Long awaited retirement trip finally here

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Interesting, my father passed with emphysema as well.  Sounds like you all are doing everything right!  I love reading about your journey. Thank you!
 
It's been a few days since my last post because we have been in Canada without cell service or wi-fi. Today, I broke down and bought a day's worth of AT&T unlimited cell data, talk and text for $10.00 because I needed to determine where the best place to get gas would be on our way back down from Jasper.

In a nutshell, I will say the drive up the Icefield Parkway between Lake Louise and Jasper has to be the most scenic drive in North America. Trying to describe it will make me run out of superlatives, so I'll just say the scenery is breathtaking and nothing that you will ever see in the United States. The road is two lane, in good shape, and although I'm not positive, I don't think there is a grade steeper than about 8 or 9%.

The gasser that I had my doubts about made the trip in very good shape. I still have to check the oil and tranny fluid before we take off again, but I kept the engine at no higher than 4,000 rpm and had very little trouble with the grades. When we left Radium Hot Springs and started toward Banff, I was warned to leave the car unhitched by the office personnel at Canyon Resort because within five minutes, we would encounter an 11% grade. That simply was not true and we could've easily taken the grade in tow. A guess on my part would put that grade at around 8%, something we have been climbing for the entire trip without issue. There is another steep grade at the end of the journey near Banff but again, not more than 8%. I have been keeping a close eye on my 5-1/2 year old tires and making sure their air pressure is kept at the proper amount. I already knew what temperature change can do to tire pressure but had no idea to what degree altitude change will also affect pressure. I have kept my fronts at 85 psi, per the Michelin online chart for the weight of the front end of the coach, and the rear tires have been kept at 95 psi. When I weighed at the start of the trip, the total including hitched vehicle was a little over 27,400 lbs. The coach presently has 46,330 miles on original shocks, suspension and brakes. I'm guessing that I'll be replacing most, if not all, of the above before my next trip.

The RV park at Canyon Resort in Radium Hot Springs is possibly the best looking park I have ever seen.There is a problem getting into the park because it is located at the bottom of a very steep canyon. I used my brakes more getting down that road than on some of the mountains we have climbed. A sharp turn at the end makes it difficult to maneuver without unhitching, which has to be done anyway because the park is full of back-ins.

Once in the park, you realize it is very well laid out giving each space considerable room and privacy. A hedge of shrubs has been planted and maintained between each site. The sites are concrete and gravel with the driveway being a lattice work of laid stone tiles with grass growing out of them. The patios are concrete with a picnic table and fire pit. The FHU was easily used with clean electric and 60 psi water pressure. The sites were very level making the deployment of your jacks only needed for stability. The view is what I found incredible and gets my vote for best RV park I've seen, since you are surrounded by mountains. A short walk to the owned property sites on the other side of the canyon provides a picturesque waterfall. Cable and wi-fi are provided. There is shopping close by. The town of Radium Hot Springs is not very big and the gas there is quite expensive at $1.40/liter so we chose to get our gas in Banff. We stayed only one night and didn't get to see what was around us very much but we will stay there again Saturday night on our way back down to the States.

The trip to Banff was uneventful other than it being the first time we drove separately. It was scenic with several turnouts if you're inclined to take photos. It was short, only about 85 miles, taking about two hours. We were concerned about getting there too early because the latest we could check out from Canyon was 11AM and the earliest we could check in at Banff was 2PM. We left at 10:30 and arrived at 12:30 hoping they would give us our site, and they did.

Banff is a very nice mountain town that gives you the feeling that you're in the Swiss Alps because many of the buildings in the town, be it shops, businesses or homes, have been built to resemble chalets. It was the first time I actually realized I was in a foreign country. Most people we encountered in Alberta are bi-lingual. We also noticed a difference in attitude toward people from the United States, with many looking down their noses at what are called Americans. I always thought the use of that term to describe people from the U.S. was a misnomer since anyone from anywhere in North America, Central America or South America is actually an American. But the people there move slower than what we see in the States, the speed limits are much lower with most highways limited to 56 mph, and they seem to get the impression, rightfully so, that Americans are always in a hurry. Gas was $120.9/liter in Banff, so we filled up in a station so busy, it was difficult getting out, even after we had checked the ingress and egress.

The RV site we had while in Banff was at Tunnel Mountain Trailer Court with FHU. This is the only RV park I have ever seen that has its sites parallel to the roads with the FHU on the side of the road. You simply pull into a gravel drive still lined up with the road and stop when you have best access to the hook ups. It makes getting in and out the easiest I have ever seen. The campground appears to have been terraced out of the side of a large hill, with each row of sites above the last. The roads to each set of sites are 1/4 mile long. The FHU only has 30 amp electric and the water pressure was rather weak at 40 psi. Banff has a total of over 900 sites plus tent sites within the confines of the national park.

