We made it! And we are nice and warm.

We got off nice and early and headed away from Florida to Athens, TX to get our braking system installed.  We arrived right on time at 0815am and they were waiting for us, always a good sign.  They opened up two doors on their building, one for the truck and one for the motorhome, and in we went, good thing too, since it was all of 28 degrees.

Two gentlemen went right to work, opened the hood of the truck and the master cylinder was off in no time.  They had their proprietary part ready and in it went.

Off comes the master cylinder

In goes their part

A close up of the assembly

All installed

They then had to run an air line from the front of the truck up to the assembly, and a wire for the breakaway.  The breakaway is a device that should the tow bar break and the vehicle come off the back of the motorhome it will apply the brakes so the vehicle comes to a stop.  

The airline connection, the plug for the lights is still hanging
down, and to the right is the breakaway plug.
Almost complete

I even tried to lend a hand although it was not needed.

So in only about 2 hours they completed the install.  Now I have proportional brakes for the truck, activated by a brake application in the motorhome, a breakaway system should the truck come loose, an indicator by my seat in the motorhome showing when the truck brakes are applied, and no change in drivability to the truck and unless you raise the hood no sign of anything added to the truck.  Excellent!

So after 80 miles the wrong way, 2 hours for the install, and 80 miles back we get headed to Florida.  We made it to Vicksburg, MS for the night.  Funny after all these years we just don't remember some of the campgrounds, it wasn't until we pulled in the entrance that we realized we had stayed there before.  The next day we drove to Montgomery, AL and Jason was able to come and visit and spend the night with us.  So we celebrated Christmas again with him.  He arrived just as our first gremlin hit.  Go to pull out our electrical cord and nothing.  I need to explain, our electric cord is on a reel that is powered to extend and powered to retract, and unfortunately if it doesn't work for some reason you cannot just pull it out.  Now to back up a bit, when we arrived in Longview, the electric cord had somehow extended itself completely in the plumbing bay and would not move either way.  After troubleshooting, I found the motor had died and ordered a new one.  A bit of a challenge installing it because of accessibility, but Jan and I got it in, and it worked great, until now.  So Jason and I got out the meter and messed around in the 30 degree weather to find out the switch that sends it in or out was bad, but clever as we are, we found if we switched the wires around we could make it run in one direction only.  Good enough, so for the last few days I have been switching the wires so it will run in the required direction.  I have since ordered a new switch, one more thing on the to do list for Florida.

All those items I had mentioned doing to the motorhome in Texas were not done because I was too wimpy with the cold weather, so the AC unit still needs replaced and the air compressor is still not installed.  They will be added to the list, but we will be here for 4 months so no excuses.

Had one other detour on the way to deal with some awning issues which are being taken care of soon.  We are going to do quite a bit of work to the motorhome next month.  I'll fill you in soon.

Cute Song about RVing

Got a kick out of this and thought I'd share it.

Jan and I are getting ready to leave this morning to get our M&G brake system, then eastbound and down, heading for Florida!  Warm, warm Florida, Jan and I have been freezing for weeks.  It is ridiculous but we have definitely acclimated to warm weather.  It's funny, hard to believe 20 years in NH, and if it went above freezing we'd be out washing cars, and now if it's less than 60 or so we need a coat!  Kinda pathetic:-)

Recap

Now that we are back in Longview, I wanted to offer a recap of our trip to Pender, NE.  800 miles each way!  But it only turned out to be from Sat-Wed, we cut off a whole day thanks to the people at Blue Ox.  We found out we are so, so spoiled to travel with all our stuff and sleep in our own bed, and mostly eat our own food in the motorhome as opposed to traveling in a vehicle, sleeping in hotels, and eating, some good and some bad, in restaurants.

So off we go.

Cloudy and cold

We spent the first night in Bartlesville, OK, and several miles north of there we stumbled upon this.

We had no idea they started in Kansas

Their "little house"

Getting tired

It stayed very cold, but clear.  It was a much prettier ride than we had anticipated, lots of rolling hills, and of course tons of farming, fields as far as you could see.

