richard5933

The original stories covering this were about evaluating how to tweak nation-wide travel to make it safer, not to prohibit travel to/from Florida or any other state. It quickly devolved into a political story by those wishing to score points. I just did the recommended Google search and it seems that there is a lot of click bait being published intended to do nothing more than get eyes on their websites. They got the eyes on their stories and now it's grown legs of its own. Doesn't seem like there's a need to stress out over this.

That was one wild accident, and thank God she made it out in one piece.

This is the kind I've seen used by a few people and they certainly look to be the easiest to put on and to put away. I especially like that there is no need to put your arm into the wheel well.

The easiest ones to use that I've seen are just rectangular fabric with a reinforcing band across the top. They connect to the side of the coach with four snaps on the outside of the wheel opening and after install are even with the side of the coach and not against the tires. If I was to use tire covers these would be what I'd use for a couple of reasons. They don't require you to put your arms inside the wheel openings at all, and they provide an air space between the sun shield and the tire, meaning that any heat from the sun on the fabric won't transfer to the tires. When I've seen them used in campgrounds they seem to store easily as well.

Best is to have them at rest - no loads for half an hour or so before testing.

I remember back in the 70s many of the main roads in Dallas were still mounded up quite a few feet higher than the secondary roads. Most of the major streets were still just two lanes, not the six+ lane roads that are there now. When there was ice like you're describing, it was sometimes impossible to get out of our neighborhood since doing so required climbing quite a hill to get up onto the main roads - we were surrounded by Hillcrest, Preston, Belt Line, and Spring Valley in north Dallas, and all of them were like this. After decades of living in NY & NJ, my father thought he was an expert at winter driving. Sure enough, first time out in a winter storm and wouldn't you know he slid right off the road into the ditch trying to cross Preston Road. Guess he was so used to driving with studded snow tires that he didn't think twice about it, ice or no ice. Only this time he didn't have the studded tires any more. There's at least one thing we do differently up here in winter vs. in the south - Either four wheel drive, snow tires, or both. Lots of people try to get by with all-season radials, but like many all-season RVs they're not really good at all 4 seasons. Night and day difference having the proper tires and four wheel drive. My first winter up here I had my old 2wd Ford Ranger - even with a couple hundred pounds of sand in the bed it was horrible. One didn't even make it through the first winter before trading it in for a Jeep.

My father's territory had included Texas and the Southwest for years when he worked as a grunt in a stock brokerage house in NY. A firm was opening a new Dallas office and offered him a position - he jumped at the chance. Besides wanting out of NY, he saw a future which included trying to put four kids through college which was much more affordable in Texas. So in the summer of 1976 he came home one day and announced we were moving. And that was that.

I see there was quite the weather-related mayhem on I35W in Ft. Worth this week. I remember when we moved to Dallas in 1976 from the NY/NJ area. It was almost humorous how unprepared the city was for winter weather, having to use road graders to clear snow. Hope things have gotten better.

Thanks Wayne. I already have a really nice mesh WiFi network which provides great coverage to all the areas where the Ring devices are located. They problems with the doorbell are really simple and quite disappointing - the doorbell uses a lithium battery for power. The hard wire option doesn't actually power the unit, instead it merely works to keep the battery charged. As we all know, lithium batteries won't charge below a certain temperature, so having it hard wired really doesn't help in winter here. The battery will discharge quickly, sometimes in less than a day. Can't for the life of me figure out why they can't simply use the hard wired power supply to just run the door bell directly - the battery pack is large enough to house a simple converter. Maybe I'll have to engineer one myself. The problem with the floodcam is purely quality related - when temps drop to a certain point poorly constructed or low quality components can fail. It appears that's what's happened and the very cold temps simply lowered the ability of the camera to transmit and receive the WiFi signal very far.

Let's put it this way - it's been cold enough here that one of my Ring floodcams stopped working. After hours on the phone with Ring (real people, in Arizona) I finally got someone on the phone who knew what was going on. Apparently their devices, even the hardwired ones, will not be reliable below 10F. Great. Don't even get me started on trying to use one of their door bells in the cold, even one with a hardwired supply to keep the battery charged. I miss the old days when we just had a door knocker and a ding-dong bell over the front door. It wasn't fancy but it always worked.

An axe was standard issue emergency gear on vintage coaches like mine. Never thought about putting it back in the holder - maybe I should.

I know you did, but I don't see that in the current tire book from Hankook. Did I miss it?

Looks like Hankook does not have the exact size you need, if you want to stick to the identical dimensions. You can go slightly up with the 12R22.5 or slightly down with the 11R22.5, but neither are spot on. There are other options from other brands with the correct size. Load ratings are included in the Hankook book. They list the tires by the ply rating, and in the back of the book is a chart which converts the ply rating to the letter designation.