When I booked the sites at Banff and Jasper, I did so the minute the reservation site went online because I had been told the spots would go quick. I got a decent site at Banff because I worked on it first. It took about 45 minutes to complete the transaction and receive a confirmation before I could begin booking a site at Jasper. In that time, every site that had hookups of any kind were already gone and I was left with getting a back country site at Wapasso. Part of that problem was caused by their primary and most popular campground being closed for construction. The same thing happened with Fishing Bridge in Yellowstone and many of the other outside campgrounds increased their rates. t least with this campground being inside a Canadian national park, the rates stayed the same. They just booked up faster. The site we have is literally back country visited by bears every day and night. No hookups don't bother me but not being allowed to run my generator except from the hours of 8-9:30am and 5-7pm gives me concern because I have three year old deep cycle batteries that won't last the night for both the furnace blower and the inverter I use for my CPAP. Last night about 3AM, both stopped working. Fortunately, by the time we got up at 7:15 this morning, the solar panel had been charging the batteries enough that I was able to at least start the generator at 8AM when allowed. I don't mind not having television; I warned Judy that these two days would be our quiet time and get back to nature time. But I really would like to be able to read until bedtime and still have enough power to run the furnace.  I think tonight, I'll run the generator until 9PM or whenever someone tells me to shut it off and that should give the batteries enough charge to get through the night.

When I got to Jasper National Park and the Wabasso campground, I was still enthralled by what I had just driven through - the Icefield Parkway. Glacier National Park was stunningly beautiful and I will still rank it as my favorite national park in the U.S. But the views from the Icefield Parkway running through Banff and then Jasper National Parks simply don't stop. You'll take pictures of a mountain range with jagged peaks and glaciers larger than anything in Glacier NP and then round a curve and run into another range just as beautiful, just as breathtaking, and just as ragged. It goes on for 184 miles.

Something interesting that I found in the Canadian parks is the water many times is a pea green. I saw one lake that appeared blue-green but never did I see a body of water that looked either blue or clear. I know that the water usually appears blue to us because of the refractional abilities of the water as the light from the sun bounces off the surface. I wonder if the higher latitude has anything to do with the refraction properties of the water up here.

I didn't want to burden the reader with a long post but we have covered several stops along our way since my last. I hope this wasn't too boring. Because of wanting to keep this as short as possible, I know I haven't covered all the topics that could have been, so if anyone has any questions about this portion of our journey, feel free to ask.
 
John, if a lake looks chalky or cloudy it's because it comes down from a glacier.  It's called glacial flour and it's actually particles in suspension.  In Fairbanks you can take a river cruise and where two rivers meet it's quite interesting because one is clear and the other is glacial so there an interesting effect when the two river waters swirl together.

So glad to hear you like the Icefields Parkway and the Banff area.  They're definitely in my "must see" category.

ArdraF
 
Ardra - thank you so much for the information about the color of the water. That is fascinating to me and saves me doing the research to find out for myself.

We took off from Jasper's Wabasso campground at 8:00 this morning, easily picking up the pieces since we had nothing to disconnect and only had to get the jacks up, the pads stored and the slides drawn in. We stopped by the dump station and partially filled our fresh water tank that was down to ⅓ of a tank and empty the holding tanks.

On our way up, we ran across several turnouts going southbound that would afford great photos so we planned on catching each one on our way down this morning. The Garmin said the trip would take until 1:00 but I calculated it would take us until 4 or 5PM, figuring a lot of stops for photos and an hour lunch break. Unfortunately, we got few good photos and didn't need to stop at many of the turnouts because the weather was horrendous, raining off and on the entire trip with the ceiling so low, it was hiding the mountain peaks. When we were at the highest points of the trip, we were even with the clouds or they were no more than 50 feet above our heads. We still took a lot of shots but there were few that I consider outstanding.

I forgot to put the pool noodles on the bedroom slide when we set up at Wabasso. We use them because I have run head first into the edges of the slide too many times from absentmindedness. Yesterday while checking tire pressure and changing a battery in one TPMS sensor on the inner rear tire, I stood up and walked right into that slide with the edge catching me in my forehead, mouth and chest. I hit it hard enough that it completely knocked me off my feet and almost blacked me out. My first thought was to check my teeth, and they were all right. My second thought was to get up because it had knocked me into the grass and brush outside of the gravel we were parked on and I was afraid of ticks. I tried to get up and fell back down, making me realize just how hard I had hit the slide. After a few seconds that seemed like minutes, I was able to stand up, but staggered all the way around the coach to the door, having to sit down as soon as entering. Fortunately, today my chest is sore and bruised but all else is well, discounting my pride.

Things like that have made me wonder the entire trip if I am intentionally trying to shoot myself in the foot but the man upstairs keeps moving my foot away from the line of fire. We have been dodging bullets the whole way, with today being nothing different.

