The long, long day

Have you ever seen the 1953 Lucille Ball/Desi Arnaz film, “The Long, Long Trailer?” 

It’s a hilarious slap-stick comedy in which newlyweds Nicki and Tacy buy a 36-foot trailer and travel over the Sierra Nevada mountains. Tacy (Lucy) collects rocks as souvenirs. Of course, the rocks weigh down the trailer. Disaster after disaster strikes the couple—. Tacy tries to cook in a moving trailer; the couple pulls the trailer over a logging road and nearly sends it down the mountain; Nicki tries to level the trailer in a muddy quagmire during a raging rainstorm; and Nicki backs the trailer into a porch.

When I saw this movie years ago, I laughed out loud. I want to see it again; it’s that funny.

Of course, when those disasters happen to you, they lack the humor of the movie.

Yesterday, we didn’t experience any of the classic "Long, Long Trailer" disasters, but we did have one nevertheless. And it resulted in a long, long day.

We stayed at the Lazy Days campground outside of Tampa for two nights. We didn’t do anything special—just relaxed and worked on some projects in the motorhome. (Jim started to clean the water stains on the ceiling, using a formula we learned about in one of the seminars at Daytona. It really works—better than Oxiclean. The ceiling is looking good.) Jim also went to some of the free seminars Lazy Days offers to campers.

We left Lazy Days Wednesday morning about 10:30, enroute to an Encore resort in Claremont, Fla. At mile marker 43 on I4, Jim shut off the radio and concentrated very hard on his driving. What happened? The power steering stopped working. Jim had to manhandle our 38-foot rig off the road onto the grassy area. Thank goodness he was driving in the right lane.

A quick look at the engine told the story: A hose to the power steering broke, spewing oily fluid all over Toad (our car) and rendering the motorhome undriveable.

We immediately called the Good Sam road service. Because of where we were stranded, it took almost two hours for the mechanic to get to us. After he figured out which hose had to be replaced, he had to go into Orlando to have it made, then returned and put it on. The total time? Around seven hours.

We were quite comfortable, of course, since we have all the comforts of home with us. What wasn’t so nice, though, was the bill for this emergency service: $950. Ouch!

When the mechanic finally finished, we continued on our way. By this time, it was dark, and Jim didn’t want to try to hook up in the dark at the resort. We discovered that the local Walmarts did not allow boondocking. However, we finally found a Cracker Barrel that allowed us to park overnight. Of course, we enjoyed a nice dinner at the restaurant.

So, we had a long, long day, in some ways reminiscent of “The Long, Long Trailer.” Only it wasn’t too funny.

One thing is for sure: There is never a dull moment when we travel. Maybe that’s why we do it.

Until next time,

Your Reluctant RoVer,

Linda 

Smart Good Sam

Yesterday I was walking across a courtyard at the Daytona Speedway, enroute to meet Jim, who was attending a seminar on electrical systems. At the time I was passing by, Marcus Lemonis, the dynamic young (under 50) CEO of Good Sam/Camping World was addressing a group of RVers gathered in the courtyard. I think this was a meet-and-greet of some sort. I didn't stop to listen to his talk, but I did hear him say something interesting...that these Good Sam Rallies would be offered free of charge to people who were customers of Camping World.

I didn't linger to hear any qualifiers...like how much someone would have to spend to be admitted free. I did hear him say that he wanted to continue promoting the RV way of life, and he felt that a $200 fee, plus the cost of driving an RV, stopped a lot of people from participating in the rallies.

Me? Well, you know me well enough to know that I don't give a hoot about the rallies and all the "camaraderie" that they are supposed to engender. I agreed to come to this one because (a) it was a national rally; (b) it featured name entertainers; (c) it promised to have a lot of useful information through seminars; (d) it would have a large exhibition; and (e) it was free.

Yep, free was the clincher. If it hadn't been free, I probably would have nixed the idea. (I did say OK to going to the national FMCA--Family Motor Coach Association--meeting last August, but only because it was in Indianapolis. Unfortunately, we had to cancel because of Jim's recovery from hand surgery.)

Everything was free--even the evening meet-and-greet especially for life-time members. (It was a Candyland theme. Except for a few chocolate bars, we had to look and lust after the gluten-filled desserts that were available--cherry cobbler, various types of brownies, cakes, and cheesecake.) Although everything was free, Good Sam was smart: I'm sure we were like many thousands of others. We spent more than $400 on RV stuff, specifically a water softener and some microfiber cleaning components.

