Newsletter 14

Jun-July 98

NL first month

Folks,

Well we are doing it. We left Louisiana and went to Rainbows end, the HQ of our club (Escapees) and stayed there a week to begin learning the lifestyle. It was beautiful and unique.

Many folks have permanent lots there that have buildings that are totally unique to the RV lifestyle. Some are just a hard cover for their coach and a shed, others have attached living rooms or sun rooms to the hard cover that integrate the RV into a module of the house. Others have regular but smaller homes with RV setups.

All are neat and well kept up, and have beautiful layouts. From there we went to Arlington just outside of Ft Worth. There for two weeks for business. Then, on to Odessa and the real traveling. The truck was overheating a bit and anticipating even more severe temperatures as we crossed the deserts in Arizona and California, we decided to check on a Cummins or Dodge place in Odessa, our next stop.

We ended up spending three days there so Cummins could remove the radiator and clean it out thoroughly. The fan clutch wasn't strong enough to cool the engine in the 100 plus temperatures we had to travel in so we replaced that too. From there we went only to Pecos, a 90-minute trip to check out the cooling system. We drove in 105-degree temperatures and it worked fine. We spent the night in a club park and pressed on to Demming New Mexico. We had planned to spend one night and take off in the morning.

The next morning the circuit breakers all tripped and we smelled something burning! I removed the panel where power comes in and found two inches of the black wire burned up! We were in another SKP Club Park called Dream Catcher thank goodness.

My neighbor was a retired electrician and we determined that when I installed the wiring, I had a loose connection there and running the A/C all the time caused it to begin to heat and burn. We then proceeded to redo all the connections and everything worked fine. But just to be on the safe side we decided to wait to leave till the next day and monitor the wiring during the hottest part of the day with the cover off.

We met several other couples and had a wonderful time visiting and swapping tips and tricks. The next morning I told Lee (the electrician neighbor) that I was going to pick up a new brake controller as the one that came with my truck didn't seem to be working as strong as it should in kicking on the trailer brakes when traveling. He took one look and laughed because he had just removed the exact same unit as mine to upgrade to the newest state of the art digital controller. The reason he laughed was that he had just put his perfectly good old controller on the “swap table” in the clubhouse.

Our club parks have a table in every one where you can put items you no longer need or want and someone else can pick it up and donate a dollar or more or less to the can. The money goes towards our snacks and drinks for the traditional Escapees social hour every day at four PM. I hurried up there and got it and Lee found the instruction pamphlet for it as well. As I had asked a Camping World Tech what the problem could be, and he told me it sounded like a bad diode in the controller and I'd need another one, I was sure my problem was

solved.

Well, when I read the instructions (which I didn't get with mine) I found that the little white pointer on the side must be pointed straight down for the pendulum brake actuator to work. Mine came with the truck when I bought it, and the pointer was set in a horizontal position. I adjusted it correctly and . . . Voila! It worked fine. My controller had been fine the whole time! I just never had access to the instructions to know how to set it.

More to the point, I had been driving with no trailer brakes the whole time except for when I manually applied them!!!! From San Antonio, to Louisiana, to Livingston Texas, and then Arlington, Pecos, and then Demming New Mexico, I had hauled my trailer as an ignorant newbie with the trailer brakes not working!!!

Had Frank Gummersol not taken the time to educate me about GVWR, GCWR, and their importance in matching the trailer weight to the tow vehicle, back in November 97 when I was still looking for a trailer, I would have had an accident by now. Since I'm more than 1500 lbs. under my trucks max capability, I had no problems. Thanks Frank!

The luck continues as we had to cross real mountains for the first time two days later. Now my rig is adjusted perfectly and I can stop in half the distance I could before with no problem. I am pulling all the Truck brakes down to be sure I haven't worn them too badly during the previous trips as a precaution. Talk about a lucky stop. And I have a spare controller to boot!

