2023 Recap Part A Warning-LongPost

This recap is divided into 2 sections, the first from our Florida winter digs out to Montana, and the second from there back to Florida.  This way you won't have to kill yourself partway through.

We, of course started the year in our site in Nokomis, FL at Royal Coachman RV Resort where we have stayed for years and years.  We have seen many changes in our time there, not all for the best.  We determined in February our stay in 2024 would be just 3 months, and that is starting now, on Jan 1st.  I digress.  

Our first stop on the way north was to get 6 new tires for the motorhome, an alignment, and a check up, then to Atlanta for Dr's, the dentist, and to see friends.  To NC to fish, then TN, VA, NY, VT into Maine.  We stayed 7 weeks near Portland where we were visited by Jan's sister, Karen and Tom.  Then we went up the coast as far as Eastport, then back down to Portland again, before heading west to Buffalo to see our son Jason, Joanne, and Jax, then onward, through, MI, WI, SD, WY, into Montana.  Fished in Ennis, had a visit from our daughter, Kelly and Brian in Missoula then headed for Yellowstone.  Then down through ID to the Salt Lake area, then into CO to our secret boon dock spot coinciding with our 50th Anniversary.  On to Montrose, Durango, then Taos to visit with Karen again.  On to Lubbock to see Kelly and Brian's new house, then OK, AR, MS into Nashville.  Back to Atlanta for Dr's, dentist, and friends, ending up going back to Nashville before making our way back to Florida through AL.  You can check it all out on my 2023 travel map.

As for comparing the nitty-gritty details; we drove more miles this year than last, 10,700 as compared to 9117, makes sense since we went back out west.  We had 46 travel days this year as we slowed things down and stayed longer at places compared to 61 last year.  But we hit 21 states vs 12.  Our shortest leg was 49.4 miles between Murphy, NC and Ellijay, GA and vice versa.  Longest was 514.8 between Salem, SD and Buffalo, WY.  Our average nightly campground cost actually went down, but it was influenced heavily by our 7 week stay in Maine which was heavily discounted, $63.82/night vs last year's $67.59.  Cheapest was $0 again with either boon docking or service overnights.  The most expensive was $143.88/night in high season in Portland, ME, and we had 3 stays that were over $100/night.  Campgrounds are definitely getting more and more expensive, even State and National parks.  As we drove more we used 1867 gallons of diesel vs 1621 last year.  The average price was significantly lower than last year, $3.85 vs $4.94 last year.  We averaged almost 6 mpg:-)

We have never had a worse, nor more expensive repair and maintenance year.  We cannot remember more serious problems than we experienced this year.  While it was hard to bite the bullet, we had to get professional help twice to fix 2 issues that we worked and worked on to no avail.  It started off with needing a new washer/dryer followed by 6 new tires, AquaHot problems, generator problems that caused transfer switch and power issues, a blown hydraulic cooler to mention some of it, more detail to follow in the recap.  If you are still with me, I'll start the recap in photos, and yes, there will be a lot of food:-)

Much of our time at RCR (Royal Coachman RV Resort) is spent with these special folks.

Jan, Moi, BIL Tom, Great friends, Harold, and Debbie

Most of our time there is spent visiting, eating, seeing folks we only see in Florida, doing little and sometimes big projects, and just enjoying the weather.  And Bobbie and Steve are a couple of those friends that we only see there.

BIL Tom, Jan's sister, Karen, Bobbie, Steve, and Moi

Some of that nice weather

For the previous 2 years we experimented with splitting our phones, one on AT&T, and Jan switched to Verizon to see if we had better coverage that way.  We have been with AT&T for ever, but fully expected Verizon to do better particularly out west in some of the remote areas we frequent.  Wrong, Verizon was terrible, Jan could not wait for her 2 year commitment to end so she could get back to AT&T, which she did.  Your own experience may vary.

Jan really got into Asian cooking this year, experimenting with different ingredients and visiting Asian markets.

