Howdy, RV Forum Framily.
6:39 PM 4/29/2006
Howdy, Y'all.
First, right off the bat, let me say that this trip, on the way home to Texas, so far has been adventuresome.
We are currently parked in the Pavilion RV Park in West Monroe, LA. It is pretty muddy here. I can hear lots of barking dogs somewhere. We have a clear view of a large transmission tower. I have to get a picture of that. <smile> We won't stay here again.
We left the state of Florida on April 26 at 2:20 PM.
We stayed overnight at Southern Trails RV Resort in Unadilla, GA. Lots of highway noise and we will not stay there again.
We had some basic(very basic) maintenance work done on the Wanderlodge at Bleakley RV in Unadilla, GA. They are not equipped to do the chassis work that we wanted done. we didn't know that. The technician stated that the main oil filter, the Racor,was probably the original. I looked at it and it was black and in very poor condition. This same technician overfilled the coolant. When the engine was started, the excess leaked out of the tank cap onto the back of the coach. I was NOT happy with that. Every filter on the coach was replaced. There were many different brands of filters on the coach. Now they are all the same brand. The coach has a new air cleaner, too.
We had some questions about the Webasto heating system. They were answered to the best of the technician's ability. The man who installed this system doesn't work at Bleakley anymore. We also had our PowerTech generator serviced.
We learned that Bleakley will not sell Blue Birds anymore. We wish now that we had done our homework a little more thoroughly and perhaps we should have taken our Bird to the Blue Bird factory. On a more positive note, Bleakley's service building is very clean and the people are very nice and accomodating. I renewed a friendship with the only saleswoman on staff and we got caught up on lotsa stuff. Of course, I showed her our coach!!
Yesterday we arrived at the Alabama Welcome station at theh AL/GA state line(I-20). It was pretty warm in the coach so we turned on the generator to run the air conditioners. All that worked for about 15 minutes until the genset died. It's water temperature went up to 220 degrees. Whoops. After a couple of phone calls to our technician friend(Ralph) Jack realized that the big cooling fan for the genset had died. So of course the genset overheated and turned itself off. We were NOT happy. BUT we did have the inverter so I opened up the windows and turned on the big exhaust fan in the kitchen. That helped a lot and as the sun went down, the outside temperature dropped and the coach became cooler. Last night the outside temp went down to 60 degrees so we were comfortable. Now, you may ask, WHY did we stay at the Welcome Station? Well, we forgot about that lil' ol' race at Talladega and there wasn't a campsite to be had.<grin> We did drive past the racetrack this morning and holy cow, the surrounding grounds were full of all kinds of RVs. WOW!
We will be in Texas tomorrow(PTL) and will head for Duncan, OK where Ralph will do some work on our Wanderlodge. Air conditioners, genset cooling fan, keypad for door, etc. Hey, this is an old lady coach!!
Well, that is all for now.
Best regards,
Jack and Liz, going home!!!
6:39 PM 4/29/2006
Howdy, Y'all.
First, right off the bat, let me say that this trip, on the way home to Texas, so far has been adventuresome.
We are currently parked in the Pavilion RV Park in West Monroe, LA. It is pretty muddy here. I can hear lots of barking dogs somewhere. We have a clear view of a large transmission tower. I have to get a picture of that. <smile> We won't stay here again.
We left the state of Florida on April 26 at 2:20 PM.
We stayed overnight at Southern Trails RV Resort in Unadilla, GA. Lots of highway noise and we will not stay there again.
We had some basic(very basic) maintenance work done on the Wanderlodge at Bleakley RV in Unadilla, GA. They are not equipped to do the chassis work that we wanted done. we didn't know that. The technician stated that the main oil filter, the Racor,was probably the original. I looked at it and it was black and in very poor condition. This same technician overfilled the coolant. When the engine was started, the excess leaked out of the tank cap onto the back of the coach. I was NOT happy with that. Every filter on the coach was replaced. There were many different brands of filters on the coach. Now they are all the same brand. The coach has a new air cleaner, too.
We had some questions about the Webasto heating system. They were answered to the best of the technician's ability. The man who installed this system doesn't work at Bleakley anymore. We also had our PowerTech generator serviced.
We learned that Bleakley will not sell Blue Birds anymore. We wish now that we had done our homework a little more thoroughly and perhaps we should have taken our Bird to the Blue Bird factory. On a more positive note, Bleakley's service building is very clean and the people are very nice and accomodating. I renewed a friendship with the only saleswoman on staff and we got caught up on lotsa stuff. Of course, I showed her our coach!!
Yesterday we arrived at the Alabama Welcome station at theh AL/GA state line(I-20). It was pretty warm in the coach so we turned on the generator to run the air conditioners. All that worked for about 15 minutes until the genset died. It's water temperature went up to 220 degrees. Whoops. After a couple of phone calls to our technician friend(Ralph) Jack realized that the big cooling fan for the genset had died. So of course the genset overheated and turned itself off. We were NOT happy. BUT we did have the inverter so I opened up the windows and turned on the big exhaust fan in the kitchen. That helped a lot and as the sun went down, the outside temperature dropped and the coach became cooler. Last night the outside temp went down to 60 degrees so we were comfortable. Now, you may ask, WHY did we stay at the Welcome Station? Well, we forgot about that lil' ol' race at Talladega and there wasn't a campsite to be had.<grin> We did drive past the racetrack this morning and holy cow, the surrounding grounds were full of all kinds of RVs. WOW!
We will be in Texas tomorrow(PTL) and will head for Duncan, OK where Ralph will do some work on our Wanderlodge. Air conditioners, genset cooling fan, keypad for door, etc. Hey, this is an old lady coach!!
Well, that is all for now.
Best regards,
Jack and Liz, going home!!!