Into Nebraska

A pretty sunset as we roll, finally, into West Point, NE
the nearest hotel 18 miles south of Pender

We drove into Sioux City, IA for lunch the first day, and even saw a movie, then we drove to Norfolk, NE for lunch the second day, about 50 miles from Pender for each one!  But they finished up a whole day early so we were able to head back south by 2pm on Tuesday.  Made it to Topeka for the night, then off at 0530am yesterday to get back to Longview by 4pm.  Very pleased with the work and the baseplate and our new tow bar!  But our new truck, not quite a month old already has 4300 miles!!!! And we still have to drive over to Dallas tomorrow for a meeting, 140 miles each way.  But things will calm down when we get to Florida, and hopefully give the truck a rest:-)

Our new baseplate, hard to see which is good!
The round holes on either side is where the tow bar connects,
and the wiring light kit on the chrome socket in the middle.
The real goods are behind the bumper.

We are now enjoying 70 degree weather, really nice after teens in Nebraska.  Looking forward to an early Christmas celebration with the grandkids, then off to get our brake system installed on Monday and on to sunny Florida!

Halfway

We were welcomed at Blue Ox and thanked for participating in their fit program.  We tried to tell them that it was a huge plus for us, but they are very glad to have people bring their new vehicles to them so they can work on developing baseplates for more and more vehicles.  Pender, NE is absolutely in the middle of nowhere and the first question I asked was why were they there?  Turns out the company started there in 1926 building and fabricating farm and ag equipment, it wasn't until the 1980's when they started in on vehicle towing equipment during a farming recession.  They have now diversified into all sorts of towing equipment, receiver hitches, motorcycle and ATV lifts, braking systems, steering aids, etc.  We had an interesting tour and learned a lot about the company.  Then since we really couldn't find anywhere to eat in town, we headed out for Sioux City, IA for lunch, about 50+ miles, and a...........movie!  We don't ever do movies so this was pretty monumental.  

We got back to Blue Ox about 5pm and got some great news that they expected to have us done by about 12-1pm today!  So we will be heading back south this afternoon, a whole day earlier than expected, maybe to Topeka.  This has been a great experience so far.

In position

Just a quick update.  Jan and I have been driving the last two days, north unfortunately and are presently in a "lovely" hotel about 18 miles from Blue Ox, the company that is going to fabricate, mount our baseplate on the truck, and wire the lights, and give us a new tow bar!  It is a balmy 11 degrees outside so we are working up our courage to go outside and head up there for our 8am appointment.  It may take up to 2 1/2 days to get it all done, but we are hoping for a shorter time.  The town we are in basically has 2-3 restaurants and we had dinner last night at Pizza Hut, so that gives you an idea of what is available, how they can even support this hotel is a mystery?  It actually looks as if we are the only customers at the inn.  This is an incredible opportunity that is requiring a bit of sacrifice on our part.  The town where Blue Ox is, Pender, is even smaller than where we are now, it will be interesting to see if there is even a place for lunch?

I will let you know how we are progressing.