Next, we went to The KOFA Escapee Park in Yuma AZ. We arrived at two PM and the temperature was 115 in the shade!! Our A/C unit had only cooled the coach down to 96 after an hour and we decided to leave until dark and get the dog and us into the truck A/C before he or us had a heat stroke.

We went to the proving grounds and checked out their park and it was worse than the one we were at for shade so we then headed back hoping to find a place where we could bring in the dog and hang until dark. By now we'd been driving for about an hour trying to kill time and I had to use a bathroom desperately. We saw a VFW in the middle of nowhere and pulled in.

It said it was open but all the doors were locked. I headed back to the truck and a very old man opened the door just as we were about to leave. I went back and explained that I wasn't a member but was just retired from the AF and would he let me use the rest room. "Sure he said and opened up.

I decided to buy a beer to thank him for opening up and told Lynn that I'd be a few minutes which was OK with her. His name was Jim and he said to bring my wife in "for god's sake!" I explained that we had our dog with us and were trying to stay cool until the sun went down. But if we left him in the truck alone with it running for the A/C, he'd start hopping around the seats and might hit the gearshift and cause the truck to come in as well. And we couldn't leave him out in the heat without A/C. He told me the dog was welcome too.

So I went and got Lynn and Bogart and we ordered some more drinks and visited with Jim. He sure seemed glad for the company and Bogart sure seemed glad for the cold floor. It seems that almost all of his members take off from July to September to get out of the heat and he rarely had anyone to talk to in the summer as he lived alone and ran the VFW post year-round.

Jim had to talk very low as he'd had six strokes in 1992. But he did OK and as we became acquainted found that he'd been a B-29 waist gunner with Doolittle in the Japan raids and subsequent occupation. His last touchdown was as a B-52 tail gunner at Barksdale AFB, LA.

We asked him how he tolerated the heat there and what drove him to settle there. It turns out he was a very successful miner until the strokes and he had worked every day in his mines, where it is only 55 degrees. As the sun headed towards the horizon he decided he appreciated the company so much that he went and got a giant gold nugget that he wanted to give Lynn as a gift! We of course had to decline as it would be wrong to take advantage of his largesse when we were the ones who needed a place out of the heat until our little A/C could catch up.

But I did ask if he still had the mines. He said that not only did he, but would we like a tour, complete with a pick and shovel and we could keep whatever we found? (and he assured us we would find more gold that we'd expect) It seems he was averaging 50 pounds a month when he had to quit because of his strokes. He lived in an RV out back that validated his income and we knew he was telling the truth because he got a little peeved when we declined.

I told him that we'd love to but had to leave the next day as we already had too many delays on each stop beyond our control, but could we have a rain check? He said he'd heard that several thousand times before and not one person ever came back! It seems our declination was read by him as disbelief. He was about to call his guard to set it up for us and go with him to the mine to prove it.

I insisted that we had no desire to keep any gold from his mine except maybe a tiny nugget as a souvenir. Just being able to video it and actually find something would be enough, as we'd never worked a mine before.

Then he tried to give us the nugget again. Talk about a character! I think he thought we didn't believe him and won't return. He doesn't know us! We will be back to see Ol' Jim next winter if we have to fly out.

We left Yuma at nine the next morning and the temperature was 105 already! We didn't realize that the California border was only one mile out of town. We thought the heat and desolate grandeur we'd already driven through was the desert. NOT! Within 50 miles we were in pure sand dunes as far as you could see, and the outside temperature was 115.

I had been told that there was a long pull over the mountains 60 miles from San Diego, and with the heat was becoming a little concerned about getting up what I thought would be a five or 10 mile 3% grade.

It was a 6-9% 15-25 mile climb! We got about a third of the way up before we had to pull over and let the diesel cool down, which took 30 minutes in that heat. We got another third up and had to stop again to cool. We could only do 35 miles an hour and were passing many other vehicles, including cars and vans as all were overheating. Had it been winter we would have been over the top in 45 minutes at about 45 mph. In the heat, it took two hours with the stops. The truck did fine. Boy were we glad we did the maintenance back in Odessa!

