Leak Fixed, and Beginning to Move

We chilled at the Elkhart Campground for the weekend waiting for our appointment with Ronnie at what used to be Marv & Tom's Truck Repair to see if he could fix our leak with a new fitting or if we would have to pull the entire hose and replace it.  We got parked and immediately Ronnie came out to take a look, he absolutely confirmed it was the fitting itself, not a loose connection.

This is the manifold, reservoir, and pump for our hydraulic
slides, the circle is the bad fitting.  This is located under our entry steps.

The hard part is trying to figure out where the other end of the line is, it leaves the step well, joins a hundred other lines, wires, etc, goes through the front right wheel well and then back into the coach's basement above the fuel tank, unfortunately it all disappears into an unaccessible metal ceiling over the tank.  One of Ronnie's mechanics, Austin came out to try to find the hose run.

Now our appointment was originally with Stuart's, an HWH, the manufacturer of the slide system, service center, but it was arranged that they would work together to get our problem solved.  It was finally decided with a lot of my added input that the solution we would go with would be to insert a new section of hose using a union instead of the very painful, read very  expensive, solution of tracking down the entire hose.  It was then determined that I would move the coach over to Stuart's so the owner, Andre could swage on new fittings.

Andre and Austin working on the new fittings

Austin making the final connection of the union and new hose

Then we made our way back to Ronnie's shop so we could operate the slides, check for leaks, and top off the lost hydraulic fluid.  It was successful, but unfortunately it took most of the day and made it too late for us to try to go anywhere other than back to the Elkhart Campground.

We still ended up with one extra day and decided it made the most sense to see if we could just add a day to our existing reservation at the Starlight Campground in upper Michigan, Mancelona near Traverse City, Leland, Petosky, Charlevoix, etc.  And that is what we did.

We had heard of a neat place with a good restaurant in Leland, a town we had never been to so off we went.  It took us right through Traverse City, and wow, we had forgotten how busy that area was.  The Cove restaurant sits right over where the Leland River from Lake Leelenau feeds into Lake Michigan in a historic area called Fishtown.

We had a great lunch, you knew we'd have to get back to food soon, right?  

A very good seafood chowder

Whitefish basket

Walleye basket

And yes we can report the walleye won hands down, although the whitefish was good as well.

They had one of the few remaining Amphicars left parked outside!

And one of the strangest looking boats moored nearby, homemade???

Had a nice round about ride back, it is very pretty country up in this area, lots of cute towns and beautiful lakes.

On our ride the next day we found a Polish restaurant, Polish Kitchen with great reviews and gave it a try, we don't know very much about Polish food, but really enjoyed it.  We decided to try a bunch of different items, like a sampler.

Started off with a delicious cup of borscht

Then from the top, Bigos, a sauerkraut and meat stew; Krokiet, a crepe stuffed with
cabbage, mushrooms, carrots, and onions in a mushroom sauce; then
a gobaki, a cabbage roll stuffed with rice and pork

Then kielbasa and sauerkraut with pierogis

It was delicious and we had plenty leftover for lunch the next day:-)

We then drove back through Petosky and Charlevoix, it is always amazing how blue the water is up here in the Great Lakes.

We wanted to again see the Mushroom houses in Charlevoix, they were designed and built by Earl Young starting in 1918 through to the 1950's, 30 houses in all, he didn't use blueprints, quite amazing and unique.  Here's a small sampling.

The walls in this house are over 3 feet thick and yes, that's a thatch roof

We even found a dragon.

Today was cajun day, we went to Elk Rapids to Pearl's New Orleans Kitchen for a nice lunch.

Fried green tomatoes 

A lucious corn chowder with crawfish

And we split a shrimp po'boy

So that's it for northern Michigan, next we go up into the Yoop and head west all the way to Montana, more to follow:-)

Clear Coat, Paint, Side Trip, and a Terrible Surprise

We had our appointment with a paint shop in Indiana that we had corresponded with earlier in the year.  We pulled into Mike's Custom Painting on a Sunday night and plugged into their provided electrical.

We spent an uneventful night with the understanding we would be there through Monday and would pack then and determine where we would go over the next 7-12 days.  At 8am the next morning we were met by 2 people who went over the coach with us.  We pointed out the rear end which was the worst part on the coach and then went around discussing all the other places that could use work to replace the peeling clear coat and in some cases even deteriorating paint.  We had a definite budget on this and told them obviously we couldn't have it all done since it would be way more than discussed.  Amazingly they said they thought they could do it all for the original estimate including repairing a broken wheel well!

