USA by RV

May 12, 2012 – Oak Creek, WI

Ned — Sat, 12 May 2012 21:10:34 +0000

We spent last night in Litchfield, IL, about 30 miles south of Springfield. It was a nice campground with level, gravel pull through sites and far enough off I-55 that the traffic didn’t bother us. We looked but could not find any decent overnight campgrounds in the Rockford area so we drove straight through to Milwaukee today, 320 miles. We’re now parked at Oak Creek Estates for the next 2 months.

As some of you may recall, we put new front tires on the motorhome in February. With only 1400 miles on them the left front tire is showing signs of tread delamination. I’ll be taking pictures and visiting Pomp Tire, the Michelin dealer here, and asking for a replacement.

May 6, 2012 – All set to go

Ned — Sun, 06 May 2012 16:53:45 +0000

We’ll be leaving in the morning. Our friends in Temple aren’t available for a visit so we’ll head to a COE park near Waco tomorrow. We finally got some rain last night, over 1″. It’s been over a month since we’ve had any rain at all, so it was welcome. We may get some more tonight, but hope it stops before morning so we don’t have to pack up the rain.

April 16, 2012 – Almost time to leave

Ned — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 15:08:59 +0000

As our winter in Spring Branch is coming to a close, we are preparing to get on the road again. The plan is to leave here on Sunday, May 6 and drive to Temple, TX, to visit friends. From there, we’ll be heading directly to Milwaukee and should be there around May 13 or 14.

We do have some guests this week, Don and Mary Ann Nesbitt are on the buddy pad for a few days.

Feb. 8-9, 2012 – Tires, more Freightliner and home

Ned — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 20:37:07 +0000

We left Corpus Christi on Wednesday, saying goodbye to Vic and Mo until this summer, and drove to TCI in San Antonio for 2 new front tires for the motorhome. It took about an hour to install them and we then drove the 14 miles to Freightliner of San Antonio. The service manager had kept a parking spot for us with 50A electric and we pulled in there for the night. Meanwhile, TCI called and said they had installed the wrong valve cores, not the ones for the Equal balancing powder, and asked us to stop there on our way home the next day. However, the next morning the left front tire was flat, so I reinflated it and installed the Pressure Pro sensor and watched it go from 90 psi to 70 psi in about 20 minutes. I call TCI and said we were not driving there (14 miles) with that bad a leak, so they sent a truck to us at Freightliner. It was a major leak around the bead, so the tech broke the tire from the wheel, cleaned the wheel and bead, reinflated the tire and remounted it. End of leak, and he also installed the Equal valve cores.

Thursday they pulled the coach into the shop where we had a chassis lube, radiator cleaning, new fuel filters, right front shock remounted as it had come unscrewed from the lower mount. Also had the generator serviced. No oil change as that was done in Oct. when the fuel injectors were replaced. They checked a few things that I had been told to watch during previous maintenance. All that and we were out of there by 4:00pm and home by 5:00pm.

We plan on staying here until May, when we’ll head for Milwaukee.

Jan. 31, 2012 – Last night in Pharr

Ned — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 01:24:29 +0000

We have just spent 5 days at Texas Trails RV Resort, Pharr, TX, with Dave and Jeanette and leave tomorrow for Corpus Christi. We had dinner tonight with Dave, Jeanette, Ray and Ladonna, all forum friends. We’ll be in Corpus Christi for a week with Vic and Mo before heading back to Spring Branch with stops in San Antonio for new front tires and annual motorhome service. Also, while there, we’ll be visiting with Lorna’s brother and wife, and a fraternity brother and his wife, all of them staying in Port Aransas this winter.

Jan. 25, 2012 – San Antonio Freightliner

Ned — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 23:48:20 +0000

This morning we packed up to head down to Pharr for a week with friends. The coach hadn’t been started since we parked it in October. When it started, the check engine light was flashing. We read out the diagnostic code and it indicated a problem with cylinder 3. Called CoachNet and they got us an appointment at San Antonio Freightliner as soon as we could get there. It’s about 40 miles from the lot so it took us about an hour as we couldn’t go over 50mph.

We got there about 11:00am and the coach was in the shop at noon. At 1:00pm the computer showed problem with the number 3 fuel injector. As some of you may recall, we just had all new injectors installed in October, so this was unexpected, to say the least. Some additional testing determined it was the injector that had failed. It will be noon tomorrow before the part can get here from Waco, and since the engine was already opened up, the coach has to stay in the shop. So we’re at a La Quinta for the night. They think they can get us on the road tomorrow in time to drive to Pharr before dark.

The only good news in this is that the injector is warrantied by Freightliner so our cost should be minimal, other than the $83 for the motel.

