Happier Thoughts

So Rich and Todd from General RV came out on Tuesday with an entire box of goodies for our rig.  I will tell you that I will only request Rich to do work for us as he is very knowledgeable and helpful.  He takes his job seriously and has gone above and beyond for us on more than one occasion.  The upside is that we are mostly up and running now which is very exciting.  Our little hit list is down to just a door seal, a bad previous repair in the Vinyl floor, an awning strut and an under the bed strut.  I know it sounds like a lot but it's a far cry from where we started.  At least now we can lock our rig and have heat.  Not that I have any intention of turning that on any time soon.  The big plus here is that our slide works. And no it had nothing to do with us being level. Turns our the middle motor had seized and had to be replaced.  Good times.  Now we are back on the wait list to have parts ordered.  Which as per our previous experience doesn't bode well.  It means that we have to get the service writers involved again and we know how they feel about me.  On a positive note the A/C works awesome, Doubleshot and I have yet to actually melt.  Although I'm sure if you ask her it's sweltering in here. She plays the victim well.  Other than that not much new to report.  The spiders have remained outside the rig and as per our agreement I've let them live.  We have no neighbors this week to scare off so I've had to find something else to do with my time.  I'm working my way through Tiger Wood's the Masters on my PS3 to kill time and thinking I could be an amazing golfer, I've beat him every round.  Of course in real life I'm sure they wouldn't let me use a joystick.  We did go by the dealership and looked at a Redwood again.  Cross your paws and crinkle your nose, if it all works out we will be calling one of those home very soon.

I'm a bubble buster

Ok, so not intentionally, but I'm of the opinion that people should know what they are getting into.  I wish someone would have been brute honest with me and therefore in turn I am.  Which is apparently terrifying our new neighbors.  I'm sure that most of you know that we purchased our rig at General RV in Huntley Illinois.  While the purchasing part of the process was fantastic, answered all our questions, were patient and helpful, just wonderful.  The service is utterly awful.  Quite frankly it continues to be the worst experience that I have ever had with a company.  Just when I think they can't possibly get worse they surprise me.  Our latest issue, as per my last post we had some mechanics come out after several phone calls and they went through our rig, noted all the parts that needed ordered and told us they would be back in approximately a week to fix the issues.  Well week after week, I called to no avail.  Then several weeks ago they call me to have me measure a door handle, and admitted they had not even ordered the parts yet.  Appalling no? I fight with the service writer who gets flustered and then dumped me into another persons voice mail. I then speak with a manager to finally find that they claim to have ordered the rest of the parts just not that one because they don't know which part I need.  There are two sizes.  My thought was the mechanic should know, or aren't they stock based on model number?  They won't order unless I go buy a tape measure and figure it out for myself which one to order, but if it's wrong then it's my fault and I have to pay for the next one.  I'm sure you all know that didn't go well for him at all.  Eventually they gave up on me and called Ralph.  The final solution was that they would be ordering both choices at their cost and figure it out when they get here.  Several more weeks, and I get the call Monday that they would be here between 12 and 1 to do all the work.  Yippee!! Finally we are able to move forward.  And again, no.  I call the service writer at 2pm to be told the mechanics would be here soon, I ask for him to confirm with the mechanic a time frame, and am then told, sorry they won't make it today.  Not only that but that he's not sure when they will have time to do the work and that we should just leave the rig UNLOCKED so that they can come by when they have time and work on it.  Hopefully I'm not alone out on the limb when I say who in their right mind would leave their home unlocked in a campground for some strange man to come in whenever he feels like it.  Yeah that's pretty much what I told him.  He finally left it that he would try to find out when the mechanic would be available next and call me back.  Then true to their form they called Ralph.  It's funny how they don't like talking to.  Probably because I expect them to not be idiots or treat me like one.  The manager gets on the phone and tells me he will call me back once they can finish making arrangements.  Next thing I know, Ralph is calling, go figure.  Bottom line, they will come by this evening to at least put the motor in the slide out so that we have the option to move and then they will decide if we need to drive to them or if they will come back out.  I'm really hoping that I get to live in their parking lot for a few days, thinking I have lots to talk about with any potential buyers.  Guess we will see just how available they are then. :-)  Ok, no more rant, sorry.  So we got new neighbors last week. They bought a brand new 37 foot big horn fifth wheel and truck.  So funny to see how far we have come, I'm actually out helping them with leveling and things that people had to help us with last year.  I suppose everything does come full circle.  So anyway, I noticed the tag on the side of their rig said General RV,  I had to ask and yup they bought it in Huntley.  I shared.  After a few minutes the look of terror on their faces was sad, they had been soo excited about the new rig.  Opps.  I'll just cross my fingers they never have any issues.  The man did say that knowing what I told them, they would opt to just drag theirs back to the factory instead of the dealer.  I'm glad they have that option.  On a positive note, we have an appointment for Wednesday morning to look through a 2013 36RL Redwood fifth wheel.  I can't wait, then we get to hash out all the details, got the list of wants in hand and Ralph who will convince people to pay him to take things.  Wish us luck, I'll try to update once we have more Redwood info or current mechanic drama.