If that's not enough, now Jim is drooling over later-model motorhomes. Our friend Ed, who sold us Baby, was at the show. He'd love to upgrade us to a newer model with more room. Well, we'll see.

Probably half of the people who were camping here at the rally left sometime today. We are leaving in the morning. I'm glad we stayed the evening. The rally ended with a spectacular fireworks display. My camera wasn't good enough to capture the spectacle; it was one of the best fireworks displays we've ever seen!

So, Good Sam is smart. It gives away a lot of stuff--from merchandise (like the in-motion satellite dish and the Fantastic Fan that we won last spring), to dessert receptions, to name entertainment, to a spectacular fireworks extravaganza. But it gets back a lot, in return.

Will we go to another national rally? Well, if it is free, there is a good chance we will. But we will bring our credit card anyway.

There is no such thing as a free rally.

Until later,


Your Reluctant Rover, Linda

After 7 months, on the road again—for a short trip

It’s been a long (and short) seven months since we returned from our extended winter trip out West. The delay in getting out on the road was caused by a combination of events: Jim had hand surgery. It took eight weeks before he felt he could do any work on the RV. Then, just as he got started tearing out the carpet, he experienced troubles with his shoulder, which required more therapy (both PT and chiropractic). Finally, he recovered enough to (almost) finish the floor and inside.

I say almost, because there is a small area around the driver’s seat that remains to be done. He found some dry rot when he pulled up the carpet. He wants to find out where the chassis is leaking and repair it before putting the floor down. Probably a smart move.

New flooring, looking toward front.

New flooring, looking toward bedroom.

But, it looks great! More than great—it looks brand new, especially with the addition of the desk/storage area. This gives us a lot more room and the layout looks very pleasing.

The kitchen table sits between two new cabinets, with the desk under the window.

This is the new desk/storage area. It adds a lot. We can add a leaf to the table to make it bigger.

On the opposite site of the room, where the sofa had originally been, we are considering putting in another sofa. The original was very uncomfortable and, frankly, ugly. So, we took it out. One reason it was so uncomfortable was because it fit into the 28” area of the slide, allowing for a very small seat pan (depth of the seat). Yesterday, we learned how we could put a deeper sofa in that space. The secret? Allow its front legs to sit on the floor in the front, and shorten the legs in the back! We learned this trick from a sofa maker, who has a booth here at the 2012 Good Sam Rally. (More about that later.)

We have found that time is not kind of RVs. We’ve had Baby stored in a lot behind a business on the south side of Jacksonville. Except for starting the generator, it hasn’t been moved several months, since we took it there in July. We didn’t expect any problems when we hitched up to start on our current trip. But, of course, we had some.

Minor ones, though. We experienced a dead battery. Jim found the cause—a fuse that didn’t look bad but tested bad. Problem solved. Then the generator didn’t want to start. He fiddled for a while (I don’t know what he did), and we haven’t had any other problems with it. (We needed the generator; we are dry camping.) Finally, when we hooked up the brake lights, we found they didn’t work. My job, when we hitch the car, is to give a thumbs up when he checks all the lights.

Every one of them was a thumbs down.

About 20 minutes later, after much head-scratching, deep thought, and experimentation, Jim got them to work. I think the contacts were dirty. Anyway, we finally got on the road with everything working.

You might be wondering about Charlie and Xena. They hated the trip to the RV. Because the RV is stored on the south side of the city and we were traveling south to Daytona, we decided to packs suitcases and take our groceries and cats by car instead of loading at home. This actually worked out well, except that the cats do not like to travel. They cried in their carriers the entire 20-minute trip to the RV.

As soon as we let them out of their carriers, they jumped into their “hidey hole” behind the kitchen cabinets. It has taken Xena until today to stop asking to go back into her hiding place. Charlie has been better. He even came out and wandered about while we were driving. 

This will be a relatively short trip. We don’t have it completely planned (the nice thing about being retired!). We started by going to Daytona Beach (about 90 miles from Jacksonville), and we will head over to Tampa tomorrow, for a couple of nights. Then?

A view of Daytona Speedway Good Sam Rally, taken from the bleachers at the concert.

Another view of the rally taken from the bleachers at the concern. Thousands attended.

We were invited to the 2012 East Coast Good Sam Rally in Daytona, free of all charges, so we decided to attend. It’s been OK, not hokey like that little rally we went to in Eustis last winter. This one had many seminars, a big exhibit hall, and lots of RVs to drool over. It also had Kenny Rogers and Reba McIntyre for entertainment.

I enjoyed Kenny on Friday night more than Reba last night, because I knew his music, not hers. Kenny’s voice is about gone, though, while Reba can still belt the tunes out. They both related to the audience well. I wouldn’t pay to see either one, but this was included in our admission (which was free!).

