Monday, May 23, 2011

On the road again!

The last few months we have been working out the bugs in our new Winnebago Adventurer. Like any complicated piece of machinery it has been interesting exercise. We already have a humorous story.


We made a second shakedown trip to Beverly Beach, near Flagler, awhile back and in the course of our travels I had a major scare. After a minor navigation error I was looking for a convenient place to turn around our fifty some odd feet of rig and retrace our path. Spying a strip center on the left side of the road I applied the brakes with a little too much vigor and was immediately rewarded with a screech of tires from our towed Chevy HHR. This in, and of, itself was no big deal but Kathy, after looking in the Rear Camera to see  how the car was doing, screamed “the car is gone, we lost the car” because it was no longer in the view screen. My immediate reaction was a loud “Oh (expletive deleted).” I stopped in the middle of US 1 and hastily exited our motor coach expecting the worst. Anticipating all manner of dire consequences I was shocked to find our little car right where it was supposed to be – tethered to the rear end of our Winnie. Because we are new to this motorhome thing we didn’t realize that when I employed the turn signal the view on the camera changed from rear view to left side view. A lesson learned but with the expense of a near coronary.


This morning I made my last visit to the clinic where I am being treated for my diabetes. It was fun parallel parking 37 feet of coach in their small parking lot. Fortunately, the car wasn’t in tow as Kathy, after losing a filling, made a last minute visit to the dentist and met me afterward at the clinic. Good news from my doctor; I am making exceptional progress with my disease and test results show substantial improvement in my numbers. We tethered the HHR and hit the road north toward South Carolina where we expect to visit Lee, Julie and little Laurie on Tuesday.


Ensconced in the Savannah KOA by four p.m. we again received an experience in RV challenges. Setup was breeze, as leveling is automatically done at the press of a button, and in a short time we were about ready to eat supper when the power went off. Kathy thought she caused it by using the microwave while the AC was under a heavy load in the Georgia sun. I checked all the breakers and fuses in the rig – no problem. I checked the breaker at the power hookup outside – no problem. Turns out our entire row dropped power and the park was having mechanical issues with their outdated equipment. What I learned from this – now I understand the value to having an onboard generator. We ran the AC, microwave, TV, hot water heater, refrigerator all at the same time – no problem.


At the moment we are watching the “Dancing with the Stars” finale and are thoroughly comfortable in our new mobile digs. Tomorrow looms with its challenges and rewards and we couldn’t be happier on our Great RV Adventure. Goodnight all.