Because we didn't stop and take pictures as often as we thought we would, we made it back to Radium Hot Springs and the Canyon RV Resort by 2PM, just in time for check-in. The nice lady behind the counter remembered me from four days ago and put me in a spot only two away from where we were earlier in the week. We began setting up but I immediately realized we had a problem when I got into the electrical compartment. When we were at Banff, we didn't use the Progressive EMS surge protector we bought before the trip because we had to use a 30 amp dog bone since that RV park only has 30 amp service and the EMS is a 50 amp protector. At Wabasso, we had no hookups. So when I got into the compartment and began to uncoil the electrical cord, I immediately noticed my EMS was missing. I wasn't sure, but thought I remembered seeing it in the compartment while at Banff, so I assumed someone had stolen it out of the compartment while we were in town or asleep because I didn't lock the compartment door. It was either that, or I left it at Canyon on our trip up north, but that didn't make sense because the lock and cable I use to secure it to the pedestal was in the compartment. After kicking myself in the keister for several minutes and wondering what my insurance company was going to think if I turned in two claims for one trip, I told Judy that we should walk the dogs down to the office so I could ask the lady at the counter if someone possibly had turned it in. Of course, I knew the chances of that happening were slim to none. For one thing, I was pretty sure it had been stolen at Banff and for another, this was an expensive unit that could very easily sprout legs and walk away on its own. But human nature fooled me again when the lady in the office told me someone had turned it in this morning. Apparently, the people who were in that site the two days before thought it belonged there and never removed it, but the people who were there last night realized it didn't belong on the pedestal and turned it in. I had unlocked the cable and put it in the coach but left the EMS on the pedestal. A lesson learned by not losing a $350 unit less than 60 days old. Someone up there is looking out for me. Think about it - aside from finding an honest individual to turn in something that expensive, what are the chances we would have left it at an RV park where we returned four days later? It's the first time we have ever done that anywhere.

Our trip is more than half over. In terms of time, it's almost two-thirds complete; in terms if mileage, we hit the halfway mark today. In terms of distance away from home, we are now on our way back down from the farther point away we were at this morning. So far, we have been very fortunate to have the coach run well with no serious problems that we couldn't take care of ourselves. Today while on the road, I heard a slight beeping noise coming from behind me and asked Judy to check it out. She said the fridge was beeping and the readout said "Lo." I didn't know what was wrong because even though we used the furnace a lot while up north, we still had ⅓ tank of LP left according to the internal readout. It worried me that it might not be getting enough LP because due to the accident, we can't open the compartment door that contains the tank to get it refilled. I asked Judy to go back and check the amperage of the house batteries, thinking that may be what the "Lo" reading was referring to. She said the readout showed 10.5 amps, much too low. It then made sense to me that was what the readout was telling us because we hadn't turned on the generator this morning and although the furnace and CPAP worked all night, it had drained the house batteries to the point that they could not provide enough spark to light the LP for the fridge. I turned on the generator while driving and allowed it to recharge the batteries. Once it came on, the fridge worked fine with no further error readouts. Another bullet dodged. I plan on changing out those batteries before our next trip, given their present age. It seems in Florida, batteries usually don't last as long as in other parts of the country. I found the same to be true about batteries and anything made out of rubber while living in Las Vegas.

We now are in one of our more difficult times of this trip, driving for five straight days. It was going to be six until we rearranged the itinerary and added more miles each day so we can stay in Vegas, our next destination, for an additional day. I know better than to do this to myself, but the days won't be too difficult and Judy said she might do a little driving if we're not in mountains. We'll see about that.

We plan on driving from Radium Hot Springs to Missoula tomorrow, with stops in Columbia Falls to pick up a package at a previous RV park and a friend who kept my weapon for me while we went to Canada. It will be a long day, as will the next day driving from Missoula to Pocatello, ID, with both days being planned out to take 9-9.5 hours on the road, which translates out to about seven hours actually driving. I usually like to limit myself to about six hours of driving each day. We plan on being in Las Vegas by Wednesday afternoon.
 
You probably won't have time on this visit, but Pocatello has the Clean Museum.  It was started by a man who owned a nationwide cleaning company and after retiring he realized he had quite a lot of "stuff" having everything to do with cleaning.  You name it, cleaning supplies, washing machines, vacuum cleaners, even a cute chimney sweep display.  Some of the items are very old, late 1800s and early 1900s.

ArdraF
 
Your trip reports are certainly not boring John.  Glad you recovered from your bump, perhaps that will stop the absentmindedness!!  Safe onward travels.  We are in West Yellowstone now...
 
Amanda - thank you for the good thoughts and same to you when you leave on your very long trip.

Ardra - I wish we could take a look at your suggestion regarding the Clean Museum; that's something that would interest me. Unfortunately, we got in town late this evening and will leave early tomorrow morning, so we won't have time.

Yesterday's journey was uneventful other than last night when our CO2 detector went off. We had the generator running but didn't have the a/c on so apparently, there was enough fumes entering the bedroom slide from the generator to trigger the alarm. It seems I need to service the slide seals now, something I was going to wait to do until we were ready to put the coach back in storage.

This morning, the LP detector went off. The only thing that was using LP at the time was the water heater. That heater was just installed a year ago so there shouldn't be anything wrong with it. It gives me more worries about the LP system with the internal light now showing either 1/3 full or empty, depending on whether or not we are sitting level. I can't check the actual gauge on the tank because I can't get the compartment door open. We're just hoping we don't need the furnace again during this trip now that we're in Pocatello, ID and heading south. When the generator isn't running, LP is used for the fridge, water heater and stove, so we don't want to run out before the trip is over. We may have to figure out how to get the door open so we can refill the tank.

I'm wondering if there is something wrong with my CO2 detector since the generator is running right now and the a/c isn't on but the detector isn't going off. We will shut off the generator before heading to bed.