Failure...

So my goal of blogging weekly has obvious suffered a catastrophic failure. Mostly as its been nearly two months since my last post. I could go on about just how busy we are but I find that thatbhis becoming the trend of every post. Nso scratch that,we will go with I intentionally have been quiet, yeah, that's it. :-) so its nearing June, summer is in full swing and the campground is hoping with weekend warriors and family vacations. It is beautiful here this time of year, I really enjoy waking up to birds chirping and the waves gently lapping the nearby lakeshore. The heat and I are not so much friends yet. The downside to the rv is that it's mostly a hot box with windows. So no breeze means that it very quickly becomes stifling in here. A lesson I unknowing learned the hard way. Brief recap for those that don't know, I've recently begun suffering from hot flashes. So Ralph is yet again freezing in the rig. This time due to my need for the air conditioning to be set in the 60's. Don't feel too bad for him yet, he got even. When he gets up in the morning and decides its too cold. He simply shuts OFF the A/C. So my happy self is sound asleep under my blankets for about an hour until I wake up drenched to find the temp in the rig has reached just shy of triple digits. So even summer has its battles. I will also gladly report, though I'm sure this will bite me, we have not had any Mosquitos yet. Although, we did have to convince quite a few spiders that they would have chosen better locations to take up residence. I think the carcass smears leave a good sign to the remaining eight legged friends that they are not welcome here, don't you agree? And the cats, utterly useless on the bug hunting front. They will watch the intruders from their perches on top of chairs or the couch, but god forbid they should touch the creepy critters, they might get dirty. Got to love high maintenance cats. Speaking of cats, our male cat, Achilles is heading to Alabama next week to live my sister and her family. They are looking for a loving cat for the girls and he needs more space then we can provide. Ralph has taken to affectionately calling him gator bait for the last few weeks in preparation for his journey. More on the family front, my mom, sister and nieces will be arriving for a quick weekend visit. The main reason for the trip is my sister-in-laws baby shower. We are all very very excited to help her celebrate as we countdown the last weeks to our new addition. Lastly in the catchup post would be our rig, as that is the point to this blog I guess I should mention it at least once. We had the mechanics come out to look at a few things that needed repair. The good news is that we are waiting for parts and they will come back to repair everything at the campground. This is a huge luxury as we will not have to be homeless as expected. The expected downside, is that They are replacing a motor in the slide out that seized, the front door handle and lock, the screen door latch, the toilet seals, the strut for the awning, the rear furnace, the strut under the bed, the front door gasket, the top entry step and some peeling linoleum. Long list, lots of parts. But, when it's done we can finally move forward with purchasing the new fifth wheel we have been looking at. It's a redwood and beyond amazing. I can't wait. Hopefully I'll blog again before the month ends but if not, happy summer to all the faithful readers I've accummulated.

