Advertisement
Published: October 27th 2009
Edit Blog Post
Working Wrenches
Here I am assembling the 5th Wheel hitch. I had to lower it to match the trailer. I hear misery loves company, cause I would love to have some company!
I’ve been trying to sleep all 6’6” of me in a 6’ bed on a 1” cushion. You could say that it has been a long night. I usually fit in beds if they don’t have foot boards - my feet just hang over. But this is the booth bed. A booth bed is where you drop the table of the booth down to the level of the seats and it makes a nice little platform that’s perfect for 8 year olds. If you’re a little older and heavier, that 1” cushion scrunches down to about 1/8”. My hips were numb by 5am and I couldn’t sleep anymore. The joys of camping - numb limbs and lots of pain.
You might think -why didn’t you sleep in your nice queen sized bed? The answer is that it was too hot - no air conditioning. We can’t find the 50 amp power cord to plug into the electric outlet for the camp. Without the power, no air-conditioning. No air-conditioning = no sleep for me in the upper bedroom. A nice cross-breeze blows by the booth bed -
Flamingo
The gear from this little U-Haul went into the big RV. Flamingos are required. so that’s where I stayed. Grace could sleep in the stagnant heat in the master bedroom, but I can’t sleep and sweat at the same time. Grace says there’s a Chinese saying that if you calm your heart, then your mind will cool down your body. It was over 90 degrees here in West Palm Beach yesterday and it was 84 degrees at 11pm. At least there’s a nice breeze off the lake.
You might say - Why wasn’t there a nice cross-breeze in the master bedroom? That’s because the triple slides - that turn a thin RV into a double wide trailer - don’t work. When the slides don’t slide, the windows aren’t exposed so there’s no breeze. The main room with the booth has a nice breeze.
You might wonder - why don’t the slides work? If you know RVs, like I’m getting to, you’d know that the slides aren’t on the 50 amp line. The hydraulic system, that slides the slides, has a leak and hydraulic fluid is all over the bottom of the RV in the electrical panel area. The hydraulic system works off the new 12V battery that I installed yesterday. The hydraulic
My favorite Position
I love getting under the hood and making it all run just the way I like it. I got that from my father. The truck is doing great - I just had to add some power steering fluid. pump has a reservoir that is empty and we could fill lit, but I have a feeling that it will leak all over the place if we pour it in.
You might question - Didn’t you test the slides before you bought it? Grace did and with a simple push of the button, the slides went right out. Grace had questioned him about the oil leak and the previous owner - Steve Mitchell of Lake Worth, FL - said that he had just spilled some oil.
You might ponder - Why don’t you call Steve? Well, Steve is on vacation in his new RV now and just hasn’t found the time to get back to us. If we had the power cord, at least I could sleep in the main bedroom if the AC works.
We didn’t find these problems until 6pm when we got to our beautiful campsite on the side of the lake. I almost parked the RV on the first try, but I couldn’t align it very well and we were a couple of feet off. I was going through the back-and-forth repetition like in Mark’s yard until we asked assistance from the next door
Foreshadowing
Here's our black water pipe outlet - not cleaned to Grace's standards. This is in my future and I'm not looking forward to it. neighbors. The neighbor has a little integrated RV, so I thought he might not be much help, but he said he’s a bus driver and with his assistance, we parked it in about 30 minutes.
I hadn’t listened to Grace very well in the first 20 minutes, but she kept her cool. She was about as confused as I was, so we made a great pair. The neighbor showed me a couple of tricks about how to back it up and I will work on those in the next couple of weeks.
On the way to the RV park, our GPS unit - Stella - had told us the park was on the right side of the street. It was on the left. So as I drove past it, I realized that I had to make a U-turn (impossible in rush hour traffic) or make three rights - since the lake we were going to camp on blocked any left turns. Stella showed a nice semi-circular drive on a right turn that would take me right back to College Avenue. 100 yards into the drive, there was a gate with a guard. The guard came out and looked
Jim and Ken and us
Here's a photo of my long lost Uncle Ken with us. at me and pointed to the sign that said - no through traffic. I said, “Doesn’t this go through? Stella told me that it did.” The guard said, “Stella is one dumb broad, this is a dead end”. SSSTTEEELLLLLAAAA!!!!!!
My dead end nightmare had just turned into reality. This was about 5 minutes into my RV hauling and I had to turn my new home around on a dead end road. We ran into a parking lot off the semi-circular drive that was adjacent to the road and up a smooth curb. Grace jumped out to guide me. I had to back it up once and then twice over the curb. As the RV was backing over the curb, the dual axels of my RV started creaking and Grace yelled “Stop, Stop, Stop - Something’s wrong!” I got out and sure enough the wheels of the RV were all bent out of shape. Each axel was tilted in opposite directions and I’m still not sure why. I continued to back up over Grace’s protests and my 3-point turn turned into a work of beauty. I was ready to enter truck driving school after that turn. We made it back
Jim and us
We stopped by this lake and there's supposed to see 10,000 alligators there. We didn't see any even after Grace went swimming for them. onto the road and to the campground in no time. One dead end averted.
The RV is pretty nice and it has more storage than any RV I’ve seen. The interior nice and we’ll have a day or two to get everything in order. If I can only catch up on some sleep, I’m looking forward to learning about black water and flushing the tanks today.
Would anyone like to buy a slightly used RV?
Advertisement
Tot: 0.207s; Tpl: 0.015s; cc: 5; qc: 45; dbt: 0.088s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Conrad Wells
non-member comment
You're in for the ride of your life
Scott, Sounds like your in for a real learning experience... take that RV to one of two places---1, the repair shop or 2, the junk yard... Good luck, buddy, Conrad