Dec. 9, 2011 – Wildlife in Spring Branch

Ned — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 21:14:16 +0000

This morning while Lorna was out walking Sasha, she saw a young bull grazing across the street in front of Buddy and Mary’s house. After awhile, he wandered to our next door neighbor’s yard for some green grass and and a drink. He actually turned the faucet to get more water from the spigot. Before the owner could get here to pick him up, he wandered back down to the fence and probably through the hole that let him out in the first place.

Oct.-Nov., 2011

Ned — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 21:02:34 +0000

The time since we arrived back in Spring Branch has been busy. On Oct. 22, Vic and Mo Wexler came to our lot and stayed for 10 days. At the same time, Don and Mary Ann Nesbitt were here for a couple of days. We parked them on our neighbors RV site. The next few weeks were taken up with chores around the lot, Lorna doing her volunteer work at the Bulverde/Spring Branch Library, and just settling in for the winter. On Nov. 12, Joe and Lynn Grano from Houston came and stayed on the buddy pad for 3 nights.

Ned has also been volunteering at the library helping them with various computer and network related projects that they had been paying lots of money for previously. With all the computers they have I’m sure there will be work for him to do any time he goes in.

Earlier this month we had DSL internet service installed and put the HughesNet satellite service on suspension until we leave in the spring. After the fast response of DSL it will be painful to go back to satellite when we leave.

On Tuesday, we had a surprise visit from Jim and Pat Dick, on their way home from work camping at Yellowstone NP to their home base in Florida. While they could only stay 2 nights, it was really good to see them again.

And how about those Packers?

Oct. 8, 2011 – Finally at home in Spring Branch

Ned — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 20:25:49 +0000

After 12 long days of camping at Freightliner, the engine was finally fixed yesterday. We got out of there around 3:00pm after paying the $6968 bill and headed to Cowtown RV Park in Aledo, about 20 miles. 4 miles from the campground, our Pressure Pro tire pressure monitor sounded an alarm. The left rear outside tire was losing air, fast. Normally at 95-100psi, it was down to 60psi by the time we got to the campground. Got parked and called CoachNet, our roadside assistance provider. They located a service facility, Wingfoot in Fort Worth, and said a truck would be out in about 2 hours with a new tire, if we couldn’t patch the bad one. One hour later, Wingfoot service arrived. He dismounted the tire and removed the 1″ sheet metal screw that had penetrated the tread. Although he had brought a new tire, we opted to try a patch as the tire would have cost over $500, I’m sure. About one hour later, the tire was patched, holding air, and mounted on the motorhome. Total cost, $0! Thank you, CoachNet.

The tire held up on the 230 mile drive home today and I expect it will hold up indefinitely. We’re parked on our home site and are watching the sporadic rain showers bringing some much needed water to this area. I’m afraid it’s not nearly enough, but we’ll take it. Lorna is catching up on several weeks of laundry and I’m catching up on some computer tasks from a week ago. We’re going to be stationary for several months, at least. It may take that long to recover from our unintentionally long trip back from Wisconsin.

Sept. 26-Oct. 3, 2011 – Fort Worth Freightliner

Ned — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 23:35:26 +0000

Last Sunday, the motorhome had a serious problem and we couldn’t go over 45mph driving down from Sunset, TX, to Fort Worth. On Monday, we limped over the Freightliner and it was determined that our fuel injection pressure pump had failed and would need to be replaced, along with all the fuel injectors and all the engine oil. As we had an extended warranty that covered us completely, we had Freightliner submit a claim. After 2 days, on Thursday the warranty company stated that they wouldn’t cover the pump as it was a “100% failure item”. No such exclusion was listed in our contract but the adjuster began ranting at me on the telephone and actually hung up. Very unprofessional of him, as I believe he wrote a contract and when a claim was going to cost more than the premium, he made up a bogus excuse to deny it. We may pursue this through legal channels yet, but right now we will be stuck with the bill, over $7000. I’ve requested a full refund of our premium and a cancellation of the policy, since they aren’t going to honor it. It’s now Friday and all that’s been done so far is the top of the engine is open so we can’t move anywhere even if we wanted to. The service writer told me we should be out of here on Tuesday, 8 days after we got here.

We’re parked at the Freightliner shop with a 15A electrical connection, just enough to run the refrigerator, computers, TV, and keep the batteries topped off. Until today, it’s been in the 90s and we’ve been running our generator 8-10 hours a day to power the air conditioner. Oh, we only have one working A/C unit too, and need to get the rear one fixed when we finally get home.

A cold front came through last night, accompanied by a thunderstorm and lots of rain, so it’s cooled off enough that we don’t need the generator any longer. We only had a half tank of fresh water when we got here, but fortunately the holding tanks were empty. I found a source of water so we won’t run out of that resource. I think the holding tanks will be ok until we leave but we’ll need a night at a campground to empty them. We’ll also need diesel fuel as we’ve probably burned about 20 gallons using the generator and no longer have enough to get to Spring Branch.