I survived New York

I know that this blog is suppose to be about the RV adventures that Ralph and I are having. This adventure however is just mine. Ralph and the cats stayed behind in the RV while I am traveling the East coast. I am very happy to report that I not only survived New York I really enjoyed it. It was far from anything I was expecting or predicting. Ralph was convinced I would be "shanked by a sewer rat"' this not only didn't occur but I never even saw a rat and I actually went looking. Closest I got were the flying rats, otherwise known as pigeons. The main purpose of this trip was for my mom and her sudo husband Mike to spend the first night of Passover with his family. I was welcomed in to join this holiday and was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed it. The food was interesting, and as Jonathan said was every shade of brown. Jonathan is Mike's youngest son, married to Julianna. They are wonderful people and I look forward to seeing them again. Though a quick trip we did manage to hit the highlights. We started the night we arrived in NY by walking to Times Square. Though after midnight, it was so bright and full of people it might as well have been mid afternoon. I will admit that I did have to visit the Times Square Starbucks even though it was nearing 2am, the line was typical Starbucks. The next day we walked the highline which is an old railroad track used to shuttle goods from the warehouses to the harbour. It has been renovated into a beautiful walkway with plants and benches and amazing views. We also visited the union square open market which was full of bustling people and plants and farmers with their wares. We had New York Bagels, which surpassed every bagel I'd ever eaten in taste and quality. Next Jonathan took us on the subway, no rats, to central park. It was beyond anything I could have expected. The park is enormous and filled with thousands of people yet isn't crowded. There is ever sport imaginable, horse drawn carriages, benches, a carousel, boat house, paths, flowers, more trees than probably the state of Illinois and artists galore. Truly something I am glad I was able to experience and long to get back to. I could have spent days and never seen the entire park. For dinner Saturday night they took us to this little candlelit French restaurant in Chelsea. I will admit that at first glance of the menu I was way out of my comfort zone. This was only amplified when the French speaking waiter advised us of the specials. There were 3, but my brain shut off after the veal tongue. This was when I leaned in to my mom and asked if there was a McDonald's on the way back to the hotel. Several and I do mean several, glasses of wine later, I ended up finding a roast chicken dish which I will admit was phenomenal. I also have to admit here, that be it the wine or being swept up in the moment, I did try not only mussels but octopus. And while I would probably never order either for myself, they weren't bad. I actually enjoyed the octopus until my mom leaned over and said "you ate the suckers too?", appearently I missed that memo. Our last day in NY we had bagels again, I learned that they were boiled, and that getting them "tunneled" is a natural thing there, I had no idea. We then bumbled uptown to the empire state building. One last item to check off my list. The NY sky ride was very cool, although it left me more than a tad nauseous. It is a simulated helicopter ride over and through the city, narrated by Kevin Bacon. It was well worth it, since after the ride we went to the 86th floor observatory and looked out over the city. Having seen the virtual tour I was then able to recognize landmarks and find sights on the horizons. The view is unmatched. The observatory circles the entire building allowing a 360 degree view, with a visibility of 25 miles on the day we were there. I have so many pictures and they just don't do it justice. So this was my New York trip, beyond expectations and so worth it. I can't wait to return with Ralph so he too can see the city as I did. For an amazing adventure full of awe and beauty. Not the dirty, crowded shanking sewer rat infested city he thought it was.

Still not level...

But at this point it is what it is.  We have tried everything and still can't get the slide to come in.  No slide in means not level. Which once we thought about it made perfect sense.  Kind of hard to auto level when you have a ton or so hanging off one side.  I guess this project will have to wait until May as I'm leaving tomorrow morning.  I'm super excited! Ralph not so much.  I think he finally realized last night that he will be here by himself with the cats for the next month.  For those that don't know, he's soo not a cat person.  But I'm sure it will be fine.  Molly is settled in her new home and seems to be very happy.  It's bittersweet but we know this is the better fit for her.  Our rig these days is truly starting to look like we are homeless.  As the last of the items came out of the house we have boxes literally stacked on every available surface in the rig.  All items waiting to be put somewhere or repacked to go to storage.  I didn't think much of it until I came home yesterday and realized that as you drive by and look in the windows we look like those people that live out of the car in a parking lot.  Not quite the look we were going for, although Ralph has been convinced that this is a version of homeless so I guess it works.  The RV resort we live in has definitely come to life.  The birds are out, there are ducks and geese in the lakes and every weekend it gets a little fuller.  Soon the sounds of campfires and children screaming will be our sound track but for now it is wonderfully peaceful.  I'm actually sitting this morning with my cup of coffee looking through the windshield watching the ducks frolicking in the water.  The cats are watching too, albeit with thoughts of dinner on their minds.  If all goes well my next post should be from New York!  Cross your fingers for me, Ralph is convinced I'll be mugged by a sewer rat.