Got er Done

I delivered Karen's motorhome yesterday.  It was quite a duel with Mother Nature.  As I said we went over to Weatherford, TX last week to stage it to Longview to beat the ice storm.  Good that we did as the Dallas area got 2-3 inches of ice!  Then the weather was a bit iffy so I didn't leave until Monday morning.  It was a nice drive up to Little Rock where I encountered ice and snow on the interstate and wondered if I would have to stop and wait for it to improve?  But I pressed on hoping the change in direction more due east towards Memphis would get me out of it and it did!  So I made it 500+ miles the first day, and beat sunset by 30 minutes:-)  Spent the night in a nice little campground 100 miles southwest of Nashville all ready for my last day into Louisville of only 280 miles.  After dinner I checked the weather and was surprised to find out that now my area and Nashville was expected to get snow and change over to a wintry mix overnight, then clear up mid morning although the temps weren't supposed to get much over freezing.  So I got things cleaned up and decided to put all the slides in for the night in case I actually did get snow so I wouldn't have to crawl up on the roof to get the snow and ice off the slide topper awnings.  Turned out I must have scared Mother Nature because no precip came my way all night.  Fantastic!  So off I went about 30 minutes before sunrise in pretty nice weather, and sure enough in a few minutes it was absolutely clear and sunny, but cold, about 25-30 degrees.  I started hearing some reports of ice on the roads near Nashville and reports of bad accidents and a closed interstate ahead of me.  Sure enough about 25 miles west of Nashville I see stopped traffic ahead, ice starting to cover the roads, and plentiful wrecks all over the place!  I bailed out and got fuel, conversed with Karen who was able to get online to check things out, and got back out on the road.  Well, it took me 1 hour and 20 minutes to go 18 miles to my cut around road, Rte 155!  Traffic and road conditions were horrible to say the least.  But, as I headed north from Nashville things got better and better and even though I was almost 2 hours later getting there than planned, I was still able to make the airplane I had hoped for when I started the whole adventure.

So Karen's motorhome is safe and sound at Windenskye waiting on her next adventure, and I, after having to wait on 3 flights out of Atlanta to Shreveport, am back and anticipating Jan and my next trip up to Pender, NE to get the truck baseplate put on.  The weather there has been snowy and get this-------1 degree---the last few days, don't think we'll pack bathing suits!

Leg 1 complete

We beat the weather yesterday and have repositioned Karen's coach to our campground in Longview.  Good we did as they are getting snow and ice there now.  It started raining here yesterday afternoon and is still raining hard, but luckily it is above freezing.  Now it looks as if Monday morning early is my departure to Louisville.

It was a good trip as we got a chance to meet Ernie Ekberg, the man who does the floor renovations and the guy we have an appointment with next year to have our floor redone.  We are going to remove all our tile and install engineered wood similar to what Karen has done.  By the way her coach looks fabulous!  Ernie did an excellent job, and the new wood looks so much better than the carpeting.

Got thinking I should certainly add a photo of her floor!

Nice, huh?

Race Day

I said I was going to move Karen's motorhome from Weatherford, TX, a town to the west of Fort Worth, back home to her in Louisville to help her out a bit.  Mother nature is throwing us a curve ball.  There is a large winter storm with freezing rain forecast from Dallas to Cleveland.  I had planned to go on Sunday to pick it up and head north, but we are afraid if it sits in Weatherford until then I may never get it out.  The freezing rain is to start there today and the temps are supposed to stay below freezing through Tuesday so this morning we are racing over there to get her motorhome and bring it here to Longview while we wait to see what is in store weather wise.  Another challenge is that it is 180 miles from Longview, everything's bigger in Texas, so it will take a good part of the day.  Then either Sunday or Monday I will head up to Louisville.

On the Move

Thanksgiving festivities behind us, we are on the move.  Jan and I, and Jason left KY yesterday, Jay on his way home, and us on our way to Kelly's.  A little bit of a delay so Jan could climb on the icy roof and break and remove a big chunk of ice on the slide topper awning that was preventing the slide from coming in.  As I said it is way too cold!

A pleasant uneventful drive to West Memphis, AR to Tom Sawyer's RV Park, a beautiful spot right on the Mississippi River.  We had to drive separately which is different for us since the baseplate is not yet on the new truck.  Amazing, the truck got 22 mpg!  And that is super.

A barge and tow boat going by at sunset

Not a bad view right from our campsite.

We'll get to Kelly's today and we are really looking forward to seeing the grandkids, it's been way too long since I've seen them.  Then we have several projects to attend to while there.  The new AC unit needs to be installed, and the old one sold?  The new air compressor for the leveling system needs to go on, the truck needs to get it's baseplate installed, the new braking system for the truck needs to be installed, and I'm going to drive Karen's motorhome back up to her place from Dallas, actually Weatherford where she has had a new beautiful wood floor installed.  The cold weather in Louisville prevented some of the stuff from being done there.  Hopefully, mother nature will cooperate in Texas.