Yesterday, when we were getting gas in Radium Hot Springs, we scraped the hitch severely due to uneven pavement while driving up to the pump. We have a 10" drop down receiver on the hitch to accommodate the low hitch plate connectors on the car. When sitting on level ground, the hitch is perfectly even, or maybe 1/2" lower than the car connectors, but this trip has shown us it can drag the ground on spots that aren't level and we are wondering if an 8" drop down receiver would be better. Blue Ox suggests the hitch is no more than 3-4" from being level, so a 2" difference shouldn't put us at risk. If anyone has an opinion from experience with this issue, please share. We now have to go find an emergency brake cable to replace the one that got caught underneath the hitch when it dragged on the pavement.

This was the longest planned driving day of the entire trip at 363 miles, but we decided to take short breaks every 100 miles or so to stretch our legs and give the dogs a chance to get outside, along with a full hour for lunch and it really made the trip easier. When we got in to our present spot, I wasn't as tired as I have been when trying to drive without breaks for 2.5-3 hours straight. It sure isn't like when I was 40 years younger and could drive for 15 hours with only potty breaks. Tomorrow won't be as long and we'll take care of the holding tanks when we stay at an RV park after dry camping for two nights in a row.
 
We finished our grueling five day drive from Jasper NP  to Las Vegas today with minimal issues. Yesterday, while driving near Salt Lake City, our check engine light came on and stayed on for 100 miles until we stopped for the night. Once again, we got very lucky. I asked the RV park manager if he knew of any decent mechanics who could do a diagnostic for me and he suggested a guy a mile down the road that was a Workhorse technician. I called him and made an appointment for this morning. He did the diagnostic check and found the light was triggered by a knock sensor. I told him I had both sensors replaced two years ago and he thinks it was simply a wire picking up another sensor's signal. He told me if the light comes on again, not to worry about it unless we lose power.

We must have brought cooler weather with us from Canada because we ran through rain all day driving through southern Utah and Nevada. When we got to Vegas, we ran into a severe storm with flash flood warnings. I can count on one hand the number of times I saw it rain while living here for 13 years during the month of July. It was only 94 today, while is usually gets up to around 109 this time of year. The evening weatherman was complaining about how high the humidity is right now - 30-40% range. I had to laugh. When it's only 30% in Florida, we think something is wrong.

Our LP indoor warning light shows the tank is empty. We know that these sending units read low so we know there is still some gas in the tank but we don't know how much. If I pry the door open that is jammed into the next door from the accident, we probably won't get it closed again, so this is a last resort and only will be used if we decide we have to get more LP. I'm not sure if we'll be able to get through the next month with what we have and we're going to limit usage to just the stove, keeping the fridge on electric and running the generator when we're not hooked up at a campground. Since we're down south for the rest of our trip, I doubt we'll need to use the furnace again. The LP should have lasted us longer than it did, but when it's 32 in Yellowstone, you use your furnace.
 
We have spend the last three days in Las Vegas, seeing old friends and catching up with relatives. I wondered if we would want to do a little gambling again while here, but have spent money on the coach instead. We had to buy a new brake emergency cable after ours was destroyed when the hitch receiver scraped in Canada. And because we have had this issue on several occasions, some worse than others, I decided to buy an 8" drop receiver to replace our 10" drop. Blue Ox states in their instructions that your tow equipment should be as close to level as possible and should be within 3-4" of being level. My 10" drop put the equipment perfectly level when on level ground, so going to an 8" drop still keeps me only 2" off level and within the tolerance Blue Ox has stated. I have seen other coaches driving out of this resort with more than a 4" off level condition and wonder how they do it.

One would think that in a city as large as Las Vegas that has so much RV traffic and sales, a drop receiver would be easy to find in stock, but no. I found one shop that had one in stock and it was a double - 2"/8" - something I don't need and didn't want to pay for, but had no choice. I have it installed and we will see how it performs tomorrow when we leave on the road again.

The cooler weather we thought we brought with us from Canada dissipated rather quickly. On Thursday, it got up to 104 and on Friday, it made it to 109. We have been very happy with how our basement a/c has performed so far, keeping the temp inside the coach at around 82-85 in the hottest parts of the day. It runs until night and I worry about it lasting at its age when it runs for so long every day, but when we leave the coach, we can't leave the dogs in extreme heat. One more day and we'll be on our way into the desert with even higher temperatures, staying in Kingman, AZ for two nights. We need the a/c to keep doing its thing for another three weeks.

I climbed underneath the coach with a mirror and a flashlight to see what the gauge on the LP tank read and found it to still be about 20% full. Given that it was only 80% full when we started this trip, that means that we have used roughly ⅔ of what was there and we have ⅓ left. Knowing how much the furnace ran during the cold nights in the northern states, I have to believe we have enough to run the fridge and stove for the rest of our trip if we can't run the generator or are hooked up. I'm not worried.

The Oasis RV Resort is one of the nicest I have visited. Our biggest complaints are that the cable doesn't work without creating a very loud hum in our sound system, making me think there is something wrong with the ground and after asking them to look at it the first night, no one has come by yet. But since we have good OTA stations, it's no great loss. The other complaint is that where they put us, we have an exceptionally long walk to any of the three dog parks they have scattered around the outside of the resort. I have to give them credit, though - they have more dog parks than any other resort I have seen.

