Terry said we surprised the folks at Tra-Tel RV Park when we pulled out yesterday. Our site was pretty tight, and we had to back out and swing around to get out, and then swing back around a large rock to get out. Apparently most people need to jockey their RVs around a bit to get out of the park, but with Miss Terry’s expert guidance, we were out quickly and smoothly.
Once we left the park, we pulled off the side of the road to hook up the van. I have to tell you, after hassling with our old Brake Buddy auxiliary brake, I sure love the SMI Stay-In-Play unit we replaced it with. No more lugging the heavy brake in and out of the cab of the van, no more fiddling around with fitting an arm over our brake pedal and adjusting it to work. We just turn on the SMI, do a quick brake light check, and off we go.
Well, we do when the brake lights work. This time around, we had turn signals on the van, but no brake lights. I discovered that one of the brake lights on the bus was out also. So I removed the lens cover and jiggled the light bulb, and it was just a loose connection. I put everything back together, and voila, it all worked!
Then I scanned through our tire pressures on our PressurePro tire monitoring system, thanking our pals Mike and Pat McFall once again for convincing me how handy it is, and off we went.
We had a quick and easy 90 mile run on Interstate 10, got onto the 202 Loop just outside of the Phoenix metropolitan area, and scooted around the south side of town, arriving at Pacific Manor on Apache Trail just over two hours after we hit the road. Traffic was light, the bus ran fine, and it was a good day for traveling, even if it was a relatively short distance.
We had one little mishap just after we got on the surface streets, when I turned a corner and one of our cabinet doors sprang open and dumped a pile of canned goods and other food items onto the floor. Fortunately nothing broke open or spilled, so clean up wasn’t much of a problem. It’s just one of those irritating little things that happen sometimes when you live and travel in an RV.
Compared to the time I pulled out of an RV site in Wyoming and swung too early, banging the back end of our first motorhome against the concrete utility pedestal; or the incident early in our fulltiming days, when I pulled out of an RV park with all of our window awnings still out, this was no big deal.
As Miss Terry says when I pull dumb stunts like that, “Nick happens.”
Thought For The Day – Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.
Nick Russell
World-Famous, New York Times Best Selling Author, and All-Around Nice Guy!
Our first month of full timing we were leaving a park and it was pouring rain, being a Sir Walter Raleigh I insisted that Cathy stay dry in the motor home cab. Working fast I hooked everything up and then got inside the Saturn to set that up. As I exited the car into the pouring rain, force of habit (and a major brain fart) caused me to throw it in first gear, check the lights and away we go. It was a grass site so it just slid along until we hit the pavement, first thing we hit on the pavement is three BIG speed bumps which camouflaged the car bucking because it was in gear. At the end of the road traffic was clear so I rolled the stop sign and got right on I-75 for 200 miles. When we arrived at the next park one little touch of the clutch pedal sent it straight to the floor, umm I don’t think that’s right, popped the hood and the side of the engine was missing. The GOOD news is that we were 50 miles from Spring Hill and the dealer said that they could overnight a new engine, trans-axle and complete exhaust system. Three days later it was running as good as new, because it was new, at the cost of $7684.15. The better news was that, unbelievably the insurance covered it. I tried for months but as hard as I tried I could never figure out a way to blame this on the wife.
P.S. the car only had 14000 miles on it when I did this.
Glad to hear your tow system is still working well. We rate those tight corners and rough roads as “dish breakers”, ie: #1 dish breaker or #3 dish breaker etc:-)
Travel safe.