As we descended, we found that it would have been more than a little scary had we not gotten the brake controller working two days before in NM!

As we pulled into San Diego (Tuesday 14 July 2 PM) the A/C in the truck started acting funny. We had to turn it down four times because it seemed to want to freeze up! We decided to give it a rest and open the windows for awhile.

That's when we found out what was wrong . . . the outside temperature was 71 degrees! The A/C was fine . . . we just didn't expect to be able to turn it off until Oregon or somewhere.

The traffic was very heavy and we followed directions to the Naval Amphibious Base Marina and RV park right on the Bay on Coronado Island. We didn't think we'd get a spot as it is reservations 90 days in advance. Our luck held, and we not only got a space, but our back window was ten feet from the water! We were told that we could only stay two days as the park was booked from that time on solidly.

Yesterday (Thurs.) we prepared to try and find another park, and started to break camp. I went to the office and asked about an empty space I saw that should have been filled by then. She looked it up and called the guy who said that he was just about to call and cancel. The lady told him that if he would transfer his reservation to me, instead of canceling, he'd not be charged for canceling too late. Again, serendipity! We are here for the duration of our stay here.

We are talking with the sailors and live-aboards here in the Marina and visiting their boats. Everyone is so open and we've spent hours learning about different kinds of boats and how other couples have full timed in them. We met a marvelous couple, Dick and Eileen, who spent thirty years sailing.

Dick is retired Coast Guard. Eileen and Lynn hit it off and she took Lynn under her wing for hours, telling her what she could expect sailing full time and cruising with her husband. She explained that we could expect to find new very creative words to call each other after several days at sea, that Lynn would never use on shore. <LOL>

They had us in tears laughing most of the afternoon, sitting by the water in the shade of their RV with ice cold beers and 70 degree weather. We also met two other couples we spent afternoons and evenings with. RVrs are a different breed from the people you meet traveling any other way. As we try to walk to the phone everyone will say hi and ask us to sit for a spell and share some stories and beers.

We have fire rings for the cold (yes cold!) evenings and we take turns hosting at each other's sites with a blazing fire and the waves lapping at our feet. Good friends after an hour, and great conversations. And we are all "characters". I'm just an average talker in this group, the gift of gab seems to be a prerequisite for this lifestyle, so we fit right in.

I got to see my Mom and two brothers Wed. for the first time in over twenty years. It's been great. I found out that my niece lives here too. I invited them all over tonight for a fire and some visiting. I haven't seen my niece since 1983.

We will leave here and head north to Stockton for some add-ons to the truck (PAC Brakes, a transmission cooler, and performance mods, before we tackle the Rockies in a couple of weeks from Seattle). It has been almost impossible to connect to the net and send email or retrieve it for the past weeks. It seems no one has come up with a solution to provide low cost, easy systems for park owners, and I've come up with one with the folks from Webley that I think will revolutionize the access at every park in the country. It's so simple and so cheap that I expect 75 to 90% of parks and Marinas to have it within the next year. I am waiting on Webley to decide.

I just wish some one had preceded me and done this a year ago, so I could already hook up wherever I go.

Speaking of which, when I do finally get to connect somewhere I usually receive 60-100 emails. Then it takes all my spare time for a week to answer them. So if my replies are a little shorter than normal, you know why. I'll try to use this mail list to fill in the details. If you need to contact me personally in a crisis, just call my toll free number and leave a message. I check it daily and will return your call if you tell me the best time to return the call. I've had several folks call me and leave a cell phone number which is always unavailable when I try to return the call. So let me know the best time to call for a few days after the message. Oh! And tell me your time zone too. I forgot and called my brother in NY last night and it was midnight there, 8 PM here! Sorry Flip.

Well that's all for now. We need to get over to my brother’s place to send this and get ready for the bonfire tonight. It's Friday 2 PM, the temperature is 70 outside and Lynn is talking with a couple of folks who just landed their catamaran on our beach where the water is clear blue green and the sun is shining without a cloud in the sky. We might be forced to go for a ride.

Lovin' it