I remembered!

Woohoo, I remembered to post again! I'm excited...too bad I don't have much to say (sad face).  The weather has been amazing, and I have officially moved several large potted plants to our patio here at the campground.  It is definitely starting to feel more like home.  The big event this week was the truck load of stuff that we found at the house and decided we "needed" in our RV.  So I've spent the last 2 days trying to find nooks and crannies to stuff it all in to.  The upside is that I've discovered we have a ton more space than I realized.  The funny note for the week was partly our fault and partly not.  Due to all this rain/snow the past few months the ground here is very soft.  Normally not a problem until you put a 12 ton vehicle on large lego blocks.  The result as we found was that we were sinking, nose first into the ground.  Our solution was to extend the jacks fully, remove the blocks, add more too them to build mini pyramids and then lower the coach back down.  Sounds painfully simple doesn't it.  Those of you who know us will know this went soo wrong already.  The raising of the couch went very smoothly, I got the blocks dug out, reorganized and put back...the problem, yeah the jacks sunk too so the rig wasn't high enough to just put the blocks back under the tires.  Here's were we got slightly stupid...we decided to lower the rig/raise the jacks.  The idea being to then put blocks under the jack pads so the jacks would be taller, thus raising the coach further.  For some reason the concept of soft ground and heavy vehicle didn't reenter our minds and this effort was in vain.  At this point ralph is standing next to the rig, I'm in the drivers seat, the sun is setting and we are no where near level.  To add insult to injury, we did this without taking our slide in...which then meant as you may know from previous posts we couldn't bring it in since we weren't level.  The final answer, we are more level than we started by manually overriding the jacks and using the gyroscope on my phone.  The slide still won't retract, now due to the fact our engine battery is dead.  We discovered that while we thought it was just annoying that the cats enjoyed turning on the dash fans, in fact it was draining our engine battery as those don't run off the house batteries.  Today's trick will be to go buy a trickle charger and maintainer to recharge our engine battery, then hopefully bring in the slide, pull forward, replace blocks, back up and relevel.  I'm sure that some of your are laughing at us, as again it's a pretty safe prediction this will not go as planned either.  I'll update if we don't get crushed once this is successful.

Sorry

This is going to be a long one. I was doing so well with the every Monday plan, then life intervened and the best intentions got forgotten. So let's catch up. Part of the excuse for no new blogs is that my sister was in labor and her husband was away on a training mission. So I hopped the first flight I could catch to the east coast. Turned out to be Raleigh, NC. My mom in the same mad dash rented a car and drove down, swinging through Raleigh to collect me. By the time we arrived it was decided that while contracting she could go home and wait it out. So we did. The funny part of this story is that the next night around midnight we are timing contractions deciding to go back to the hospital and my mom says "wait, I have to plug in my curlers". For those of you who know her this was an expected response to let's go to the hospital. For those that don't....she just is. :-) the short version of this story is that while we did everything to convince Mckenzie it was time to come out, she held fast until her daddy got back and my mom and I had returned home. She was born on March 15th. Now while I was away, Ralph was left home with a dumpster and an entire house full of color coded post-its. For those of you that know me, this was not a surprise either. Since we have to be pretty much out of our home April 1st there was a lot to do and the timing was awful. But he did a great job so that once I returned we were in full swing. I do have to admit that it was considerably harder in some aspects and easier in others with this move. On one hand we had to decide the fate of everything we owned. To the motorhome, storage, donate/give away or the dumpster. These were the choices. Since we already had everything that would fit in the rig, that was a very small pile. The donate give away section had a date of being out or it would become dumpster bound. And while we never thought it possible we managed to fill a 20 cubic yard dumpster to the top which was taken away this morning. It's amazing to me the volume of stuff you accumulate over the years. On the positive note we have succeeded in passing along over 9 truck loads of goods to family, friends, friends of friends and our local good will. We also some how manganged to only half fill our 10x10 storage unit which was a major win in my book. We are down to the last of it, little piles here and there needing to be bagged or boxed. The house seems so empty now. At this point the only big thing left is finding a home for Molly. It saddens us to do so but she isn't tolerating the rig well at all. We have her at the house for now but are rapidly running out of days for her to stay here. I also have to say thanks to all those that helped schlep or took stuff, we greatly appreciated it. Back to a happier note. The rig is doing great. No freeze ups, probably because no below freezing weather but we are still excited. We have started the process of narrowing down fifth wheels to find a true four season rig and will hopefully swap out this summer. Going forward I will do my best to be a better blogger. However I do feel I should warn that I will be traveling again in April. That itinerary is; Washington dc, New York, Bethesda, 4 days travel down the coast, Florida, Alabama then back to Florida to return home. Should be fun and exciting. And I should have lots to blog about. See you in a week! (smiley)

