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ispjs

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Everything posted by ispjs

  1. We will see how long it lasts. My manufacturer instructions say you are suppose to clean and then put a coating of 303 on it every month. I suspect if an owner did that and never missed a month it may last a long time.
  2. There are certainly parts of the Caloosahatchee river that can be scenic. Please do not walk your pet next to those waters or dangle your feet in them unless you want some really good close up shots of large gators coming up out of the water! Seriously, I'm glad you folks are enjoying SW Florida. It is crowded this time of year but has a lot to offer.
  3. No way I'm getting rid of my backup alarm!!!!! The U.S. Army put me in my first diesel tractor trailer when I was 17 years old and taught me to drive it and maintain it. Now almost 50 years later I'm getting the opportunity to have another diesel that makes noise. I get goose bumps when my back up alarm is going off or air is being released from the brakes!!!!! If my DW would let me I would put a set of twin exhaust stacks on the rear of the coach.
  4. Skimmers are huge recently in SW Florida. I think the news said the other night that just in Cape Coral alone since the first of the year they have found over a dozen. Yesterday we needed gas in both the car and bike. Had a $100 rewards Shell card so I went to the closest Shell station and filled up the Mini Cooper. Later that afternoon I was in a different part of town and stopped at another Shell station on motorcycle. $100 rewards card declined. Went inside and they said the system was only taking regular credit cards. I only pumped $2.00 so on the way back through town I could try another Shell to use the rewards card. Ended up back at the same Shell station where I had filled up my car that morning. Shell rewards card refused at pump outside. Cancelled transaction and put my Shell card in, it was also refused. I went inside and they said all credit cards were being refused except debit. Now how goofy is all of this? Was Shell having computer issues throughout the area? Was my regular Shell credit card refused the second time I used it because of a previous $2.00 fuel charge? Not sure what happened but by the end of the day I was about as happy with Shell as I was with Loves.
  5. Yes Brett, they had the correct amount and gallons that was reflected on the pump.
  6. A short RV such as yours should be extremely easy to back almost anywhere. You just need to do some practice to gain confidence. Get out and make sure nothing is in the way on the site you are backing into. It is always easier to back in from driver's side, but you will still have to get used to using both side mirrors. If you get half way in and are not sure how close something is on your blind side, then secure in place, get out and look. There is no huge hurry when trying to safely back into a camp site. You need to manage your backing skills as quickly as possible IMHO if full timing. There could be situations during the day while traveling that you will need to backup without 2 or 3 folks out there helping you.
  7. If you originally pay $4,000 to $5,000 and then every year kick in another $500 to $600, then I suppose figuring an average of $9.00 plus per night of camping would make some folks happy. When we were full time before we averaged about $9,000 a year to $10,000 a year in camping fees. That is still less than $30.00 a night average. We never boon docked or dry camped, but we stayed in decent CG's and always had 50amp and good hook-ups. This time around with a different RV we plan on mixing in some boon docking and dry camping and expect our annual to stay between $8,000 and $9,000, which will average less than $25.00 per day. The thing is we can go where we want to and plan our travels based on where we want to go, not based on where TT has camp sites we have to use.
  8. It very well may work for some folks. For us as full timers we like to plan our year targeting different parts of the country. As the year goes on that may or may not change, but we always have the option of doing and going where we want when we want. I'm just not going to pay a high membership to some company to stay in a bunch of different parks, some of which I have now experienced first hand are nasty. If we were part time and only staying in one section of the country then possibly TT would be okay.
  9. Weighed at Love's for the second time in a month, this time with the loaded trailer hooked up of course. Increased my gross by 9,700. Max on my Ventana is 15,000 so I'm good there plus my tongue weight was great. Discussed the whole length issue in prior posts. Just like this trip we are staying on interstate highways and U.S. highways. We will see what happens. In my CG at Upriver I am certainly not the longest combination here. There are some 45' coaches pulling 28' to 30' triple axle enclosed.
  10. I guess we are in the same group then. Someone in Clermont told us that the CG was their HQ and flagship park! OMG, if this was one of their nicest parks I'm not sure how they ever get any RVer to sign up for a regular membership. What really put us off was our camping neighbor. He was outside his big Dutch Star and didn't bother to introduce himself but instead just went into a sales pitch on Thousand Trails membership and then right into another sales pitch on the Newmar Kountry Club. I told him we had looked at both of these options and were not really interested. His DW went into their coach and returned with handouts. Told him again we were not interested. That was it, they were done talking to us and went on about their business. I finished what I was doing and threw away their stupid handouts. It was obvious he was trying to get us to sign up for something so they could get some type of credit or discount. I'm sure there are many great folks using the Thousand Trail's membership, this guy certainly wasn't one of them.
  11. I was confusing Escapees with Thousand Trails for some reason. The park in Clermont we visited was Thousand Trail's, the Escapee's park that does the 4 corner weights in Florida is Busnell. We will be making a run to Tampa next month for a few days to watch our grandson play baseball, then in March we will be staying in St. Augustine for a few days on the way out of Florida. I may try to get up/over to Busnell for that weigh in during one of these runs.