Today is one of our favorite pizzas for lunch with an old friend and then cruise through the old neighborhoods to see how much they have changed. I also have to go by a UPS store and resend the bad RugRat back to RVUpgrades.com. Tonight, we begin the process of getting the coach ready for the road. We won't have lengthy time off the road again until we get to St. Louis, staying in Kingman only two nights to look at houses and then beginning the long trip back across the country to the Midwest.
 
John Stephens said:
One would think that in a city as large as Las Vegas that has so much RV traffic and sales, a drop receiver would be easy to find in stock, but no. I found one shop that had one in stock and it was a double - 2"/8" - something I don't need and didn't want to pay for, but had no choice. I have it installed and we will see how it performs tomorrow when we leave on the road again.

My favorite RV supply place in Las Vegas is Camp-Out at 3076 Fremont St.  Fremont St. is an extension of Boulder Highway, they're located two miles north of the Boulder Station Casino, where I-515 crosses Boulder Highway.

It's a large, old school family run RV parts store that's been there forever.  They either have what you need in stock or on the slight chance they don't they can get it in a couple of days.  Everything from soup to nuts, hitches to brake and axle assemblies, appliances, small parts, etc.

They're easy to miss because they're co-owned with the camper shell business next door.
 
Lou, I only checked Google when looking for places who might sell hitch supplies and they didn't show up. My wife was over there yesterday visiting her daughter who lives behind Boulder Station. I found the drop down I bought at a hitch and truck supply store on Valley View between Spring Mountain and Desert Inn. I called a half dozen other places around town who said they didn't have one in stock, or had no idea what I was talking about. I took my tow bar system with me to make sure it fit since many of these receivers are made for a specific brand and won't fit all.

Since I plan on returning to Vegas within the next couple of years, I'll remember your suggestion.
 
We drove to Kingman and while in the mountains, the check engine light came back on and stayed on. It has since been taken care of. Our stop in Kingman was to determine if we wanted to live there or in another town in the Western Arizona area.

We stayed at Zuni Village RV Park, a listing I saw in Good Sam. It is a fairly large city style park. The sites are level with trees on both sides, something badly needed during this time of year, and are dirt/gravel. The sites have the bare basics with old wooden picnic tables, cable that doesn't work, decent FHU's, and good wi-fi for $40 per night. There is a pool, if you get too hot in the desert sun.

Kingman, as a town, did not excite either of us on our first day there. However, about 17 miles north of Kingman on Historic Route 66 is a golf community called Valle Vista in which I have seen several homes for sale over the past few months from the MLS listings that I watch, so we drove up there to take a look. It appears to be exactly what we want if we can get used to driving 17 miles to town to get groceries and gas. On our second day, we drove to Bullhead City and Ft. Mohave, a town we had shopped three years ago on our last trip to Vegas. We found a couple of houses we could live in, but we still liked Valle Vista better, so we again drove out there and spoke to an agent. I think we will probably make that our next home unless something else comes up within the next six to twelve months.

Today, we drove to Gallup, NM on our first of five days across country, stopping for two nights in Clinton, OK for a rest stop. We drove six miles out of the way to see the meteor crater, something I have wanted to see ever since the movie Starman came out in 1984. We decided that after feeling cheated by paying $32 to see an unfinished monument at Crazy Horse, we weren't interested in paying more than $10 per person to see a hole in the ground. When we were told the cost would be $18 per person, we chose to use their parking lot for our lunch break.

The CEL stayed on all day. We are parked at a Home Depot and within walking distance to a Walmart, so I bought a $19.95 diagnostic scanner, found the light was on for the same reason - the #2 knock sensor with a non-active warning - and reset the light. Hopefully, it won't come back on since we are nearly finished with the mountains, something I will dearly miss for their beauty.

Road conditions on the drive back from Canada have been mixed, some excellent and some, the worst patches I've seen in a long time. For the most part, Montana roads are good, something I didn't expect given the amount of snow that state gets. US93 and I-15 were, for the most part, good. I-15 through Idaho was a pleasant surprise. This is a state that takes their road conditions seriously. There were several new stretches of road and a couple of 30-40 mile lengths that were under construction where they had completely taken out the road and were in the process of packing and grading the first fill of dirt as though they were laying a brand new highway. I found this refreshing compared to what other states attempt with botched patch jobs that last a year if lucky. Utah was the same - sections of road missing causing a reduction in lanes with the other side of the highway now taking on both directions of traffic.  Again, the interstate in Utah was in very good shape, as was I-15 through Nevada to Las Vegas.

The roads in Vegas were much better than they were three years ago with much less construction taking place on the surface streets.

Then we come to I-40 in Arizona. This road is a mixture of surprises with patches of absolutely horrible road sneaking up on you before you can move over, and then miles of resurfaced pavement in near perfect condition. Judy and I decided that the road through Arizona was the second to worst highway we have ever traveled thus far, the worst still being I-10 through Louisiana. I have been reasonably happy until today with the road and bridge conditions we have encountered and it seems that the northern roads are in better shape than the southern, something that simply doesn't make sense to me when the weather, snow and salt are taken into consideration.

It appears the new 8" drop hitch is working out well and makes me think we should have gotten it instead of the 10" when we bought the package. I can't blame the hitch technician because he measured the difference and sold me what he thought was correct.

Tomorrow we head to Tucumcari, NM, taking a full day to cross New Mexico as well as Arizona. These western states are big.
 