Super Busy

I know it's been awhile since my last post.  In a sense so much has happened and yet nothing really eventful.  For those that didn't know our home in Algonquin was broken into by a burglar.  Luckily we have very attentive neighbors who called the Police and the guy was caught exiting the residence.  Never in a million years would I have thought this would happen to us.  Nothing of great importance was taken and no damage was done.  However it was very stressful having to walk through the house with a detective and a CSI so we could point out anything that had been moved or shifted so they could check for prints.  On top of that Ralph and I were then printed for exemptions.  Nothing feels normal about having your prints taken in your own kitchen.  Since the ordeal, we are now working full speed to find homes for our remaining items and be completely free of the property.  That's the busy part.  Happy thoughts though, each day we make a little more progress and I have high hopes to be done by the middle of March at the latest.  On the RV front, not much new.  We went to the RV Show last weekend and fell in love with a new rig.  But that's another story for another day a ways down the road.  Ralph still hasn't frozen, but is at his wits end with the water pipes.  27 more days to SPRING!!

OMG it's COLD!

I'll start this entry with a question; What does it mean when a water hose rated to work up to -41 degrees is frozen solid?  Honestly I joked when we bought it that if it ever froze it was time to relocate. Never did I think we would actually find ourselves in such weather to even make that a valid concern.  However here we are, yet again without water, sad face.  I also want to say to all those people who claim that this has been such a mild winter and we shouldn't complain to come live in an RV.  We may not have had the 2 feet of snow that graced us last year but it has been much colder, with much lower wind chills.  At least in my opinion.On the upside, it is the middle of February and we are hopefully nearing the end of the winter.  With fingers crossed we will make it to the spring thaw wiser and warmer then when we started on this journey.  A note from Ralph is that he will spend next winter in a condo and leave the RVing to me.

Wow that went fast!!

So my plan was to post after we arrived in Wilmington, NC, that clearly didn't happen. The first hiccup of our trip was when we tried to fill the fresh water tank. Every gallon in, came out the bottom of the rig. appearently we had a crack in it. This was not a good start to what was going to be a very long day. The ride was...ok, we survived. Let's just say I will not be visiting Kentucky again anytime soon with her oh soo narrow, high bridges which have no guard rails. Ralph on the other hand is boycotting Virginia where he encountered 7.5% down grades, runaways ramps, falling rocks, crosswind warnings and icy bridges. Upon arrival we found that while we had a reservation, they had forgotten to assign us a spot and the office was closed for the day. We were able to reach the after hours host who was very friendly and helpful. Her name was kitty. She found us a spot and took quite a bit off for the inconvenience. So we reached our spot, piled out and were met by the rest of the herd. We quickly set up which went surprisingly smooth and then all lined up to watch the big reveal, aka the slide out opening. And nothing. 9 people and a toddler staring at the side of the rig and nothing, sad face. As th panic begin to set in we bustled about pulling manuals, retrying buttons and googling while my brother-in-law opened electronics, tugged on cables and located motors trying to help. I heard he even made it up on the roof. The fix, wait for it, the rig wasn't level....duh. So button push to retract the jacks, button push to relevel, and tahdah, the slide rolls out on cue. The rest of the week went very quick. We saw the aquarium, the boardwalk, did some shopping and sampled the local fares. It was nice to see the herd again especially my niece as she is growing up so fast. I am eager to return however I think Ralph might need some time to forget before he will undertake this drive again. Keep your fingers crossed we are just shy of Virginia on our way home.

