Life goes on

We have been busy taking care of the things necessary with my mom's passing.  It was made easier by her, because she made it a priority to be sure everything she could address while living was done.  It's a lesson to us, especially since we've seen the results of an unexpected or not prepared situation.

We are now transitioning to get back to moving, but have a few items we want to take care of either before we move or on the way out of dodge.  We have almost 75,000 miles on our motorhome and it is time for new shocks.  We are noticing a bit of porpoising on large bumps, and a pretty hard jolt over expansion strips, so it is time.  There is a shop in Orlando that has an incredible reputation as one of the very best alignment and chassis shops in the country, Josam  It is rare that you ever find 100% positive raves and reviews on anything!  So we are going to go there on our way out of Florida and have our ride height adjusted, shocks replaced, an alignment, and our front hubs checked out.  There is a big debate between Bilstein and Koni shocks, and of course proponents of both.  After much research we have opted to go with Koni's even though they are a bit more expensive.  We have no intention of selling our coach in the near future so feel the added cost is justified, both shocks have lifetime warranties.

We also had planned on another big project, I only call it big since we were not planning on doing it ourselves :-)  We were going to replace our Slide Toppers.  Those are the awnings that cover the top of our slide outs.  They keep water and debris off the slides.  

Slide Topper

As you can see in the photo, our Carefree's are very flat and tend to not only allow water to pool, any debris that accumulates on the awning rolls right up into the aluminum case.  We had planned to replace them with another brand, Girard, which has a patent on theirs which alleviates those problems.  The Girards are pitched better, and their roller is on the motorhome side and with a brush they push off the debris as they roll up.  

Girard topper

We contacted a service facility we have used in the past, but they have not responded in a timely fashion, so instead of remaining here in Florida even longer, we will take care of this project next year when we return.

Also we are going to make a record run north to pack up our storage unit in Atlanta and move our belongings (crap for the most part) down here to another storage unit.  We spend more time here in Florida, so it makes sense to have a storage unit here that we can access nearby and store items we only use here.  We are planning to make that trip in the shortest time possible, as we are really squeezing that in.

We have been seeing the few friends that are still here, before we leave, which has been nice, but I think they really just want to be sure I'm still kicking :-)