Thursday, January 19, 2017

Best laid plans

Even with the best laid plans, we have accomplished..........almost nothing :-)  Not exactly true, but.  We had hoped to have repaired our big patio awning by now, but a few things got in our way.  Doctor's appointments have multiplied as additional tests need to be accomplished, needed to see eye doctor, ear doctor, etc, and since it is the high season here in Florida to include doctors, adding appointments and changing appointments is challenging to say the least.  Brother-in-law Tom who is staying in their coach a few sites down from us texted to say he had a leak which needed to be taken care of asap.  So I helped him evaluate, and then repair a leak on the middle AC unit, which required parts, and us taking the unit off, resealing it, and replacing it.  Good news, no more leak.  Then we had one of our Fantastic Vent ceiling fans act up, and were sent a new warranteed part which I installed yesterday only to find out the new one did the same thing as the bad one.  Of course that precipitated many calls back and forth to determine what it could be, what to check on the new unit, and finally, great company by the way, new parts to include a new motor are on their way.  All this stuff takes time, so nothing on our list has been accomplished.

But we are enjoying the absolutely beautiful weather, getting together with friends both in the park and out, walking a lot, and generally having a good time.

Not much else to report, and I think the posts will probably be at least two weeks apart for the winter, unless something exciting comes up.

Saturday, January 7, 2017

Just to let you know we're still here.

It's quite a transition period for us when we arrive and get settled here in Florida.  As you know we love to move, here for a few days, there for a few days.  But we're here for almost 5 months.  Not complaining as it is nice to stop and not think about where to go, how to get something taken care of, and make sure we have somewhere to park.  Consequently we try to make our "winter home" as comfortable as we can which ends up taking several days.  Then you have the 2 weeks of Christmas and New Year's and reconnecting with our friends, so what I am saying is nothing really gets done on our to do list until after the first of the year, and here we are.

We have a relatively short to do list this year for the motorhome;

Replace the motor in our main patio awning and reinstall the fabric.
          Remember our main awning flew out uncommanded just before we were ready to leave Florida last spring.  We thought we would fix it on the road until we found out we received the wrong motor.  This will be our biggest project requiring a lot of teamwork as we have to lift up the awning, about 300# to replace the motor, and we'll need at least 4 people to reinstall the awning fabric as it is huge and unwieldy.

Replace the missing, read broken tile in the galley.
          We want to reinforce the area where the slide roller sits when the slide is out, so that is one part of this issue and then insert a new tile, cut to fit, with the appropriate and correct mastic to prevent it coming up again, hoping this will be fairly simple.

Restretch our window awning fabric.
          This shouldn't be a big deal.  The awning fabric which was new a couple years ago stretches a bit and just needs to be pulled to remove any wrinkles or folds that have worked into the fabric.  It will take a bit of time as it takes 2 people and patience to run the awnings down past where they normally go, stretch and secure the fabric, and then readjust them to work properly.

Replace our main power cord.
          This should be fairly straightforward as well.  Our coach is now 10 years old and our big main power cord has started to distort and cause it to not wind in and out smoothly.  We have a brand new 50 amp extension cord, 50' long that we have used twice that we will sell.  We will make up an extension cord from the old cord we will remove, and install the new one in its place.

Possibly fix our long time problem with the rear running lights.
          This could be a challenge, as we have personally spent 5-6 hours trying to fix it, and we had a professional shop work 3 hours to fix it, all with no joy.  We are going to try an electrician recommended to us in this area and if that doesn't work, we will probably rework our travel plans in the spring to go to a special shop in Elkhart, IN.

Things slow down somewhat with the blog while we are still, so more time will pass between posts, but I will share our adventures as we complete our list, and as we firm up our travel plans for later this year.