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Lee, since you initially posted I have taken delivery of my coach and purchased my car hauler (enclosed) to tow my Harley Trike and Mini. Haven't ran across the scales yet but just going by the listed manufacturers weight I will probably see my loaded trailer come in about 8,000 pounds. That is adding up all the listed weights of vehicles and the trailer plus about 300 for extra gear. Not sure how much your car will weigh or if you are thinking a regular 24' car hauler, but you should easily be able to stay below 10,000 pounds. I'm confident my 400hp will handle all of this and more just fine.

Many different view points on having firearms in our coaches and/or the need for them in the first place. Everyone has their own feelings based on life experiences and view points. I basically went from military service and VN to a career in law enforcement. Unfortunately I have seen first hand how cruel people in our "peaceful land" can be to each other. The chances of becoming the victim of a violent crime while traveling around the country in a motorhome is probably 10% or less. If you are unarmed and counting on dialing 911 to save yourself or your spouse then all I can say is good luck to you because you will suffer greatly. If you are aware that there are cruel individuals all over this country that will slit your throat for enough money to purchase a gram of crack cocaine, and you stay vigilant and maintain a firearm for self defense, then there is probably less than a 1% chance you will be the victim of a violent crime. My beliefs are not based on what I have seen on television, they are not based on any political agenda or affiliation, they are based on what I have watched happen to good honest citizens by the thousands of scum bags throughout this country. If putting your interior step cover in place at night doesn't work for you, then you may consider a night chain. I have a hand rail just inside the door on my 4369 floorplan. I simply have a length of small heavy gold tone chain that goes from it to around the door handle. I'm sure someone strong enough could break it with enough tries or force, but in the meantime it should wake everyone in the coach up.

I carry 24/7. In addition there is still a weapon available for my DW when I'm not around. I have never really felt threatened while traveling. For me it is more out of habit. After 34 years a LEO it is just second nature. I am probably more serious about it the last few years because of all the mass shootings all over our nation. I certainly would not want to be close to a horrible situation like that and not be able to help innocent people by hopefully putting a well placed bullet into the head of the shooting scumbag. I like a small 5 shot revolver for everyday carry, loaded with self defense loads. The other handgun is a 9mm Smith auto with a much larger capacity. I have a sawed off 12 gauge loaded with #4 but it would have to be a pretty drastic situation before I would ever dig that thing out. Now that I'm full timing I should probably just get rid of it altogether.

Carl, I can't begin to describe my excitement. There is no buyers remorse, or at least not yet. Delivery day was a long one. The walk around demo took every bit of 2 hours. I asked a lot of questions and Cindy took video of their presentation of some of the stuff. Since we had moved onto our other coach it also took us a couple hours to transfer stuff over. Anyway, when we left the dealership we were pretty beat up and just wanted to get back to the CG and set up, which was only one exit away. When I got to my site I had to do a little back and forth so I was positioned just right with my new enclosed trailer. Anyway, while backing up and hearing the "beep beep" of the backup alarm plus air being released from the brakes.......it was a feeling hard to describe.......almost like getting your first big bicycle when you were a little kid, or when you hit your teens and Sally Rotten Crotch agreed to go out with you......it was just pure EXCITEMENT! After living in it for over a week and traveling in it for just under 5 miles......it is great! Before anyone runs out and deals on one based on my vast experience they probably should consult someone who has actually owned a Ventana and traveled in one for a little longer than me. All joking aside, I really love the coach and I'm thinking it will be a good one for us to full time in.

It will be interesting to see if this new Sprint plan roll out was any better coordinated and organized than the Verizon one.

Thanks for taking the time to respond. Just before I pulled the trigger on one of the UPS Stores in Cape Coral we decided to go another direction. A good family friend had purchased a condo and moved to our area of SW Florida last year. She is there all year and offered to let us use her address. When we were full time previously we did the same thing, except we used our oldest son's address in Illinois. We have everything changed over (DL, registrations, etc.) and the mail is being forwarded to her residence. It works out very well because we were already a key holder for her place and she was one for ours. When we travel we will stay in touch with her and she can forward us our mail. We plan on leaving her the large soft envelopes she can stuff with our mail for forwarding. I will keep in mind your advise though. If something happens and we have to go another route someday I certainly will look at Escapees.