John Stephens wrote:
"The CEL stayed on all day. We are parked at a Home Depot and within walking distance to a Walmart, so I bought a $19.95 diagnostic scanner, found the light was on for the same reason - the #2 knock sensor with a non-active warning - and reset the light. "

John I have a lot of experience with the #2 knock sensor.  Mine kept coming on frequently until I decided to have it replaced.  Wasn't very expensive but I happened to find an RV guy who did it for me as a favor when he was working on other stuff. That took care of the CEL light.............for a while. It still comes on from time to time but not near as often and is easily reset.  I was told that the initial problem was the tailpipe to manifold connection was loose (the doughnut was worn out) and I got that fixed just before I had the knock sensor replaced.  Evidently it was causing the knocking problem.  Nothing to worry much about unless you can't reset it.
 
Bill, the tailpipe to manifold connection is a new one on me. The mechanic in Utah that did the scan told me that some of these sensors are so sensitive, they can pick up rough road through the tires, an out of balance tire, or another signal coming from a different wire that might be too close to the one for the sensor. But his best thoughts on the matter are what I believe to be the cause of the problem: he said that if I had bought some bad gas or gas with a low octane and then hit some mountains, the sensor might have simply been doing its job and detecting a slight knock under a heavier load. The reason I give this credence is because while in Montana and Idaho, I got several tanks of 85 octane gas because that is what a lot of the stations there sell as regular unleaded and if you want 87 octane, which is usually what I get, it is considered mid grade and costs $.20-.30 per gallon more. My last tanks have been 86 and 87 octane and I haven't had the light come back on - yet.

Yesterday, we drove to Tucumcari, NM on some of the worst roads we've traveled on so far. We stayed at a Flying J last night and got little sleep. We wanted to give the generator a rest since it had been running a good part of the day and when we went to bed, the difference in temps between inside and outside was only a couple of degrees so we cut it off and opened a few windows, thinking it would cool off within another couple of hours and we would probably need the blanket we kicked off the bed. Instead, at 2:10, I woke up sweating, got up and checked the thermostat to find the temp at 84. I started the generator back up and kicked on the air. But I couldn't get back to sleep between the truck stop noise, being unable to breath well, and a growing headache, and two hours later, I was back up taking Excedrin. Got up at 6:20 knowing that 30 miles down the road, we would lose an hour due to the time change when we crossed into Texas.

Today's trip was better even though I was getting pretty tired, mainly because Texas takes good care of their roads. There was one stretch that had us in the other direction of traffic because they were repaving the east bound lanes that lasted about nine miles, but other than that, the roads were in good shape. When we crossed into Oklahoma, I remembered someone on the forum complaining about I-40 through OK being the worst road in the country. Maybe they have made improvements since that poster made his journey, but I found little to complain about. A few rough patches, to be expected anywhere, but so far, the road has been good.

We stopped in Clinton, OK for tonight and tomorrow night to give me a rest from the road. Going by Good Sam, as I have done for the entire trip, I chose the Water Zoo RV Park for our respite. I must admit that it is the first big mistake I have made when choosing the RV parks for this trip. The front office for the park is also the front desk for the water park, and is staffed with three young girls of high school age who only know what their management tells them. The manager on duty was a young man who might have been over 21.

With GS discount, the cost was $43 per night and the park is supposed to have free wi-fi and cable. It is also supposed to have all big rig pull through sites. Well, the wi-fi comes and goes and you're lucky if you can get more than two web pages to load before you're disconnected. The cable requires a cable box that they forgot to tell me about, and to get one, you have to give them a $100 deposit. I asked if they had a theft problem and the young girl at the front desk said no. I then asked why the deposit for a cable box, something not usually seen in RV parks. She said she didn't know; she has never been back to the RV park and doesn't know anything about it other than what her manager tells her. I returned the box without using it when I realized that I would have to tear into the home theater cabinet and take off its facade to get to the rear of the signal spitter in order to connect the cable box, and that was more trouble than connecting my Dish equipment. Unfortunately for us, we found out later that the trees are so dense around the coach, we can't receive a satellite signal, so we are doing without television for two nights. To make matters worse, the sites are poorly designed with electric and water too far forward and the sewer near the back of the coach. We have pulled it forward as far as we can to keep the power and water hookups as short as possible and then are having to use 30 feet of sewer drain. I think this may be an old park that has the old style European hookups on the other side of the coach. If that is the case, you would have to face the other direction. Also, the trees are so close to the concrete sites, it is impossible to navigate your way out without scratching the sides of your coach. In a word, this is the WORST RV park we have stayed in so far this trip and I cannot recommend it. Couple the above problems with a staff and manager that doesn't care about customer service or have any knowledge about the facility and well, you get the picture.

When we visited the I-80 truck stop in Iowa, I noticed they had different sized steering wheels. I have been wanting to go from the 18" in the coach to a 16" to give my fat gut a little more room. On Saturday, we will be staying in Joplin, MO overnight and I told Judy that the little sister of the I-80 truck stop is the I-44 stop in Joplin and I'm betting they have a similar selection of truck parts. I'll see if they have a wheel that will fit my W-24 chassis and find out how much they will want to install it.
 
