Launch day!

We are running around like crazy getting ready to go.  Didn't plan it that way, but I fell into a proverbial pothole on my road to recovery that sidelined me for 3 days, but all is well now.  So with enormous help from Karen, and of course, Jan's, we only have a few more things to finish up, take to storage, a few more good-byes, and hopefully before 1pm, we will be running northbound.  My 2019 map will start up soon, and so will the postings.

See you on the road!

New plans and a run-up to leaving

Things have been settling down now as I recover, and I can say I'm almost back to normal. As it turned out, we have had to delay our departure by only several weeks.  A lot of chores have fallen to Jan, as I can't lift too much yet.  

We usually leave here and head north to Atlanta where we see our dentist, a doctor, and have visits with friends.  With the delay, that is off the table now, and coupled with a detour right at the start to Athens, TX, just southwest of Dallas to get the braking system installed in the truck, we will be bypassing and heading north towards Buffalo.  After Buffalo, we are pretty much resuming what we had been penciling in for the last few months, out to Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, back to Colorado, and New Mexico, before we turn east and head back to Florida for the winter.

And of course in addition to the normal stuff to get ready to leave, putting the grill back in storage, picking up the chairs, bikes, rugs, satellite dish, etc, as you know there had to be a few "unexpected" issues along the way.

We have a multiplex system in our coach that controls lights, awnings, heat, basically anything you would use a switch for.  It is interesting in that each switch can be programmed to do whatever you want it to, as a computer sets the function of each.  Not that you can do any of this yourself.  A company, M&M Electronics is the expert in this field and we had them several years ago, change the functions of many switches and record the program so if we had to replace any of the system we would be able to duplicate the program.  Well, one of the switches we use all the time popped right out of its panel, and of course what complicates this a lot is the fact most of the parts and pieces for this system are no longer available, one of the disadvantages of an older coach.

The faulty switch

We called M&M and were able to order several of the switch panels, thankfully it is just the plastic part not the switch itself, so in just a few minutes we took care of that.

We got the roof rack on the new truck and I had shared how Thule which is what we had on the other truck still hasn't come up with a kit for our rack so we went with Yakima, which we were very pleased with, so together we got it mounted along with our cargo carrier and rod vault.

Jan taking care of business

Now we love our site here in Florida, we sit under awesome live oaks that are almost like a roof over us, with one big disadvantage, they are dirty, dirty trees, so each year, sometimes twice, it is necessary to go on the roof sweep, clorox, and pressure wash to remove the staining.  And of course this project fell to Jan as well.

The before, what a mess!

Swept

Pressure washed and done

Our neighbors here in the park, Harold and Debbie had to leave early to fly home, and after a few weeks Harold and their daughter, Caley came down to take their motorhome back north.  It was nice to see them and we had an impromptu get together to wish them bon voyage.

Caley, Harold, Betty, Nancy, Doug, Jack, and Jan

Of course with all the activity getting ready, Bert was caught up in the frenzy.

Hardly standing it:-)

Another important project was to get the truck wired to tow.  We waited awhile until I felt ready to do it, and as we tackled it, we found out our 4 diode kit only had 3 diodes in it, but to their credit Blue Ox overnighted a new diode to us so we could get it done.

A little nerve-racking cutting wires in here

Trying to route the wire through the engine compartment

Getting up the courage to drill into your new truck

But we got it done, and am happy to say it works like a champ.

We finally got the replacement instrument module, there was a 6-8 week lead time, to replace the one we jury-rigged last year after the explosive air leak in our dash, so we replaced that and can report no more leaks.

The new module, doesn't look like $225, does it?

Then as we were firming up our plans and routing we sat down to plan our route and load the info on our GPS and the mapping program, Co-Pilot that we began using last year.  Much to our surprise, another company bought them out and basically made it totally unusable, and removed numerous features, so with just a week to go, what were we going to do.  I will admit we're a bit anal as far as navigating goes, I have a Garmin GPS, an RV760 in front of me and Jan had Co-Pilot running on her iPad in front of her.  Well, we took a plunge and ordered another Garmin GPS, a discontinued RV770 that arrived and much to our surprise found out Garmin has improved the GPS so much over the 760, we decided to sell our 760 and go with 2 newer GPS's.  Crazy, right?  I will report back after we are on the road for awhile how happy we are with the change.

