVing, think again. I'll bet he is the one who dumps the waste tanks! He will likely take care of hooking up the utilities and unhooking them when ready to move! It is a great life, everyone works, everyone has fun. Welcome to the RV world!

Our destination park for the visit with my brother was Levi Jackson State Park just south of London, Ky. The signage is excellent. The trees on the road into the park need trimming badly. We will leave the park via an alternate route. Kentucky Highway 229 is much more motorhome friendly than the entrance off US 25 that is given in the directions in the campground directory. We arrived without reservations. We could have made them several days in advance, but when the awning repair was finished we were inside the reservation period. There was one site left with full hookups. They invited us to take a look at it to determine it's suitability. The site has a level concrete pad 10' x 50' with a 20' x 40' gravel patio complete with a fire ring and a sturdy picnic table. In front and behind the concrete pad is asphalt, so the total length of the pad area is about 80'. There are plenty of trees around but none will interfere with our satellite TV. With 50-amp service for $25 a night, this can't be beat. In the typical private RV park, we would have another RV between our neighbors and us, but here the sites are 60 feet wide so there is no feeling of crowding. The park is loaded with families in trailers. There is a nice swimming pool and many other recreation facilities in the park, so it is a great place to bring the family. We have one of about 12 pull-through sites. My brother lives about 3 miles from our campsite. Very convenient! The one downside is that there is absolutely no Internet service here. No Wi-Fi, our cell modems don't pick up any digital signal service. Most of the people here don't care, but we sure would be happier with service. We can get e-mail and a few other things done on the Internet while visiting my brother. He moved from Minneapolis last year about four months before FMCA was there. A year and a half after losing his job in a merger, he landed an excellent job in retail grocery. His success with the new company translated into a new position he accepted about three weeks ago. He is now the Chief Operating Officer of the parent company of the subsidiary that brought him here to London, Ky. We had a good visit and learned much about his new position. Our father, a lifelong grocer, would have popped his buttons! On Thursday we had an 8:15 tee time at a nearby golf course. The course wasn't the fanciest, but we got some practice for the golf tournament at the Monaco International Pre-Rally in Springfield, Ohio, next week. This was important, as neither of us had played golf in three months. It certainly showed. I won't disclose scores except to say that I managed to get one par late in the round, and that was an amazing improvement from the first few holes! After golf we drove into Corbin, Kentucky, just a few miles south of the golf course to eat lunch at the Colonel Harland Sanders Cafe and Museum. The museum is combined with a KFC restaurant in a re-creation of the first restaurant Sanders had in Corbin. It was here he developed his reputation for his fried chicken. The simple displays at the museum chronicle his starting days. Not a major museum, just samples of the good old days where Kentucky Fried Chicken really was fried in Kentucky. We left Saturday morning to drive to the vicinity of Springfield and the Monaco International Pre-Rally. Parking starts Sunday morning at 8 a.m. and the electric hookups are first come, first served.

Brett, Some good points here. I would consider using a different chemical than chlorine. I know this is the standard for public water systems but I haven't used chlorine in years. Chlorine is so corrosive, it chemically attacks seals and other components. I worry about what chlorine is doing to the plumbing in the motor home. Besides valves and seals, the faucets and drain hardware will be attacked by chlorine. I used to add a small amount of chlorine to any stored water but my hoses were breaking down at a high rate. Since stopping this practice, I have had many fewer hose failures. Now I concentrate on keeping the water fresh. My hoses are kept fresh by connecting ends rather than sterilizing them constantly. I use flat hoses and those are thoroughly drained and dried before storing. In addition with each use I give them a good flush with fresh water before making the connection to the motor home. I am also choosy about the water that I store. If possible I'll use the water for several days in a campground before filling the fresh water tank. If it is exceedingly hard or has any questionable characteristics, I'll not fill with that water and wait for another source if possible. Of course if boon-docking regularly we sometimes don't have a choice but then that water won't be stored for long. If water has been stored for a longer time than desired, I'll simply drain it and rinse rather than running it through the system. I always keep some water in the storage tank for emergencies so after draining I'll refill to at least half full with fresh water. Being full time it usually isn't a problem keeping the fresh water tank in good condition. It is a different game for those who use their coaches only occasionally. Finally, we have adopted the practice of purchasing filtered water in bulk for drinking purposes. I don't believe it is possible to maintain a 100% sanitary drinking water source in an RV water system given all the variables in where we get water from. It only takes one bad water source to contaminate the whole system. That combined with the fact that the fresh water is invariably found adjacent to the sewer connection both in the RV and in most campgrounds raises the likelihood of some kind of contamination for even the most conscientious person.