Finally...

A low stress week.  Well minus the blizzard and now freezing rain.  But for us that's like a walk on the beach.  We have managed to keep our water flowing and our heat on which is a major win.  Most of the week has been filled with preparing for our upcoming cross country trip.  That's right, we leave on Friday for our first trek out of state! I'm excited as usual, Ralph is on the verge of a nervous breakdown.  Molly, with her Xanax and tranquilizers in tow is taking it in stride.  I'm thinking I might be crushing up some of those for Ralph's coffee soon.  On an off note, I've discovered that out here they carry GREEN BAY PACKERS ice cream! Ralph refuses to eat it, however I find it quiet good and plan to continue enjoying it.  Wish us luck, our next post will be after the 2 day, 17 hour ride, with 4 people 2 cats and a neurotic dog. ( Smiley)

My blonde is showing

3 phone calls and several plumbing and ducting diagrams later we have water! Turns out that a heated basement only works when you turn on the heat.  Wow, I felt super stupid about that.  At least we now know how to encourage our pipes to produce when they freeze up in the future.  Thank you Valerie from Fleetwood!

I've decided...

Next winter I'm going to be a snow bird.  Our pipes are yet again frozen.  We have tried every suggestion on every blog site we can find and still no avail.  At the moment we have all the drawers and cabinet doors open, heaters in our basement storage compartments, 100w light bulbs hooked up to temperature sensors to turn them on, our slide out pulled in and all the faucets open.  For those of you that have seen our rig this image should have you just about rolling on the floor.  For those that haven't, imagine a shoe box then cram it full of stuff and add 2 people, 2 cats and a dog.  Woohoo, we're camping now!  My only saving thought is that in 9 days we leave for North Carolina and we had darn well better thaw out there, it's near 70 degrees.

Another educational week

Well, after our flood cleanup we thought we should be on an easy path.  We were wrong.  Our next trick was to figure out A) why our toilet had no power and B) why our furnace was randomly shutting itself off at the most inconvenient times.  The first issue took several phone calls, a wiring diagram, 2 days and finally removing a wall panel.  Turns out our toilet has a circuit breaker that flips when it senses there is no water.  Just one more fall out from our frozen water filter (sad face).  The second issue turns out to be another "safety feature".  I'm finding that I'm not liking any of these so called "safety features".  When we hooked up our propane, apparently air got into the line, and to save us from blowing up, the furnace auto shuts off whenever it senses an air bubble.  Funny how that's not in the 3 1/2 inch binder of owners manuals.  On the upside we have made friends with several people at the Fleetwood support line, which is great as I'm sensing these will not be the end of our "safety feature" issues.

WATER!!

Thanks to all those warm thoughts I arrived home today to a beautiful waterfall cascading out of our rig. The good news is the flood was confined to a single basement storage compartment and all we lost was Molly's food. The other good news is that we also found the frozen pipe or should I say inline water filter that didn't get bypassed correctly. Guess that's lesson 2 or maybe 22 I've lost track already. Water issue solved, Ralph just bundled up and headed out to brave the cold only to discover that a 100lb propane tank doesn't last as long as you'd think. Guess that's tomorrows project.

The adventure has begun

We are on day 2 without water, thank goodness there is a nicely heated shower house available. Funny thing, when we picked our spot they asked which was more important cable or showers, silly me thought cable, we have a shower in our rig...oops. Outside of the frozen pipes we are settling in quite well, Molly hasn't killed the cats yet and Ralph hasn't killed Molly. I chalk that up to a win. Now everyone think warm weather so we can thaw out please :-)