One of the many different fried rice dishes

We also went out for meals, mostly lunches, many, many times and experienced all kinds of food.  From these amazing Chicago dogs

To Thai

Splurging on amazing Parksdale strawberry milkshake

To Mexican at the Taco Bus

To our own cooked scallops

We sure enjoyed smoking cigars and learning more about them, we even got Harold and Debbie into it:-)

We took a tour through the J C Newman cigar factory and then had lunch in the oldest restaurant in Florida, the Columbia.

We had a nice surprise meeting our daughter Kelly, her husband Brian and his mom, Karen for lunch and a real nice visit in Okeechobee, we met in the middle, they came over from West Palm Beach.

Jan, Moi, Karen, Kelly, and Brian

After a few projects including a service on the AquaHot and the generator, we moved up closer to Orlando to get our 6 new tires, an alignment, Wheel Master balancers, and an unexpected repair on a tag brake at Josam's.  And on our overnight there we had a few burps with the generator???  And after we tried out a fantastic restaurant, Hollerbach's, a German place in Sanford, FL.

After that meal, no we didn't finish it, we had something lighter for dinner:-)

We moved farther north to Georgia to see our dentist, dermatologist, and friends.  We stay in North GA in Ellijay even though it's almost 50 miles away.

A gorgeous park, Talona Ridge

Jan got some bad news while we were there as they discovered cancer on her lip.  She had to arrange for Mohs surgery so we went up to NC for a few days to fish, and then came back to GA to get her surgery.

Our spot in one of our favorite parks in NC, Peachtree Cove

Jan along side the beautiful Nantahala River

Jan working it

Successfully, I might add:-)

And then back for the surgery:-(

After a pretty stop in TN we arrived in Maine.

By this time our problem with the AquaHot was not resolving itself, we have 2 electric elements that provide the heat for hot water and interior heat controlled by 2 switches.  Our 2nd element kept quitting and the only way to get it back was to go outside to the control board and hit a low voltage reset to restore it, why this worked was anyone's guess.  There is no attachment between the two that anyone including our AquaHot guru, Rudy or even AquaHot tech service were aware of.  They concurred it must be the board itself that was getting ready to quit.  Jan's sister Karen and Tom were working their way north to meet us and she was getting an AquaHot service done in PA with a tech she really liked, so I bit the bullet and asked her to pick me up a new control board on the way by.  We were settled in at Bayleys Campground in Scarborough, ME just outside of Portland, waiting for them to arrive so what to do?  Eat!

Scallops and onion rings

Whole belly clams and fish chowder

Oysters, oysters, oysters on $1 a shuck Wednesday at
Billy's Chowder House

And their sublime lobster stew!

Then to Red's in Wiscassett, for the best lobster roll, perhaps in the world!

Steamers and haddock stew

Lobsters of our own and a walk on Wells Beach.

The entire spring was cool and windy, a bit dreary with mist and fog, but we persevered.  We have never run the heat as much as we did this whole year, I think our AC was on only 2 or 3 times, unreal!  I did replace the control board on the AquaHot with mixed results, so also replace the 2 AC relays for the elements.

Chilling with Karen and Tom, and Sophia:-)

Getting our Clam Shack lobster and clam rolls with onion rings and then freezing while eating them overlooking the ocean In Kennebunkport, and this was the end of May.

We made a road trip in the truck to Buffalo to spend the Memorial Day weekend with our son Jason and Joanne, and Sophie:-)

Then back for what, more eating.

Sauteed cod over grits

Fried scallops and haddock

Homemade Cioppino!

Then the happy chef with more fried rice.

Then a wonderful meet up with friends' Bob and Harlean, and Scott and Sue at the awesome Red Barn, and unfortunately I took one quick pic of the food and none of them:-(

Onion rings, fried seafood combo, and the incredible seafood stew!

Can't forget all the lobsters we cooked ourselves, our cooker got a workout!

Then our first real disaster, our hydraulic cooler sprung a leak, we saw it just as we were pulling into a campground.  We were spurting hydraulic fluid all over, making a mess, but they let us get on our site and get some tarps underneath to contain the fluid.  By the way, the system holds 55 quarts.  But we were able to overnight a new one in from Oregon, and Jan and I swapped it out while we were parked.