Steve and Lynette, Thanks for the great post! Duluth! We were just telling another couple about our visit to Duluth last summer. We stayed at the marina and loved watching the Great Lakes ships coming and going under the high bridge! Really had a fantastic time and recommend a stop there to everyone. I know what you mean about being in one place too long. We have occasionally packed up and taken a short trip during the winter and then returned to our winter home. We love our winter park and all the great people there. One year we spent two weeks at Big Bend National Park in late March. The desert plants were all in bloom and the weather was perfect for hiking. We did some 4 wheeling on some of the remote roads and just generally enjoyed the park. It was a refreshing break from the routine golf, bike rides, tennis, bowling, swimming, water volleyball and other activities at our home park. Besides the wonderful people and great activities, the advantage of staying at one winter location is that we have an annual lease on our lot. We can just show up and know our space is there for us. We have made improvements which can be sold to someone else if/when we decide to go somewhere else for the winter. The rates in south Texas are quite reasonable. If we stay five months, we are paying about $15 per night plus the electric used, about another $3 per night. Not bad for a first class facility. This coming year we will break up the winter stay with a cruise in March. We also do some weekend trips with friends. I fly small airplanes and we flew friends to Port Aransas, TX for a weekend. We are thinking our next trip to Alaska will be via the ferry on the inside passage, making stops at landings along the way for extended visits. Newfoundland is on our radar this summer. We're not sure if we'll take the coach or just the toad. There is a presentation at the FMCA convention in Bowling Green on Newfoundland. It is on my list of must see things. Not having to make definite plans is part of the joy of full timing.

AnnHester, I was reading the post, http://community.fmca.com/index.php?showtopic=244 Driver Licensing - SC and Other States when it occurred to me that you might have to consider the regulations in your home state for your drivers license if you are using your motor home in support of your business and deducting motor home expenses related to your business. If you read my post there, the response from the South Dakota drivers license bureau indicates that a commercial drivers license is not required if the motor home is used for recreational purposes only. That is South Dakota, what about your state? If their laws are similar, then you might need to get a commercial drivers license to stay on the right side of the law.

Ann, The short answer is yes, you can deduct some of your expenses while traveling in the motor home on business. The long answer will have to come from a tax attorney or a tax accountant who can sit down with you to discuss your specific situation. Things like the amount of time spent working vs. vacationing or sightseeing and visiting friends and relatives, etc. as well as whether you have a permanent home may affect how the law applies. There are IRS publications that you can use for initial guidance if you don't mind slogging through the legalese. Check the IRS website to download the latest of these. Of course those will currently be last years laws and regulations (Tax Year 2008). You will have to check again at filing time to get the latest word.

When we went full time we had some ideas of how we might plan our travels. It is apparent reading the posts and blogs that each of us has different ways of approaching the question of where shall we go? Jump in and share your thoughts and practices. One of our basic tenants is common to many full timers. We will go south in winter! However, when we began talking about going full time, I envisioned spending the winter moving from place to place across the southern US. Instead, our practice for the entire eight years of our full timing has been to return to the same RV park in southern Texas. It happened by chance that we were in Texas our first trip out in the motor home. First, I signed up for a course in flying unusual attitudes. This was near Tomball, Texas at DW Hooks Airport north of Houston. While staying at the RV park in Tomball the owners mentioned the Rio Grande Valley as a wonderful place to spend the winter. The second piece that brought us to south Texas was an offer from some friends to meet us in San Antonio. They used to live in San Antonio, really loved the area and offered to show us around. We stayed for the month of December in San Antonio. By the end of the month, the temperatures were regularly near freezing at night. On New Years Day 2002 we had to either renew for additional time at the park near San Antonio or go further south. We elected to go further south. As we drove, the temperatures got warmer, the plants were green and then there were the palm trees! We checked in at one of the 100 or so RV parks in the Rio Grande Valley. We decided to stay for a week. Before the day was out, we signed up for two weeks and then for two months. We've been back to that same park every year since. Spring and fall travels have been our time to visit family. We also take care of our doctor and dentist visits since those have to be done in the St. Louis area where our employment health insurance is based. We have family scattered across the country. One of Louise's daughters and her family live in California, another of Louise's daughters and her mother in Colorado. My mother is in the St. Louis area. My son and daughter and their families live there as well. We try to see them all whenever we can. The trips to Colorado and California are usually planned around our summer plans. The year we went to Alaska we stopped in California for a month before heading north. This spring we spent a month in Colorado before heading east to St. Louis and on to the Maritime Provinces of Canada. We'll make a swing through California this fall. Our travels in summer are typically focused on natural wonders. We explored the deserts and National Parks of California our first summer out. We followed Lewis and Clark up the Missouri River in 2004 taking side trips to Glacier, Yellowstone and Mt. St. Helens. We've spent a summer in Alaska and climbed volcanoes, walked on glaciers and traveled to the Arctic Ocean. We're always interested in nature, we hike and climb in remote and seldom visited locations. We have been to all 49 of the continental states and through most of Canada. Our summers are never stationary. We are always touring through the late spring, summer and early fall. Others have different habits of travel. Share your preferences with us. Those who are considering or new to full timing might find some interesting ideas among our experiences.