We ran into Ed, the fellow who sold us our motorhome. He’s coming to dinner tonight, after the show closes. He asked me if I was still the Reluctant Rover. I said yes. I still don’t understand why people like to get together at rallies, join clubs, or do this full time. I find RVing an enjoyable way to travel from one place to another: I don’t have to drive; I can get up whenever I want to get a snack or use the bathroom; and I sleep in my own clean bed each night. But, to me, it is a means to an end—a comfortable way to travel, nothing more. I would not want to do this full-time.

So, with that, I remain your Reluctant Rover.

Linda

Making progress

We arrived home on March 12, anticipating that we would remain home for a couple of months. Jim had to have hand surgery, and that would require some recovery time. But surely, we thought, we would be on the road again by mid summer--after we did some remodeling to the inside of our RV.

Well, summer has come and gone, and we are still home. Jim's hand healed, but then he "pinched" a nerve, which debilitated him. Several weeks of physical therapy (and now chiropractic care) later, he is mostly healed and can continue on the remodeling project that he had begun the first week of July.

The "hardwood" tiling project is going along very nicely. It's going to look great!

The end seems to be in sight. He has most of the tile laid down and hopefully will finish this weekend. Then he needs to put a waterproof coating on the roof, with the help of his son and grandson. (Marshall and his family have come back to Jacksonville from Japan, where Jim's daughter-in-law, a warrant officer, was stationed. Jacksonville is her last assignment and they plan to stay here.)

Once that is done, we should be on the road again.

I am still a Reluctant RoVer; I don't want to do this full-time. But I am getting "antsy" to go on a vacation again. I think it is because I am really retired now! All summer I've been busy working as a freelance writer/editor for Reed Elsvier, a large HR publisher. Work has slowed down, and although I anticipate continuing to do projects for the company, I am now a lady of leisure, so to speak. (I even finished reupholstering my dining room chairs this week.)

 So, cross your fingers that Jim will finish the remodeling soon. It's looking good; he's done a good job (as usual).

Until later,

Your Reluctant RoVer,
Linda

Another time, Indy

Alas, we won't be going to Indianapolis at the end of August.

I really didn't care about the FMCA (Family Motor Coach Assn) national gathering at the State Fairgrounds, but it was a way to go back "home" to Indiana. I was hoping we would be able to get up to Chicagoland, do the city and see the grandkids.

Not this summer.

Jim somehow did some damage to his right arm/shoulder. The MD thought it was a torn rotator cuff; the physical therapist thinks it is a "pinched nerve." Whatever it is, he is undergoing PT and is slowly recovering, but not enough to be able get the work done on our motorhome before we dispatch on another vacation.

So, we're taking it easy, concentrating on his getting better. Once that happens, he'll finish replacing the flooring, get the roof redone, and have someone fix a couple of the other nagging relatively minor problems we have in the electrical system.

We also have stuff to do here at home...like replacing our bedroom carpeting, getting plantation shutters for our BR windows, and replacing the countertop in our bathroom.

In the meantime, I think we'll just continue to enjoy the sun and the swim/spa--and Jim's family! Marshall, Theresa, and their kids are returning to Jacksonville next week after having spent a couple of years in Japan. Theresa (career Navy) has been transferred to the Jacksonville Naval Station. Although they probably will not move real close to us, they will be nearby, and that will be nice. We'll get to "know" them again before we take off--and we will take off on another trip once Jim is healed. Where to? Depends on the season and the weather.

We know we want to do some traveling within Florida yet. We'd also like to go up to the Carolinas, Georgia, and maybe even Tennessee. Or, perhaps we'll go down to the southern part of Texas when it gets cold here in north Florida. Time will tell.

Until later,

Your Reluctant RoVer,
Linda

'Baby' gets a facelift

It's the end of June. We thought we would be traveling by this time, at least within Florida, but Jim's hand surgery delayed our vacation plans by at least three months. He could have driven "Baby," but he needed to do some work, and that required the use of both hands.

Jim has a long punch list of things to do, but the four main projects are:

Here you can see most of the carpeting and tile are torn up. The dining area is currently on the left; it will be placed directly across the aisle, behind the passenger's captain's chair.

• Remodeling the inside;
• Resurfacing the roof; 
• Getting an annoying electrical problem fixed; and
• Repairing the air conditioner vent control in the dash.