Just checked the old paperwork for the Cornerstone extended warranty on my traded coach. It was a pretty good deal at 5 years for just over $1,700 that included the engine/tranny plus coach. Since we only had it for just about 1.5 years there should be well over $1,000 coming back from it. So I guess another way to look at it is having the protection on my old coach cost me around $20 some dollars a month. Cornerstone (USA Travel Care) can be pretty reasonable if the dealer doesn't try to make 100% to 150% off the deal.

When it was all said and done I bought another Cornerstone extended warranty. It was a slightly different program than with my used gas coach. I didn't want extra coverage to duplicate the engine to 60,000 miles but wanted more coverage after the Newmar warranty ran out. So I got the Cornerstone one that excludes the diesel but covers most of the rest of the coach. It was barely over $3,000 for 5 years, which in reality is only 4 years because of the Newmar warranty. I guess I'm willing to basically buy $750 worth of insurance a year against having to replace an air conditioner, residential frig, Oasis, or any number of coach items. It is a gamble one way or another.

Well, I didn't have any "skin in the game" when FMCA dropped their mail service. If I was full timing when they did drop it I wouldn't be a happy camper. After having just went through a change of address for everything I can tell you it is not an easy feat. Making excuses and thinking it was okay for them to drop it by saying "well we had the program for 30 years" is like saying "she was faithful for the first 30 years of their marriage....but...". Smitty, I expect you to defend everything FMCA does because that is what they are paying you for. If I were in your position I would be saying the exact same thing. But like I said we weren't members back then so it doesn't matter.

As a Florida resident when I turned 65 this year my requirement to have a fishing license went away. So if Florida would be part of a national/federal fishing license program how could they possibly come out on top? They get millions of visitors each year that buy fishing license and permits. If that would be replaced with a small cut from the proceeds of a national license program I don't think it would make them enough money.

Carl, bet you are happy all those sport coats you have been saving are coming back in style! Now which one are you?

I grew up in State Farm's home town (Bloomington IL). As big as they have gotten over the past 50 years I suspect there are not any bigger devoted customers as you Byron! It sounds like you really like them, but you should really do yourself a favor and shop around for insurance every couple of years. I just received quotes from several major companies because we are switching from a 2014 gas MH to a new DP. Premiums ranged from $2,100 a year to well over $4,400. Good Sams being the cheapest and State Farm and Progressive being the most expensive. Others like USAA were in between. I know it depends on where your address is and some other factors but if I just blindly stayed with my old hometown company I would be paying almost double for my MH insurance. I don't love anyone that much my friend!!!

So if I am in my first year of membership and have only 10 months left, in order to sign up for this Verizon deal I would have to add two full years to my membership? Because if I just renewed now for another year I still would not have a full two years remaining.

This should have been perfect timing for us. We are closing on the house and moving aboard full time Saturday morning. We were going to re-activate our MiFi and go unlimited on our current Verizon plan. But then we saw this deal and thought it would be perfect......then we read all the posts and found out there was "fine print" and it wasn't so perfect. Being a first year member (actually less than 2 months in) I don't think I am ready to start adding years to my membership just because they dangle an untested benefit out there. Will it be like the prior mail service and be around for awhile and then get taken away? It still seems to me that I have joined a motorhome forum that is in a transition period so I will wait and see how everything shakes out before biting on this "new deal".

This is what I use on my Harley and have started using it on my RV's because I generally get stuck washing them with CG hard water. Get a bottle of McGuires Gold Car Wash and a bottle of Turtle Ice Car Wash, mix them 50/50. Use this blend as your soap. Only wash and rinse about 1/3 of a side at a time and squeegee it off with a very soft blade. You can also use a micro fiber towel to finish drying areas you can reach from the ground. I only wax my RV once a year but when I wash them I use this process and it makes them look like they were just waxed again. Of course I wax the Harley several times a year and use a leaf blower to dry it. I won't use anything but 303 on my tires and anything else that is plastic, including rooftop air conditioner covers, etc.

We do still have the old coach, it is set up on a super site about 10 miles from our house. We will only be in it for about 2 days/nights or so before being in the new one. Got a buddy coming by tomorrow with his pickup to help me haul some larger stuff out to our camp site. We will get er done, some gets thrown out, some gets taken to CG, some goes to storage, some goes on garage sale........won't be long now.