Jose and Karen, If you are using a PC, you may be able to use Microsoft Office Picture Manager. Right click on your photo and go to open with... See if MS Office Picture Manager is one of the options. If it is and you open the photo with that software, you will see at the top an edit function. One of the options under Edit is Compress Images. You can experiment with this function, it will reduce the memory required but won't crop the photo. When you compress the image the memory size is shown so you can if the image will work on the web site. You can crop and do other things with other editing functions.

Out of Foristell, Missouri, headed to London, Kentucky, we had fine weather, plenty warm, and lots of clouds. Traffic moved well, lots of road repair. Looking for Wayne77590 but no connection. He left Kentucky heading up I-64 for Missouri. We had corresponded via messages on FMCA Community but just couldn't make a meeting work for us. Our departure was delayed by an awning repair. We got away from the repair shop about 2:00 p.m. It turns out Wayne was pulling into an RV park in Villa Ridge, Missouri, about the same time. We were through the St. Louis metropolitan area by 3:00 p.m., so the rush hour was not a factor. The Illinois speed limit for motorhomes and vehicles towing trailers is 55 miles per hour, which is a very relaxing pace. We ride the slow lane and let the four-wheel zippers roll by. As the day gets later, we debate about a stopping place for the night. Our trip to London, KY, is a distance of 450 miles, so the late start and slower speed limit make an overnight stop a necessity. We stopped at a rest area along I-64 in Indiana, but it is posted no overnight parking. We decide to stop before we go through Louisville, Kentucky, and the only possibility is the ever popular Wal-Mart. There is one in Corydon, about 30 miles west of Louisville, so that is our chosen stop. We arrive and find a parking place next to a trailer that has been dropped by a truck driver. This will be a quiet neighbor. I go into the store for a few items. A check at customer service confirms that we are welcome to spend the night on the outer lot where the trucks are parked. The next morning I am up early and cleaning off the windshield and nose of the motorhome. I want fresh bugs! Besides, they are easier to remove if they haven't been sun dried! It is a rare day when we don't start out with a clean windshield. Louise is up somewhat later. We set out for Louisville well after the morning rush. Out of Louisville we pick up I-75 south, which will take us to London. We were going to stop at a rest area for lunch but somehow missed it completely. There was a sign for tourist information at one exit; perhaps that was supposed to be the rest area. Louise served up lunch on the road. Some finger food to keep me from gnawing on the steering wheel. We arrive at Levi Jackson State Park in London, Kentucky, about 2:00 p.m.

Travis, I had Dish Network for years and had a dish that we set up at each site. It would take me some time to get it aligned until I got a device (Satellite Finder, Catalog Item # 14067, now on sale $32.22). It gives a needle movement and a tone to indicate presence of signal and signal strength. While this device is in the line to the TV, you can swing the dish around until you find a satellite. I attached a short length of TV Cable to the box so I could hook it to the dish and then hook up the feed to the coach to the other side. Once the satellite is located you remove it from the circuit and store it until the next time you set up. It doesn't tell you which satellite you have. On the TV in the coach, your companion can tell if you have the correct satellite and using the menu, can tell you signal strength for fine tuning. This worked great with Dish Network and I am sure it would work as well for Direct TV. I switched to Direct TV when our new motor home came with the Direct TV equipment all set up. Their receiver worked with the KVH dish we had so we just stayed with that. Now with the KVH, I just hit a button and it finds the satellite and we have TV! Can't be easier than that. One tip a camper shared with me early on is to look for another Dish (or Direct TV if you have their service) and see where it is pointing. You'll be within a few degrees and it shouldn't be hard to find from there.