The bad cooler on the bottom

Cleaning up the mess

What a spot to be doing this

New one all in

Then our second disaster that wrought our third disaster.  We were heading towards Bangor where we were going to meet with Karen and Tom again, and for a change it was a warm day, though rainy, so when we stopped for lunch on the way we started the generator for the AC's and to use the microwave.  It was very hard to start, shook violently and showed a very high voltage reading just before it quit for good!  On to Bangor in the rain.  When we arrived Jan went out to plug us into power and nothing.  What?  Power at the receptacle, power coming into the coach, but won't go through the transfer switch.  The transfer switch lets either shore power or generator power into the coach, ours also is a surge protector.  When we had the extreme over voltage from the generator it fried our transfer switch, in retrospect much better than frying our coach's wiring, but we had to have power, so in the rain I have to jury rig it up to bypass the transfer switch to get power, which I am doing just as Karen and Tom roll in.  Wonderfully they had us over for drinks and a nice dinner after we got squared away temporarily.  They were there just for one night, so we bid them farewell in the morning.

Bypassing the switch

Tom and Sophia

Karen

So now we have several problems, our generator doesn't work and we need a new transfer switch.  I found a new transfer switch on Amazon, but our original wasn't being made anymore, so I would also need a separate monitor as the new one would not talk to our coach.  I ordered the switch and the monitor, and then we needed to do something about the generator.  Jan and I had been through it many times with our surging problem, had replaced many pieces and parts and were quite familiar, but this time we knew we needed professional help.  We had noticed a power generation company in an industrial park we had passed on the way to the campground about 3 miles away.  So I jumped in the truck and went to talk to them, they said they could fix it but with my explanation of what had happened they were not too hopeful it would be cheap or quick, and that it might need to be removed from the coach!  But they got us right in for an evaluation the next day.  In the meantime we had a lovely lunch and visit with friends' Doug and Nancy.

The next morning we drove the coach over to the shop and a tech was on it immediately, found the brushes were shot, replaced them, but still had the over voltage issue.  Thought it was the control board, but they didn't have one but could overnight one in which they thought would solve the problem.  So back to the campground and sure enough the next morning they called and said the part had arrived and bring the coach over at 1pm.  We did, they installed it, called it fixed, not awful expensive, but fair, and it was quick, and did not have to come out.  We would highly recommend this business to anyone in the Bangor area that needs help with a generator.  CMD Power Systems in Harmon, ME.

The transfer switch and monitor arrived and we got them installed so all was well.

There is a great fish market nearby so we bought and froze some fish and shucked a few oysters.

Then on to Eastport.

And of course they have lobsters there too.

It was gloomy, cool, and rainy most of the time there but we made the most of it.

Then back to Ellsworth so we could hike around Jordan Pond, one of our favorites in Acadia National Park, in fact we did it twice.

And what do you know, they have lobsters there too:-)

And one of our favorite places, Bagaduce's.

Fried whole belly clams, scallops, and onion rings

Then complete the loop and back to Scarborough, and this time when we met Scott and Sue, and Bob and Harlean at The Red Barn, we did just a little better and got a pic of at least half the group:-)

Moi, Harlean, Bob, and Jan

And since this was the end of Maine, what are you going to do?

We still had lots of fish as we headed west.

A quick stop in Buffalo to see the 3 J's, Jason, Joanne, and Jax.  And while there I picked Jason's brain about the funny noise coming from the truck.  He informed me it was probably a broken exhaust manifold, a common problem, and if I was getting it fixed I'd better figure out a time and place and book it sooner than later.  Turned out he was right it took more than a month to get an appointment!

Then over the Mackinac Bridge into the U.P.

And then the darn brake system light quit again, so along the side of the road, the diesel mechanic crawled under, found what we thought was the problem, a chafed wire, she fixed it, and we had the light again for a week.

Next stop, Montana.