DBH, welcome. I bought my only new RV through Lazy Days (Tampa) a few years ago. The sales part went great, but when we passed through a few months later I had an appointment set up for a few minor warranty issues. They didn't get them done that trip and during one more appointment a couple months later. Lazy Days blamed Keystone RV and Keystone RV blamed Lazy Days of course. I ended up fixing it all myself. Swore I would never buy any type of new RV again, only used ones. Now here I am getting ready to take delivery of a new Newmar. I am just holding my breath not only that I am getting a decent coach but that North Trail where I am buying it will live up to their reputation. We will see. Generally a lot of new RVs end of being pretty good and you don't have to depend on shabby dealerships after the first few bugs are worked out.

We have always taken preventive measures with our RV's just like we did with our motor yachts when dry docked. In the storage/basement/bilge areas we keep dryer sheets spread around even when we are using the RV/boat. While in storage we will spread another box full throughout all living areas. Also when stored not only is all the food taken off but everything is cleaned really good around the kitchen/galley area. The only time we have had a problem was 18 months ago when we purchased our used gas coach from a rural Illinois dealer. We inherited a couple mice with it. After a week I had them trapped and the dryer sheets kept them away after that.

No time after closing Friday to vacate. Possession is immediate for the young couple buying our home. Since they are buying all of our furniture, except my 60" TV and one chair, we only have personal items and clothing to move. It is still a lot of "stuff" to pack and move, especially when each load is being transported in a Mini Cooper. Have a small moving truck reserved for Thursday with a 12' box so we can take the final load to storage. Next week may be early cocktails in the CG pool every day!

House closing got moved up to this Friday, so I made a couple calls trying to get our coach delivery moved to the next day, Saturday. Haven't heard back so we still may have to suffer through next weekend and take delivery on Monday. Oh well, it is easy to keep my mind off of it cause we are busting our butts packing and moving stuff.

I guess I took the opposite approach as far as securing mine. I had the "black box" with a lock and got tired of messing with the bulky mess plus I felt I was advertising to everyone that what was hanging out of the end was expensive. I took the box off and used about a whole roll of black electrical tape to join the two together. From a distance you can hardly tell I have a surge protector on the end plugged in, and if you get close it almost looks like something I made myself because I have it wrapped with electrical tape. Maybe a dump crack head thief will slip his knife in between there to cut the tape without turning off the breaker! heeeeheeee

Jim makes some valid points, as does Bill (Adams). From a new member prospective I'm not thrilled I joined an RV club for coaches only to discover they were about to open it up to all RVers. I guess my thinking is if it eventually gets "watered" down concentrating on popups, tow behinds, and fivers then to me it is just another RV club. I certainly did not join thinking I would need to recruit other new members. We are not rally people nor are we interested in joining a club within a club. We anticipate traveling much of the year and at 65 years of age we have much of the U.S. to explore yet. I will let it all play out and wait and see. I have my .25 cent plastic placard from FMCA mounted on the coach and if someone asks me about the organization I will fill them in, but it is their dime and I'm certainly not going to be giving them any type of sales pitch.

I am really at the bottom of the knowledge food chain when it comes to DP information. What I observed during my recent buying search was that newer DP's in the 40' to 45' range with tag axles generally were rated to flat tow 15,000. Many times tongue weight was limited to around 1,500. That really didn't change much with coaches that had a 400hp, a 450hp, or higher. I'm sure there are some long tag axles coaches out there with 600hp diesels that can tow over 20,000 but we never looked at any.

Still 12 days to go before delivery. DW has already bought the jumbo vac storage bag for all the OEM bedding. That will be sealed and placed in our storage locker. I'm lucky that she really likes our colors on our S&B king bed because that is what she wants in the new coach. We were really dreading this upcoming week of trying to sell furniture and then moving unsold stuff to our storage locker. The young couple buying our home came by yesterday and looked all of our furniture over. Except for 2 or 3 pieces they are buying everything! How did I get sooooooo lucky?

Years ago when I had my first fiver and paid for the hard wired system to be installed I had read on different forums about the portable ones getting stolen. That was part of the reason I spent the extra on the hard wired version, that plus we were full time then. But now several years have passed and I have never actually met anyone who has had a portable surge protector stolen nor have I read about it happening on a regular basis on any of the forums. I just don't believe it is a common occurrence. I not saying it doesn't happen, just not very often. Cars are stolen all over the U.S. every minute of every day, does that mean we all stop having them as toads and keep them in locked trailers?