Hello F389263, Welcome to the forum. I've been over US 2 from eastern ND to Glacier NP and found it to be a delightful highway. It is mostly two lane, don't get in a rush. There are small towns, points of interest along the way and great Great Plains scenery to be seen. Along US 2 they farm wheat in sections, not acres. You'll cross the Mighty Missouri and can visit the Corps of Engineers Dam on the Missouri at Fort Peck Reservoir. There used to be camping there, check to see if there still is. This would be a nice rest stop along the way. We found a nice ice cream shop (Bergie's Ice Cream) in a shop along the highway. Look for it, a refreshing stop. The highway is a major trucking highway along the northern border so there are plenty of diesel stations. I had our generator serviced along the way at a Cummins dealer on the ND/MT border. The pavement was in good shape in 2004, the last time we traveled this route. Enjoy!

Under the Miscellaneous:General Discussion in this forum, you will find several discussions dealing with foggy and/or discolored windows. I have posted several resources in those discussions. One in particular mentions taking out the old window glass, having new glass made to match the old window and then replacing the glass. This might be the least expensive option. Also, RV Salvage yards are an inexpensive source for complete replacement windows. I have posted a listing of salvage yards as well. You will find that under General Discussion:A Great Source for Motor Home Information

I want to second Brett's comments. You may not be looking for legal advice but that is exactly what you need. You should consult an attorney who specializes in this area of law in your current home state and/or in your new state of residence. I wouldn't consult an attorney who is trying to sell you on an LLC. An attorney who is selling you something is in conflict of interest in advising you on the legality of the thing they are selling. You want to get the hard facts, not simply somebodies experience which may or may not be legal. Lots of people get away with things that aren't legal until something happens. Read the articles that tmoning posted above carefully. These people were going along happily until suddenly someone noticed that a number of RV'ers were using this method to avoid taxes and suddenly they were in trouble. In each case they clearly stated that they made a mistake and it wasn't worth the trouble they had. There is some good advice in those articles. Notice that each says they consulted an attorney. That is why I suggest you seek out an expert in the specific problem you are seeking an answer for.

Hello dbeck, Welcome to the forum. One thing you can try is to note the SAE number usually found stamped on the headlight lens near the bottom. Take this to an auto supply and see if they can match that up. This may be your cheapest replacement and should be original equipment. If this fails, tech support for Monaco is back up and answering the phones, 1-877-4Monaco (877-466-6226). They should be able to help you with a supplier for your headlights. As Bebop mentioned, your dealer is always a good resource. If you don't have a dealer, this would be a good opportunity to find a local dealer and establish a relationship with them. Having a dealer who knows you is invaluable when in a pinch.

Welcome to the forum Joe and Karen, I see from your profile that you have a National RV Tropical with Freightliner chassis and Caterpillar engine. While not specifically familiar with your coach model, I can guess that you have a large 75 - 100 gallon tank and would assume the problems with foaming of diesel fuel and feedback happens as the tank nears full. If that isn't the case, the fuel filler tube must have a sharp bend in it as Brent mentioned above. My tube is short and feeds directly into my tank. I only get feedback as the tank nears full. I solve this problem by tilting the coach away from the side I am filling on. With air suspension this is easily accomplished by raising the side used for filling while lowering the opposite side. This delays the feedback until the very last fuel into the tank. I never do this when fueling before parking as there needs to be some air space at the top of the tank for expansion due to temperature change of the fuel. If I am going to drive away from the station and go some distance then I'll pack in all the fuel that I can using this method. If you have jacks to raise your coach, tilting might be more of a problem. First, I would never use the jacks on asphalt without some boards or other support to keep them from damaging the surface. With three jacks, put the front (single jack) down first then raise the side where you will be filling. The jack arrangement is made to pivot on the front jack and tilting will not strain the chassis and will allow the fuel to flow into the tank until just the side near the fill tube is empty. If you have four jacks, the process must be done more carefully as the two jacks on the high side must be used in harmony, neither exerting more lift on the frame than the other. To do otherwise will put a twisting force on the frame. If you use the two jacks on the fill side and raise them carefully so that both are lifting the coach equally, you can tilt the coach and fill the tank near full. The foaming and feedback can be controlled by slowing the flow of fuel from the nozzle. This is more easily accomplished with the smaller nozzles common at diesel pumps for the general public. Using the diesel pumps for trucks at a truck stop gives you a larger nozzle and much higher fuel flow rate. Truck tanks typically have no tube into the tank. There is simply a hole at the top of the tank. This creates much less problems for truckers. For those of us with a filler tube, our solution is to slow the flow of fuel to reduce the feedback. When it does start to back up, best to stop rather than spill fuel. Even if you do have a sharp bend in the fill tube, tilting the motor home may help reduce the foaming and feedback as it would increase the slope of the angle of the tube where it enters the tank. This should allow the fuel to flow faster into the tank and reduce feedback. If this doesn't work, you may just have to slowly fill the tank and deal with the feedback as it occurs.