Jim has started the remodeling project. He's torn out the carpeting and pulled up the linoleum in the bathroom and the tile in the kitchen area. Next week he's going to level the flooring and begin laying the vinyl "wood" planks we bought some time ago. We settled on the vinyl tiling because of its good looks (looks just like wood) and because of its light weight. (Real wood was too thick and heavy, and we didn't like the looks of laminate flooring.)

After pulling up all the flooring and removing the filing cabinet that was behind the passenger chair, we   brainstormed a number of different ideas on how to provide an office area and accommodate the cats' food bowls and litter box(es). We had seen cabinetry that we liked and would meet our needs (at least for an office area) in some of the newer RVs. I found some furniture online just like what we had seen. The price tag, though, was a put off. So, I began to think...

And I came up with a solution we're confident will look great!

We are going to move the dining area across the room, under the window behind the passenger seat. (This is just north of where it was to begin with.) We purchased 18" and and 24" oak wall cabinets (12" deep) that are an excellent match to our interior cabinetry. They will be on either side of the table, but will be about 1" taller. We will put a shelf "topper" across the entire length. That's where we will place the all-in-one machine as well as my laptop. When I want to work, I can easily move the laptop from the shelf to the table. As an added bonus, we'll have more storage in the new cabinets.

Yes, we'll lose 12" of the table, but that's not a problem. Our table has a leaf we can put in when we eat, if we need it.

As soon as we get this done, I'll take a picture and post it.

We haven't quite decided what else we'll be doing to the interior. We'd like to get rid of the big recliner chair. Perhaps we'll buy a new couch and put it where the old one was. Or, maybe will get a wall hugger recliner (or two).

Jim's next project is roof repair. We knew we had a leak; it was exasperated with the torrential downfall we experienced for the last couple of weeks. (Thank goodness it is again sunny! And hot--97 today.) Then we'll take Baby into an RV repairer who will work on the electrical and air conditioner problem.

It'll all get done, sooner or later. We know, though, that by the end of August we'll be on the road to Indianapolis. Where else? We don't know. I imagine we'll be gone a couple of months.

I'll keep you apprised.

Until later,

Your Reluctant RoVer,
Linda

Good Sam is very good!

If there is one thing I can count on, it is entering a contest and not winning. I can't tell you how many times I have completed entry forms and purchased raffle tickets only to leave the event disappointed after the last prize was given out.

I never win anything.

That all changed a couple of weeks ago.

Jim and I are members of Good Sam Club; we are also members of Camping World's President's Club. Turns out that Good Sam is now in a close partnership with Camping World. Camping World bought out an RV dealership in Jacksonville last summer, and it finally celebrated its grand opening and its collaboration with Good Sam Club with an open house on a Friday evening.

We received an invitation and decided to go. We didn't know there would be prizes. We did know there would be food (some of which was GF) and probably some items we needed on sale. So, we decided to brave the rainy weather and the rush-hour traffic (both of which Jim complained about on the way to the event) to make the drive down to Camping World on Beach Blvd., about a 20-minute drive from our house.

When we got there, we were told there would be a drawing at 6 p.m. Jim put his invitation in the box and we went back to try to chocolate-covered strawberries, melon, and lettuce chicken wraps. We also found a Fantastic Fan we needed to buy to replace the one that had died in our RV kitchen. It was the only one in stock, so Jim started lugging it around.

Around 5:45 we thought about leaving, but then decided that maybe (if we were lucky) we might win a gift certificate that could knock off a few dollars on the fan. So we decided to wait for the drawing.

Imagine our surprise when the CEO of Good Sam and Camping World, Marcus Lemonis, started drawing names and giving out very generous prizes--like $500 shopping sprees. He also asked winners what they were shopping for--and then gave them their wish-list!

Jim and I looked at each other and decided that if (and it was a really big if) our name were called we would ask for the fan and a satellite dish, something we have been drooling over for a while.

About 10 minutes later, our name was called! (Actually, Jim's name, but I went up to get the prize.) Marcus asked what we wanted, teased me when I told him "a Fantastic Fan and a satellite dish" and then asked, "A high-end dish? An in-motion dish?" I had no idea what that was, but I looked at Jim, who was grinning ear-to-ear and nodding so hard his head almost fell off. I responded, "Sounds good to me!"

And with that, he gave us both items--top of the line--with installation included. Our prize was valued at more than $2,900.

Wow.

I guess I can't say that I've never won anything anymore. But what I can say is, "Thank you, Marcus. We really do appreciate your generosity!"

That little trip in the rain really paid off. I guess the moral is: Always go to a retailer's open house. You never know what will happen.

Until next time,

Your (not quite as) Reluctant RoVer,
Linda