  12. I was confusing Escapees with Thousand Trails for some reason. The park in Clermont we visited was Thousand Trail's, the Escapee's park that does the 4 corner weights in Florida is Busnell. We will be making a run to Tampa next month for a few days to watch our grandson play baseball, then in March we will be staying in St. Augustine for a few days on the way out of Florida. I may try to get up/over to Busnell for that weigh in during one of these runs.
  13. This will be like hijacking my own thread, but since Wayne brought it up......yes, wide turns! When we hooked up and left our site there were no issues. We are just over 72' long and our site is around 85'. With the turning tag I only cut into about 3 feet of grass at the end of the site leaving. Went up U.S. routes to Clermont and though a couple construction zones, no issues. Got to the Thousands Trail's park, backed the trailer into a space and dropped it, no problem. Found a pull through site we could fit in without trailer, not an issue. When we left you have to exit back out onto U.S. Route 27. There is no cut median and you have to go north only (right turn). So I went north and turned into a Publix, followed the edge of their lot to another side exit, turned right, followed a service road one block to another right turn, and that road came back out onto Rt. 27 and a stop light intersection. Of course I had scoped all this out on the Harley the day before. There were some close turns and I needed more than my lane but never once touched my trailer tires on any curbs (gold star). Returned to CG in North Ft. Myers via I-4 to I-75. Stopped in a rest area on I-75 south of Tampa. Confirmed that we are slightly longer than 90% of the big rigs out there. Again, pulling out from a space was close but not an issue because I really think the turning tag makes all the difference in the world. When we got to our site I had to do some serious slow cuts and then saw it back and forth twice on my site to straighten it out, but again no problem. The whole trip was a pleasure and I can't wait to get on the road the end of March!
  14. We just returned from a 3 day stay at the Thousand Trails CG in Clermont. The only reason we picked it was there were friends staying there for a week and we needed to do a shake down cruise in our new coach. There were pluses and minuses to the park. However we would never consider staying there again. It was a plus that it is so close to Disney. I am sure that was why there were so many camped there. The only other plus was that the hook ups where good. The sites were very narrow and most of them positioned you so that your door side was next to your neighbor's door side, with maybe 10 feet between. The MH in the site next to us put their awning out and it was within 2 feet of touching our slide! I realize they have a pool and clubhouse but $67 per night for grass/gravel narrow pull through sites is a joke. I'm not sure why anyone would actually join this organization on an annual basis unless some of their other parks are much nicer.
  15. We looked at what 1,000 Trail's had to offer in their membership packages a few years ago. It just wasn't for us at the time. We wanted to make another short "shake down" run in our new coach so we are currently in their CG up in Clermont FL. Some friends of ours had a few free nights and were camped up here so we made the run. Naturally that led me to review all their information again about signing up. It still seemed a little expensive unless you strictly obligated yourself to constantly stay in their parks and no place else. Based on what I am seeing being up here in their Clermont facility, no thank you. There are some positives here. When I pulled in with my 24' enclosed I already knew that there were no sites either long enough or I could possibly get to hooked up. They had a parking area with plenty of space to drop my trailer. However, you had to be skilled with the limited space and even at that if my coach did not have a turning tag I don't think I could have spotted my trailer and dropped it. They have a restaurant on site which we thought was a plus. We visited it last night with our friends. They paid and got their dinner and when it was our turn they informed us they were out of food. Should have got there around 4pm I guess. The negatives are many. You will probably never see another CG with tighter sites, most of which position you door-to-door with a neighbor. We were next to a Dutch Star and he was faster at putting his awning out so ours had to stay in. On our other side is a nice young family so there are bicycles and toys thrown all over the place. The good thing is with all these winding narrow roads and 900 plus sites it is easy to find our spot when returning because we just look for all the junk sitting around. I suspect many visit this park simply because you can visit attractions in Orlando. I can't imagine staying here longer than a few days.
  16. I was stewing so much about this stupid receipt from Loves that I called the manager of that facility yesterday. I provided him the information from the "hold" receipt and it only took him about 30 seconds to pull up my actual pump receipt. He gave me all the details of the transaction and asked me if I wanted him to email the actual receipt that will be charged. We then had a conversation about how to avoid this in the future. He hinted around that the clerk should have given my DW a second receipt showing all the actual transaction information. He gave me the general information on some type of loyality Loves card also. He also said if an RVer called Loves corporate offices it "may" be possible to obtain a business type credit account so you could do all transactions at the pump and not come inside. I agree about most interstate truck stops being higher priced on fuel. When I fueled that day Loves was 3.13, the closest Pilot was 3.09, and most of the city stations with diesel, which I could not have used anyway, were anywhere from 2.95 to 2.99. We always stuck with Flying J's and Pilot's before due to using our card/PIN at the pump to get things started. On the diesel truck lane side you will have to go inside to get the final receipt but so do 90% of the truckers, and I never minded that part of it. You usually always have a place to park if you want to take a break, assuming that is you can back your rig up.
