Time Marches On And So Do We

When last we spoke, we were headed after our doctor visits to Guntersville to visit family and await arrival of our tires to Red Bay.  It took a little longer with the doctors, but gone we are.


We have a friend that call the Ga Mtn RV Resort in Guntersville home.  He has lived there for 7 years. About 3 years ago he traded his older (no slide) MH in on an Allegro Bus. It was delivered to his site and they picked his older one up and drove back the next day.  Note, he has never driven this MH.  I've suggested to him that he needed to go to Red Bay (Tiffin Meca) and check on the recall items.  He may need them repaired. 


He was hot to trot upon my arrival.  I was going to spend 2 weeks there, but since he was so adamant about going, I shortened my stay and took him over to show him the situation and introduce him to the system.  We got there on a Friday about lunch and all was full with 15 units sitting in overflow (boondocking).  We hustled down to the Self Service Park and got 2 recently vacated sites.  We were set.  Two weeks later we both had our issues completed and were on our way.


We got a call reference Carolyn's mom about her breaking her leg.  We headed straight to B'ham to see about that issue.  Carolyn went ahead so she could go to the hospital and I followed to the Hoover RV Park.  That is about what we call our home park.  We got that issue taken care of and were prepared to leave the area.


On the last day (Friday) out of Red Bay I got a new switch installed to my DS MCD shade.  Short story it didn't work.  We left, partly because of weather coming in, on Sunday and made it all the way to Shreveport, LA.  We weren't doing anything but spending the night so I looked for a truck stop or rest area to pull into.  Tried Walmart, but couldn't even get into the parking lot.  Found a truck stop with a paved area out back that didn't have but 3 trucks in it.  That was our park.


When we tried to get set up the air supplied step cover would not retract.  When the switch was activated I could hear air leaking.  I got out and checked where it was coming from.  It was from a part labeled the, air step solenoid, a call the next morning found that was what it was and no RV service facility in the area had one to fix it.  I called Tiffin back and ordered the part to be sent to Carolyn's aunt in Tucson.  It was difficult, especially for Carolyn, to climb up or down from the coach with the step cover closed.


The next call was to MCD to see if I could get the open time on Tuesday they had for my simple fix.  I explained the whole situation and said I didn't need a new shade, just fix the current one and I thought is was a bad electrical connection.  She said come on in that day and she would work me in before the next appointment.  Great.  We arrived about 2 PM and had a tech working on it within 20 minutes.  He carried the whole shade in to analyze the shade and found another bad motor.  It got replaced and back in within 1 hour and to top it off because it was new and had already been worked on, it didn't cost a thing.  It continues to work fine.


We headed the next day toward Tuscon and stopped in Midland at supposedly the best park in the area.  Just didn't care for the area and would probably not come back by there.


We made it to Deming, NM the next night and stayed at 81 Palms RV Park.  It was a nice clean park and I would stop there again.  Note, there weren't many people there and lots of open sites.  If it had been full, it would have been real tight.


We landed in Tucson the next day at Davis Monthan AFB, Agave Gulch.  This is a clean area and real quiet.  It was with 2 miles of Carolyn's aunt's house and gave us the opportunity to see the family for the 4 days we were in the area. 


When we got to Tucson, I thought I should check my fluid level in the Aqua Hot.  It was completely dry.  That was a shock, so I dug out my extra fluid and poured 1 1/3 gallons of fluid and it kept going down.  I heard fluid leaking and looked under the coach and saw it running out through the hole in the bottom.  I jumped on the net and found an Aqua Hot mobile tech that was recommended by the office.  He said he could come out late the next morning.  He arrived about noon and found out it was just a cut hose and trimmed off the end and slide it back.  While I had already paid for a service call I just let him put on the air step solenoid that had been sent ahead of me.  All in all I got out for an hour of work and a gallon of fluid.  Boy I'm getting lucky on this stuff.  My head is sore from knocking on my wooden head.


We headed to Cottonwood, AZ, Deadhorse State Park.  While there we saw the Sedona area and Jerome.

While there on the top of the mountain Carolyn got the call that no one wants to get.  Her mother had passed that afternoon.  We stayed on top awhile and made some calls to other family members and then got back to the park to make arrangements and think about how we were going to make this happen.  (While in Florida and the B'ham areas we had gone in and made arrangements in case this happened while we were gone this summer.)

We decided to leave the MH in the area and fly to Orlando where the burial would occur.  We found a military Family Camp just out of Flagstaff.  We headed toward Williams, AZ to allow time for the family and activities to take place.  On Monday we headed to Flagstaff and the Tuthill (Luke AFB Family Camp) to leave the coach and pack.  We could not get a flight out of Flagstaff so got a flight out of Phoenix.  We spent the rest of the week in Orlando and flew back on Sunday.


I used to fly regularly in the Army and a few times after.  This past week was appalling as to how low flying has gotten.  It took a whole day to fly to Orlando and 21 hours to fly back.  They nickel and dime you for everything.  I had heard that you couldn't get pillows and blankets anymore and noticed that there was not room in the bins for pillows and blankets.  The music and occasional movie you used to get, you now had to pay for.  If I had to travel by plane to see the country I would just sit at home!!!!


We stayed a couple of days to rest up and now find ourselves in Bluff, UT, Cottonwood RV Park.  As we travel around the next few days I hope to get some fine pictures. 


It won't be as long next time. :)