So with only a few more projects, we are planning on leaving here on Saturday, to begin our travels, after thankfully, what looks to have been just a bump in the road.

So what have we been doing in the last few weeks?

I'll warn you right now this will be a long post.  My posting took quite a break with the lead up to surgery, and one of my main focuses was to keep very busy, and my mind off the situation.  

First off, I serviced our Onan generator, a pretty straightforward and easy job, which I end up doing about every 18 months, filters, oil, fuel, and air, and oil change.  The new base plate for our truck came in, so we decided to tackle it.  Jan and I got the truck ready, and under I went to remove the bolts to get the bumper off and right back out I came, lying on my back under something and trying to work above me for some unknown reason makes me literally sick, weird, but true.  Well, BIL Tom came to the rescue!

Of course, before anything else, you just have to look under the hood:-)
Harold, my back, Bob, and Scott all oohing and aahing

My attempt

Tom's rescue

Then as we progressed, Harold came over and gave us a hand.

Bumper off

Three of us working to install the first side of the baseplate

Tom tightening up the first side

With all the help the job went quickly.

Bumper going back on

Fit perfectly!

Then on to the Aqua-Hot service, another easy job with the very convenient location in our coach, a new filter, nozzle, and a good cleaning of the burner compartment.

We even snuck in a nice lunch with Harold and Debbie.

A delicious lunch at Made in Italy

Interspersed among our projects were two farewell parties.  First was a good bye to Bob and Harlean, good friends, who have been coming here for over 30 years, that have elected to not return, I think they actually might miss the snow in Maine:-)

Good bye Bob and Harlean, you will be missed!

And the second farewell was to Jack and Betty, the virtual King and Queen of the park.  Due to health reasons they are returning to be with family in South Dakota and will certainly be missed by all.

Good bye Jack and Betty!

The park will have a different feel next year when these two couples are no longer here.

Another big project we tackled was to install Guardian Plates on our front two slides.  As I have mentioned in the past, Monaco didn't do a great job with the corners of its slides which have been prone to water entry and rot.  Chris at TalinRV, and also a Monaco owner devised a solution to permanently fix the problem.  With a bit of work, you install a quality stainless steel corner, and roller plate to totally encapsulate the corner.

First, the slide has to be raised

The sealant needs to be cut

Then with a die grinder, the ineffective Monaco trim piece needs to be cut away

After most is cut away, the rest is removed with a chisel,
so the plate will fit tightly around the corner

The cutting and chiseling does get a bit tedious

Then when the trim is off, the edge cleaned up, prepped for epoxy, you slip it in place and drill and rivet.

Applying the epoxy

Slipping the plate in place

The riveting, I'll tell you stainless steel rivets are tough!

Finished product

A few spots were a challenge

Harold and I got pretty creative to get to a couple of the rivets

We also installed plates for the slide rollers to roll over

With that done, we wanted to get our cargo carrier and rod vault remounted on the new truck.  We had a Thule rack on the previous truck and after waiting weeks and weeks for Thule to produce a fit kit for our new 2109 Ram, we decided the heck with them, and looked to Yakima to see if they had a fit kit.  Sure enough they did, so we ordered a new setup from them and will continue to use them, a USA company, for our rack and carrier needs, yes I am kicking myself we didn't use them from the get go.

Which brought us up to the surgery, our son Jason came down to help and ended up here for several days, his visit was much appreciated.

Our son Jason

So after taking him back to the airport, and celebrating a successful outcome, with BIL Tom's help we raised our glasses to good times ahead!

Feeling very blessed and a bit sore:-)

Since my last post, a lot has happened.  We were lucky enough to be able to meet with and have the leading prostate surgeon in Florida agree to do my surgery.  It was done quickly, which was excellent, so my surgeon using a robot removed my prostate.  After a one night stay at the hospital, I was released, and have been making great strides in getting back to normal.  My belly is sore, but there is a huge smile on my face, as the surgeon felt he got it all.  I have to take it easy for several more weeks, but it looks like life goes on for us.  We are truly thankful.  We are working on a revised itinerary for our delayed departure.  It will affect our routing and cause us to miss a few of our regular initial stops and visits, but it's a small price to pay.  More on that to come. Thank you all for the thoughts and prayers.

Now I can get back to my usual stuff, travel, repairs, food, etc.