Western Clipper built buses - this thing looks like one of their buses which has been shrunk down by a few feet. Would be a fun project.

This is why buses all have roof exits in addition to the tilt-out/pop-out side windows. A friend of mine has some vintage bus conversions which he's put back in commercial service running party rentals, and the state made him put the roof escape hatches back in for this reason before signing off on the safety inspection.

Like I mentioned earlier, some fuel stops have a per-transaction fee in addition to the TSD fee. That transaction fee is passed onto the fuel stop, not TSD IIRC. Not all stores carrying a particular brand name are corporate stores, and it's my understanding that because of that they don't all have the same negotiated prices and fees.

I guess it's all what you get used to. To be honest, as much as I learned to function in the heat I never liked it. Twenty-five years in the south (mainly Texas, a few years in other states) was enough. I was thrilled to finally be in a state where there are four seasons, and I love being able to camp in the summer with the windows open and the a/c off. To me the summer heat (and spring and fall sometimes) was oppressive and I couldn't take off enough clothing to be comfortable. In the winter, even with the sub-zero temps, it's possible to work & play outside if you're properly dressed. A few years ago when we had two horses, I spent 11 hours out in the sub-zero weather clearing snow, tending to the horses, and then clearing more snow. And yes, it certainly can snow when it's that cold. Does that mean I always love the cold? Not at all. There are times in the middle of winter I get terribly frustrated in how long it takes to get ready to go outside, and this year has been particularly tough since much of what we'd enjoy doing is also closed due to Covid-19 so cabin fever is certainly setting in.

That's not an arctic blast - that a pleasant spring day. Wind chill this weekend was -30F with actual temps of -14F. Not looking much better through the next week. We've had actual temps down to -20F and colder in the past.

Maybe you've licked the fire risk, but there could still be plenty of reasons to be prepared to make an emergency exit including collision and/or rollover. Good to have a plan and to be practiced in executing it. If you have an emergency exit on one side only, be sure to figure out what you'll do when you have to exit on the other side of the coach or through the roof. For many situations kicking out the windshield is a viable exit plan.

If that's as old as it looks, I wouldn't be surprised if the entire thing was made in that backyard. Not that difficult to put something like that together using basic hand tools. That's how lots of the earlier campers were built.

When our coach was involved in a head-on collision a few years back we were forced to bail out using a side window similar to what you're talking about. It sure looked like a long way down when you look out, but it's not really as bad as it seems. We put our feet out first and grabbed on to the window edge as we lowered ourselves down. By the time we were out and hanging by the window's edge, our feet were only about 2-3 feet off the ground. If you want something to give you more confidence as you climb out, perhaps something like this could be stored in the cabinet next to that window: https://familyrvingmag.com/2013/02/01/rv-escape-ladder/ Would be a good idea to actually practice once or twice, regardless of which method you choose. Put on your sweats and actually give it a go when you have all the time in the world AND someone standing by to lend a hand in case you need it. This way you'll have confidence that you can safely get out should the need ever arise and won't immediately start to panic. Nothing like being prepared and practiced to help get you through an otherwise very difficult situation.

Here's a quote from the TSD website: Our fee is 10% of the savings per gallon and up to 15% for commercial. So if the retail cost is $3.00 per gallon and our cost is $2.50 per gallon, your fee will be 5 cents per gallon.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Crestline

I think it would be a blast to pull into a campground with one of those. But then again I'm partial to vintage vehicles.

My method is to plan the route I want first, then try and find campgrounds along my preferred route. I'll usually bring up the general area on Google Maps, and then in the search box type "campgrounds near here" and see what pops up. Then I cross reference to my usual discounts, etc, etc. On occasion I have changed my route due to lack of suitable campgrounds. Any particular reason you are routing through Chicago and into Wisconsin? As much as I think Wisconsin is a great place to visit, you're going out of your way if Iowa is your destination. A couple of suggestions: In Belvidere IL there is a small airstrip - Poplar Grove Airport. They have an airport museum which is part of Harvest Host. This would make a great stopover point as you head north and is well worth the time if you have any interest in vintage planes. The airport is very welcoming and you can actually walk from hanger to hanger and talk with the vintage plane owners. In Rockford there is a great Japanese garden - Anderson Gardens - which is well worth a visit as well. From Rockford you can head west on US 20 all the way to Dubuque and totally avoid the traffic and congestion in Chicagoland. Or, you can continue north on I-39 towards Janesville and on to Madison WI where there are a few campgrounds. If you're going through Iowa in the summer Davenport has a great street festival in downtown, and just north of there is Le Claire which makes for a great stop over point as well. They allow overnight parking in the lot along the Mississippi and you can go visit the Antique Archeology store while you're there.