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.