We traveled 11,065 miles in the motorhome, with the shortest leg the same as last year, 38 miles from Santa Fe, NM to Bernalillo, NM, and the longest leg, 534 from Lubbock, TX to Shreveport, LA. We stayed in 10 different states, FL, GA, AL,TX, NM, CO, UT, ID, OR, and WA. We stayed in 45 campgrounds, repeating in 5 of them, so 40 different campgrounds with 33 private, 12 public, and 2 others, that was when we stayed at 2 different service facilities overnight. The average cost of the private ones was $43.96/night, with a real splurge in Newport, OR right on the Pacific Ocean, fogged in by the way, for $120.19/night, and the cheapest one, in fact there was a 2 way tie In Wallowa, OR and Llano, TX for $30/night. The public campgrounds averaged $28.70/night, the highest at a State Park in Lewiston, ID at $44.27/night and the most inexpensive in Demopolis, AL in a Corps of Engineer campground at $12/night. The stays at the service facilities were free, ha, actually they probably cost more than any of the rest, but you get the idea. We consumed 1939 gallons of diesel fuel at an average cost of $2.41/gallon, with the highest $2.70 in UT and CO, and the lowest $2.08 in NM. We averaged 6.04 mpg, so even with the valve lash done it is almost exactly what it was last year. I guess when your coach weighs 46,000# and your toad weighs about 5500# for a total of at least 51,500#, that's about all you can hope for :-)
As far as maintenance and repairs this year, we started off with the toilet fiasco in February where I managed to break the porcelain underneath as I was doing a repair rendering it ruined, followed by a race across the state to buy another, just the porcelain at a usury price, he knew what he had for a discontinued toilet. Then our patio awning popped out unexpectedly just before we were leaving FL. The integrated motor and drive system broke and we hoped to fix it when we stopped still in FL to have our 3M film removed and replaced, we didn't. Turned out when I got checking on the package the company sent the wrong part!! So we ditched the idea of repairing that awning until we got back to FL, and we will, and we do have the right motor now. We have over 100,000 miles on our coach now, in fact just shy of 120,000, so we wanted to get the valve lash adjusted on our Detroit Diesel Series 60 engine. That went extremely well and under budget. The 3M film was removed and replaced with a bit of a glitch in that some of the paint came off also, causing a lot more time and money, then there was a small spot we didn't like that was taken care of this fall. We finally got the wipers mounted properly and securely. We had replaced our inferior stock wipers with an upgraded unit, but the fiberglass work that was done on the front cap wasn't done correctly so that was redone when we got the 3M film done. The we had the mysterious generator problem, as the heat in the south rose and we needed the genny to run our air conditioners, it would start and run, but not provide electricity. I troubleshot it to a bad circuit breaker on the unit, replaced it but it still didn't work. So frantically while we were in Lubbock, we ran up to Cummins in Amarillo so they could fix it, well, they couldn't find anything wrong with it, checked it all out, we ran it and it provided electric like a champ, no idea what happened, but it has performed perfectly ever since. Gremlins???
We then had 2 appointments in Oregon, one for a repair of a slide seal and to fix our ongoing issue with our running or parking lights on the rear of the coach and the toad, the other to improve our TV mount in the bedroom. Our turn signals and brake lights work fine, but we lost the rear parking lights last year, and I was not able to fix them myself. So we got the slide seal replaced, found a small problem under another slide, installed aluminum "skis" where the slide bottom was wearing, BUT after 3 hours, the expert wasn't able to fix the lights either, so we still have that problem. Just before we got to our first appointment our microwave-convection oven crapped out so Jan and I replaced that. And then we broke one of our new floor tiles in the galley with the slide roller, and found out that on our enormous floor project, we probably didn't use the proper mastic so we may have more and more tiles come loose in the future. Not good, it was a huge project.
We also made some improvements. The biggest one was our bedroom TV cabinet. I had replaced our old TV with a larger HDTV and had mounted it in the opening to the old TV, but it blocked the cabinet, didn't look that great, and we were losing all the room in the cabinet. We had a new mount made and installed that looks fantastic and allows us to swing the HDTV out and access all the room behind it. We recovered our couch cushions and dining chair cushions, looks great, and lastly we replaced the fluorescent tubes in 4 fixtures with LED tubes, it takes a few minutes to remove the ballasts, and do a bit of rewiring, but we like the light so much better, and hopefully if you can believe the stats they should outlast us.