If you look close you can see all the tape
marking the issue areas

But then came the big surprise, they said we plan to get it in the shop in an hour or so, oh wow!  Here we were fat, dumb, and happy thinking we had all day to pack, but we weren't going to look a gift horse in its mouth, so a packing we went.  They thought it would take 8 working days, but indicated it might be sooner.  In an hour or so we were packed, had all the food stuff we thought we needed, stuff for 2 weeks, truck full, and reminded them 5 times to be sure it stayed plugged in for the fridge and batteries.  And off we went to..........where?

I should back up a little bit, we did have at least one plan.  I had been having a lot of issues with my right shoulder and my left leg, enough that it was really impacting what I could do and what I couldn't do.  My shoulder was treated a little over a year ago for bursitis and I thought it had returned, but my leg was driving me crazy.  I made an appointment at the ortho doc to check on both back in Atlanta:-)  But here we were heading south a full day early to where.  We knew we'd be staying at AirBnB's and VRBO's, no hotels, so we could cook and not worry about going out all the time, also it was roughly 670 miles to Atlanta so we wanted to do the trip in at least 2 legs.  So we drove until lunch time, and while we ate we searched for a place to stay.

We found a nice place in Williamstown, KY and by 6pm we were settled in having a drink and cigar, thinking wow.

We had already booked a place in Ellijay, GA for 2 nights and decided to see if we could add a day since we were earlier than we thought.  That worked out so we stayed at a cute new modern place in the middle of the woods.

We even managed to meet Karen and Tom for lunch on our extra day.

Then came my doctor's appointment, X-rays were taken of my left leg and hip and a review of my shoulder was made, sure enough the bursitis had returned so I got another shot, and have to say it made a world of difference, then on to my leg.  Not good, unless you count the fact of knowing what is wrong is good, I need a hip replacement due to osteoarthritis.  So now we are working on the logistics of that.

With that done we were on our way to visit with friends, John and Diane.  We had a great visit to include a delicious dinner, cigars, camaraderie, and John even included a blind bourbon tasting.  What a hoot, he had picked 3 bourbons, but he didn't know which was which, and I of course had no idea period.  Diane poured and marked the glasses and John and I got down to it.  

The fun began, we both agreed on the number 3 of the group, but we both went back and forth between the other two.  It was fun discussing the relative merits of each and finally we each chose.  John said when we started he had chosen, a mid range bourbon, a top shelf bourbon and a cheaper bourbon.  Interestingly we both chose as last, the mid range bourbon, and each of us struggled between the last 2, finally I chose B, then C, and John picked C, then B, but we both agreed it was almost too close to call.

For the bourbon drinkers, we both chose the Old Forester as last, and funny enough we struggled between the awesome Weller 12 and the more inexpensive Green River, John, much to his chagrin picking the Green River number one, while I lucked out and chose the Weller:-)

So after a great time and breakfast we headed back to the north because we were still confident they were going to be early and we wanted to make sure we were back, so that night we stayed at a not so hot place in Elizabethtown, KY, but we made the most of it.

Sunday and Monday we found a really cute place in Winona Lake, IN, a very nice community.  We had been told they thought it would be ready at noon on Tuesday.

Then, after checking out, and heading for lunch, unfortunately came the call telling us our coach would not be ready until Friday noon, they were having a couple issues with color:-(

We tried to rebook the place we were in, booked. Couldn't find anything except a just okay place in Barbee Lake, it worked but we both agreed we had to find something a little better for the next two nights.

Looks okay here, but a basic camp at best

We did end up finding a nicer place back in the Winona Lake area for the two nights, but as Friday approached we got more and more anxious about whether it would be ready.  So all checked out on Friday and at lunch at 11:15, the phone rang, our hearts sunk, but we were told our coach was ready for pick up anytime, that just left us to worry that the colors matched on the ride over to the shop.  We got there and wow, the coach looked terrific, it did take a little longer, but they did it within their original estimate! 

Looks like brand new!

We headed up to Elkhart to a campground and unfortunately found out they had hit a switch at our entry door, intentionally or accidentally that turned off the power in the basement and to our full of New England seafood, meat, local pork, etc, freezer and we lost it all.  Estimate a more than $700 loss, unfortunately a sad finale to this whole saga.

Pretty sunset

On Monday we have an appointment to see if they can fix a leak on our slide out system, and then back to traveling