I found out at the I-44 truck stop that the steering wheels they sell are for big rig trucks only and won't fit on my W-24 Workhorse chassis. So I'll look elsewhere for another one. It had been seven years since I had been at this truck stop and the first time I walked inside it, I thought it was huge. This time, after being in its bigger brother in Iowa, not so much. I just wasn't that impressed this time.

We made the drive from Clinton to Joplin without a problem. I-44 is toll from OK City to the state line and for 4 axles, it cost us $24.50. The road was good in most places.

We stopped at the Cracker Barrel in Joplin for the night. When we went in to eat dinner, we were the only ones parked in the RV parking lot on the back side of the building. When we came out an hour later, we were still the only ones parked back there, but someone had hit my right rear and torn the rear cap about a foot off the side, exposing the a/c ductwork coming up from the basement a/c. The cap is cracked in the middle, so it may have to be replaced, and the side panel over the a/c unit will need replacing. Judy and I pushed the cap back together as best we could, still leaving about a 1-?" gap between it and the side panel, and tied it down with tie down straps and bungee cords to keep it from blowing off when highway winds caught it. We also duct taped the gap, hoping it would keep out wind and rain.

Whoever told me that if the first accident we had with the fire hydrant was the only thing that went wrong on an 8,000 mile trip, we would be doing good, jinxed us. The damage is so close to the first damage, I wish I could say it all happened at the same time so we would only have to pay one deductible, but that isn't possible.

The patch job we did apparently was good enough because we drove from Joplin to St. Louis the next day without issue. We arrived at Sundermeier RV park in St. Charles, MO on Sunday and experienced something never before seen by us. We were assigned a back in site because all their pull thru sites were taken. We got backed in easily and began hooking up. When I connected the sewer pipe to the sewer and began draining the black tank, it backed up and out the connector, pouring stinky brown water all over the area. I thought my connector had gone bad because it was coming out every seam and thought I would have to buy another one. But when I disconnected it, I realized it was the sewer that was the problem, completely backed up, meaning the entire length of my sewer hose was full of black tank water. I told the owner about the problem and she moved us to another spot. She asked me if I would hose down the area, but I asked her where the water was supposed to go if I did. I have never had a problem like this at any RV park I have stayed in.

Judy and I will treat ourselves to our favorite restaurants and pizza places around town while we are here for a week and see old friends. Hopefully, nothing will go wrong with the coach while we are here. We have a fairly large dog park about a half mile walk from our site that we'll take the pups to and allow them to run out some of the energy they have built up during this long trip today before we meet friends for dinner.
 
We left Sundermeier this morning and drove to Judy's mother's house in Palestine, IL and will stay with her for six days before beginning the trip back home with only one more campground to stay at in Cave City when we visit Mammoth Cave. Sundermeier says on their website that they are rated five stars but I don't know by whom. If you don't mind city parks, I guess it's all right, but we prefer more of a campground setting and will be returning to 370 Lakeside next time we visit St. Louis.

On Friday, I attempted to replace the kitchen faucet. It should have been an easy job. Taking the old faucet out took a total of three minutes and we ran it up to the local Menard's to buy one that we had picked out the day before, only to find out it wouldn't work. We found another at the same price in a different finish that would do the job and headed back to the coach. I installed the new faucet and couldn't get the cold water to not leak regardless of how tight I got the fitting, and I didn't want to overtighten the fitting since it was plastic. After working on it for two hours (it should have taken 10 minutes), I gave up and called a mechanic who told me his workers would be going home in a little over an hour. Judy and I unhooked and got the coach ready to travel in a record 10 minutes, leaving behind our sewer hose and the Dish locked to the picnic table along with our car, and drove 5 miles to the shop. The mechanic met us as we were opening the door, climbed underneath the sink, felt the connector and said he's be back in a minute. he returned with a plastic grommet and told me the old one apparently fell out of the connector and I would have never gotten the connection to stop leaking without it. He finished my job in five minutes and charged me $40, an expensive grommet, but an invaluable education.

The night before that, I replaced the hardware under the bathroom sink that controls the stopper because the old had rusted out. So now, both of our faucets are working for the first time of the entire trip.

I have a concern because when I went to leave the mechanic's shop, the living room slide that I had set out so he could get underneath the sink wouldn't retract. I couldn't get any of the slides to move; no sound came from the pump, as though we had an electrical connection problem. But when I walked back in the shop to get the mechanic to look at the problem, it worked just fine so we don't know what caused the issue or if it is going to return.

Another electrical connection that has gone bad is the center speaker of my 5 channel home theater system. I troubleshot it down to knowing it's a wire and not a connection, and since the system is located in the dining room slide, I'm not going to try to find the problem. It will be easier to simply replace the speaker with a sound bar hooked directly to the television and use the other four speakers for the cab stereo. I'll pick up an inexpensive one tomorrow and work on it.

I find it interesting just how much wind can play a role in gas mileage on a long trip. When we headed out west, we ran into a lot of head winds that robbed us of power, and we suffered through getting 5.8-7.0 mpg per the engine computer readout and a 6.8 mpg per my own calculations. I haven't done the caculations yet for the way back; I'll wait until we get home to do the final figures, but the engine readout has been running 7.8-10.2, at least a 2 mpg difference just because we now have tail winds instead.