We also were so pleased to be able to take our granddaughter Faith with us for a week for the first time in the motorhome, and next year hope to do something similar with our grandson. It was a treat and a ton of fun! Also our son Jason joined us for 10 days in Colorado to enjoy the scenery, hiking, and off roading.
So here's a ton of photos to go along with our year, hope you enjoy. I even tried not to repeat any I already showed you :-)
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| Me, Doug, Jack, and Scott all helping Harvey install new mirrors |
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| Pat and Scott helping me work on my slide |
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| Our dead awning fully extended, not good |
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| Our last sunset in Venice |
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| The valve lash being done |
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| Taking off the old 3M film |
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| Putting on the new film |
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| Our grand daughter Faith ready to go |
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| Along the road |
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| Golf cart training from the expert Harvey |
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| Tractor training from the expert Harvey as well |
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| Faith VERY proud of her certificate from Harvey and Jan (yon, not Jan) |
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| Our daughter Kelly, Faith, Jan, and grandson Christian |
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| Parked at our favorite campground, Cool Pines!!!! |
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| A view of beautiful Creede, CO |
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| Blue Mesa Reservoir, Gunnison, CO |
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| A Bullwinkle still with velvet |
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| Beautiful Cottonwood Pass, CO |
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| Wonderful Idaho family, Sandy, me, Jan, Abby, Elizabeth, Kris with Baxter, and Sydney |
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| The idyllic Salmon River, ID |
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| Wallowa, OR |
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| A regal bull elk |
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| Jan and I above the Snake River |
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| Hiking in the wilderness near Wallowa, OR |
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| Wallowa Lake, OR |
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| Jan the intrepid fly fisherman |
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| Moi |
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| Trying, trying, trying |
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| Into the Cascades, WA |
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| One of many gorgeous trout streams in the Cascades |
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| View from Deception Pass bridge, WA |
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| View from our campsite in Anacortes, WA |
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| Up through the rain forest in Olympia Peninsula, WA |
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| The windblown Oregon coast |
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| Murky with fog |
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| Down the Columbia River, OR |
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| Microwave replacement |
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| Slide seal going in |
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| Skis going on |
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| My TV mount (before) |
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| New HDTV mount and door (after) |
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| Looking down into Dinosaur National Monument |
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| Jan and I with Steamboat Rock behind us where the Green and Yampa Rivers meet |
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| The trout stream we camped along in Carbondale, CO |
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| Storm clouds rolling into Montrose, CO |
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| Gorgeous view of Ridgway, CO |
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| High over Gunnison, CO |
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| Looking down into Ouray, CO |
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| Jason and I from different perspectives above Telluride, CO |
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| Jason getting a shot of Hurricane Pass, 12,730' |
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| A great view of Lake Como, CO |
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| Jan and Jason freezing at over 12,000' in early September |
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| Mining relics above Animas Forks, CO |
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| Snow comes early to CO |
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| North to Silverton, CO |
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| Silverton, CO |
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| Looking down into Animas Valley, CO |
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| Our favorite Spud Lake, CO (Potato Lake) |
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| On the hike back down |
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| A gorgeous spot NE of Vallecito Reservoir |
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| Another beautiful coffee spot |
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| Jan riding in Durango, CO |
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| View on Jan's Durango ride |
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| A hot air balloon landing (crashing) right near our campground in Durango, CO |
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| Karen and Tom's view from their future house in Taos, NM |
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| Jan and Karen riding near Taos |
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| Some of their view near Taos That might be Tom dismounting (falling) to the left? |
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| 4 generations over Thanksgiving Grand daughter Faith, Jan's mom Vivian, grandson Christian behind is Jan and our daughter Kelly (F and C's mom) |
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| Good times with good friends, John and Diane |
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| So Jan and I toast you, Have a Happy New Year!!! |
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| We wish you all the best in the coming year from sunny Florida, our winter home! |
2 comments:
That is a sure sign of a mature marriage, "Honey, I want a bigger T.V. in the bedroom."
Now that wasn't what I truly said :-)
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