I agree with Brett. Our waste tank sensors haven't read accurately for the last three of the five years we have owned our motor home. Experience will tell you how long you can go without emptying the black water tank. It does fill amazingly slowly. Ours is a 40 gallon tank and the two of us working as hard as we can will take almost two weeks to fill the tank! I make a note on the calendar when I dump the tank and then plan to dump again in about 10 to 12 days. I always try to have the tank near or above 3/4 full before dumping. If possible I like to dump the black water tank just after a good day's driving. I have never used ice. I do carry several buckets (2 gallon) which I use for washing and cleaning the outside of the RV and toad. When I dump the black water tank, I'll pour several buckets of water directly down the toilet. This is much more effective than using a hose or sprayer. With the bucket I put 2 gallons down the toilet in about 5 seconds. This breaks up solids in the drop zone right under the toilet. We have a sprayer rinse built into our coach. Even after using it and getting a clear stream of water flowing from the black water tank, using the buckets will bring out dark water with some TP for several buckets. After the third or fourth, the water finally runs clear with the bucket dump. How, you ask, do I know this? I have a clear plastic piece between the tank outlet and the hose. I stay outside while Louise dumps buckets of water down the toilet. We keep dumping until the water runs clear. We never need to use more than three or four buckets of water. I can also get a sense of how much water is in the waste tanks by watching the sensor for the fresh water. That sensor does accurately register the level of water. As our use approaches 60 gallons, the capacity of our gray water tank, I know we are approaching a full gray water tank.

Thank you guys! Great information. I've bookmarked the fuel price sites and use MapQuest but hadn't picked up on the fuel prices on that site. The information comparing prices of the majors with other suppliers will be useful to many of our members. We all appreciate saving a little money on fuel!

Thanks Tireman9! I'm enjoying learning about tires from you! The high pressure warning was a temperature thing. We had been near Crater Lake in Oregon and were in Sacramento when the alarm went off. We had been at altitude in Oregon for some time and I do adjust pressure to keep it on target for this kind of change. Coming from the mountains and the cool temperatures into a near 100 degree day in Sacramento and then sitting in traffic with the sun shining on one side of the coach was I think the cause. At least the sun was the final factor as the tires on the shaded side of the coach were not affected. Their pressure was high but not high enough to set the alarm off. Even the inside dual on the sunny side was not affected, only the outside dual and the front tire on the coach. For Gary, I have been in the rear of the coach when Louise is driving and have never noticed any unusual vibration from unbalanced tires. It is also possible to sense the vibration of the rear tires in the drivers seat. The vibration of the drivers seat is primarily a result of the rear of the coach while the steering wheel action is a good indicator of the vibration of the steer tires. I'll balance the rear tires next time and see if I can tell the difference.

Welcome stearn, Go to the conventions tab at the top of this page. Select: Conventions:Bowling Green:Family Registration Down near the bottom of the registration form is the category passport. The rate shown is for two people. Passport is for admission to the ground without motor home parking. As you can see, you won't save much over the people who register for motor home parking without services. You might as well bring your motor home and stay on the grounds. It is really convenient to have a place to put up your feet between activities. There are so many great things to do and see. Tour the motor homes on display, visit vendors, take in the entertainment, take in some of the great variety of workshops or just get some free ice cream and visit with other FMCA members. Whatever you do, don't miss this convention! See you there!