  17. When we got our first MH it was a gasser. Coming from a fiver one of the things I missed the most was fueling in truck lanes at truck stops. We generally liked Flying J and Pilot but would use a Loves once and awhile. Yesterday I stopped at a Loves to top off and run across the scales. I had the DW run inside with a CC since the pumps in the truck diesel lane wouldn't take it, plus I knew as soon as I was fueled up I wanted to pull around and get on the scale. When all was said and done the DW came out and we took off. When she looked at the receipt closer to record our mileage and gallons used she discovered that the clerk had simply provided a receipt for a $150.00 hold on our credit card! No gallons, no exact amount, nothing. I'm going to have to be running out of fuel before I ever visit another Loves again. She told me what the conversation was when she initially went inside. He wanted to know the amount we were going to pump. She told him probably around 50 gallons. He said he needed an amount. She told him she wasn't sure the price per gallon and asked him if he could just figure an amount for around 50 gallons since we wanted to top off. He must have thought that was too much effort and just ran the $150.00.
  18. That isn't the only Escapees park in Florida because we are headed to one in Clermont (outside Orlando). That would have been great if their park in Clermont was where they did 4 corner weights! Pretty fired up about heading out. Little tight getting off my site with this wagon train but the real issue will be putting it back on this Thursday. I have left and returned with the coach but never hooked up to the enclosed. Will be putting that turning tag to the test.
  19. What I have always done is divide the axle weight in half of course. Then I generally add a couple hundred pounds or go up to the next set number on the tire chart. I see your point though. My current rig has FWS with frig, couch, and dinette among other things in it. Other side has smaller couch, galley, and bed. Depending on how holding tanks are mounted along with the Oasis down below I guess one side could be a few hundred pounds different than the other. First things first, tomorrow morning will be the first fully loaded trip pulling enclosed trailer. When we take off I will head to the Pilot station to top off and run across scales again. I really want to get an idea on what tongue weight I am going to have. Then I will probably start thinking about where to get 4 corner weight done.
  20. I've always considered myself picky about knowing my axle weights and keeping my tires adjusted accordingly. I have never felt the need to go out of my way to have a 4-corner weight done. What is everyone's experiences that have these done? Do you find that one side is 2,000 pounds heavier than the other? There would have to be some pretty extreme differences to even show up on a tire manufacturer weight chart, therefore leading you to make adjustments. Just wondering.
  21. Just started our second month of the Verizon Unlimited (they now call it Beyond Unlimited). We never stream or download anything, just look at a few internet sites and the DW checks FB a couple times a day. The first month on this plan our MiFi blasted threw the 15g in less than 3 weeks. Yesterday we used almost 10g!!!!!! I was on a couple forums and some other sites for about an hour at two different times and my DW spent a couple hours running TurboTax doing our annual "pay Uncle Sam". I couldn't believe how much data two laptops blew threw and was convinced it was either a Verizon issue or our MiFi was broke. Spent about an hour on the phone with Verizon and finally ended with a tech who could pull up everything that was taking data from our MiFi yesterday. Both of our laptops are running windows 10 and there was a big update for both, plus she had not booted hers up for about a month and there was almost 3g of extra updates. So thanks Windows 10 for using just under 10gigs of my 15gigs of 4g for the month! I tired to shut down automatic downloads but it seems with Windows 10 you can not do this anymore.
  22. Thanks matteucci, I was thinking after spending some time on the escapees forum that I had found about the best "melting pot" of full timers around. I try to check 3 or 4 of the RV forums each morning and find I can learn something I didn't know almost every session.
  23. As much as it pained me to do it, we had a Winegard Trav'ler satellite dish installed on the roof. The last coach we had the Ft. Myers CW install one. Let's just say that was a nightmare experience never to be repeated! We had Steve's Satellite provide the Winegard and do the install. Not only was he cheaper than CW but he did a very professional job right at my camp site. He is from over by the Coco Beach area of Florida and been doing Satellite work for over 25 years. I'm not sure how far he will travel in Florida but I certainly would recommend him. I'm certainly glad Steve decided to come over to the small Ft. Myers RV show last week and set up a booth.
  24. Are you referring to the clear plastic product that some coaches have over the front cap?
  25. When we did our first stint of full timing we gained a ton of information and help from a brand specific forum. We had a Montana fiver and their owner's forum was packed with information about the brand/model plus a lot of information about full timing. We also belonged to Good Sams and Passport. This time around we found a brand specific forum, FMCA, Good Sams, Passport, KOA, and just joined Escapees. What else is out there that we may be missing. We are always looking for ideas and information on CG discounts, dry camping, and other issues related to full timing. So far the Escapees forum seems to have a ton of information about full timing.
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