Speaking of gas mileage, our cost for gas is going to be considerably less than what I budgeted because I figured the average cost would be $2.80/gal. While we were in Wyoming, Montana, Canada, Idaho, Utah and Nevada, the price per gallon was $2.80 or higher, but the other states we have traveled through have seen prices ranging from $2.04 in Oklahoma (the cheapest) to $2.62 in Illinois, thus far. I also miscalculated the amount the generator would take because we haven't used it as much due to the colder weather in the northern states. This has allowed us to take this trip for considerably less cost than we thought it would. Of course, we now have to add $1,000 inn insurance deductibles, so the final cost of the trip may be close to what I originally thought.

Judy and I have mixed feelings about this trip coming to an end. On one side, we'll be glad to get back into our house with six times the room and a yard the dogs can run in, but on the other side, we really have enjoyed this trip and don't want it to end. But if I decided to go full time, it would have to be in a bigger RV.
 
I did some research and found what CNET considered to be the best sound bar for under $200, a Visio with built in subwoofers,, albeit small ones, for only $98 and available at the local Walmart in Robinson, an eight mile drive from where we are staying. We drove there and bought one, got it back to the coach and dug out the instructions, not even bothering to unpack the box. I'm glad I didn't. I had planned on putting the sound bar on the top face of the cabinet that contains the electronic gear, right where the center speaker that went bad is located. I failed to take into consideration the fact that the bar has to be slid onto its mounting brackets from the top, and I don't have enough room. There is no other place to put it either above or below the television, so it was returned and we'll simply use the speakers inside the television when we watch it. Not the end of the world, although I am a fanatic about music quality and have a good home theater system at home. I'm thinking if we keep this coach for as long as we plan and take the long trips we have planned, it might be a worthy investment to buy a small 5.1 system if I can find speakers small enough to mount on the walls out of the way.

We are conserving our gasoline while at Judy's mother's house since we are in Illinois with some of the highest gas prices we've seen on the entire trip. Fortunately, it is a little cooler here than it was last year when we ran the generator 24/7, only turning it off every couple of days to check the oil, and we ran the gas down to ? tank and the generator shut off. We had to drive the coach to the nearest station to get more. I didn't want to repeat that performance this year since Illinois' gas tax doubled. Yesterday, we only ran the generator a few hours to recharge the house batteries to make sure I can use the inverter at night for my CPAP. I checked the tank level this morning and found it to still be at ⅝, so I know we'll be able to drive to Evansville, IN on our way to Mammoth Cave tomorrow  where the gas is $.60/gallon less.

We have also conserved our LP, knowing we cannot refill the tank due to the accident that will not allow its door to open. We have heated the water when the generator is on and since it is a one year old heater, the tank holds heat very well. We don't use the LP unless the generator is off and the fridge switches to LP and we haven't used the stove at all.

We have been down to ⅓ tank of fresh water for days so we are taking showers every other day. At the same time, the black and gray holding tanks have shown ⅔ full for days, so we're careful about how much water we put in them. It doesn't seem to matter how many Porta Paks we throw into the black tank when it gets this full; it is going to smell and make the entire coach smell until it is emptied. I have checked All Stays and found a Flying J about 58 miles away on our way to the cave. We'll dump our tanks and pick up fresh water there but their gas prices are almost as high as here so we'll wait until we get to Evansville where the prices are much lower to fill the gas tank.

When we get to Singing Hills, our next and last campground of the trip, we'll hook up for the last time. Two nights there while visiting the cave and our destinations will be completed on this trip. Three more days on the road after that and our trip will be over. I have made an appointment with an awning specialist in Tampa to repair the bad slide topper over the dining room. We won't deploy that slide until it is repaired for fear it could cause additional problems to the slide. I have also made an appointment with North Trail RV in Fort Myers for September 3rd to get the coach in for collision repairs. This will give me enough time to clean it up and out after we get home on the 28th to have it ready to be put in storage after they finish their repairs. I expect them to keep the coach for a month.

I have made a mental list of things that will need to be repaired or replaced before our next trip, but most has been done along the way during this trip. I will need to buy a new thermostat and replace the one we have because the slide switch for the a/c - heat - off has decided not to work anymore. We have kept the switch set to a/c for the past month and when we want to turn off the generator, we set the temp up to kick off the a/c. That isn't something I want to deal with on the next trip. I also am thinking of replacing the battery boost solenoid because it hasn't worked since I bought the coach almost five years ago. Other things that we have lived with are the passenger's map light not working and not needing a new bulb. I figure it's another relay gone bad and I'm not willing to pay a mechanic another $800 to find it. And the fog lights don't work, probably due to another relay gone bad. Something else that we can probably get by without. Overall, the coach is in pretty good shape for being almost 15 years old.
 
We made it to Singing Hills RV outside of Mammoth Cave near Cave City. Judy tried to start a load of laundry and found the four year old Splendide w/d combo would not turn on. At all. Tried all settings, no luck. Checked breaker, all good. Checked electrical with extension cord to outlet we knew worked, no luck so we know the problem is within the unit itself. If anyone has any ideas about why it may have stopped working, please share. We had some rough roads on the way here but nothing we haven't seen before.
 
I can't address your specific problem but Splendide has an excellent web site including a downloadable technical manual that is very comprehensive. It does include troubleshooting info and exploded views.

Ernie
 
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