Christmas Comes Early For Phannie!

 At Red Bay Acres RV Resort, Red Bay, Alabama...

If you read the last post, you learned that Phannie was on her way to Red Bay to get new carpet in the bedroom and her annual "well-woman check," as Sandy puts it.  (For guys, that's getting the oil changed in Phannie's engine and the generator, as well as a changeout of all the fuel, oil and air filters, as needed. For a woman, I think it's an entirely different thing, but I'm afraid to ask.)

Bay Diesel's shop in Red Bay; nothing fancy, but number one on my list for performing repairs:

As part of the annual check, Bay Diesel also tests the condition of the engine coolant, and it was found on the verge of needing to be changed. Well, we can't have Phannie running around "on the verge" of something, so that will also be done at 7:00 a.m. in the morning. Yes, I looked at a clock with hands on it, and there are, indeed, TWO sevens on it. Well, there aren’t really two, but there may as well be. We rarely have anything to do with the one through which we sleep in the morning; I had even forgotten about it altogether. As a result, we have, among the frenzy of hand-wringing about this ungodly show-up time, been thinking of ways to accomplish this and still get a little shuteye. We even thought about having Phannie towed there while we were in bed, but this would probably wake us up in the process. We think we've come up with a plan that will involve all sorts of short cuts in our normal departure routine, and who knows what we will leave behind or undone? We'll let you know how it goes.

Red Bay, in case you didn't know, is a little town built around the idea that working hours for just about everyone is 7:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. This is several hours before we become coherent so, for us, it's like being in Switzerland or somewhere. The reason for these working hours is that the giant Tiffin factory employs almost everyone in town, including husbands and wives, and somebody has to go get the kids at school. To accommodate this, the whistle blows at 3:00 p.m., and there is a mad dash to the schools.

Okay, I'm digressing, as usual; back to the subject of the post I go. Everything went perfectly at MS Solutions with the carpet. We finally have new bedroom carpet that will be much less likely to show every blemish and piece of dust that got near the old light-colored carpet:

 

This new addition was so inspiring that we decided to change out the center-aisle rugs throughout the coach:

In this photo, you can see the old putty-colored carpet that remains in the lounge area. We can't wait to get it changed. Keeping it clean--especially since going fulltime--has been the bane of our existence. I think when they remove it, we're going to have a bonfire. No, that's not a good idea--the smoke may be toxic!

Well, we were on a roll, so to speak, with the new carpet. We checked into the newest, nicest RV park in Red Bay--Red Bay Acres--and began to think about more well-deserved upgrades for the old girl. 

One thing jumped out at us--Girard Awnings had just built a new RV awning factory and installation center next to our RV park, and wouldn't you know that Phannie just happened to need a new door awning, She had been without one since the old one decided to pop out and become a winglet a few years ago. You can read about it here:  https://mills-travels.blogspot.com/search?q=door+awning.  This seemed like a sign!  I traipsed over there and found they were more than happy to sell me a new door awning...and I could even show up at the much more humane hour of 12:30 p.m. Now, this was more like it! I showed up on  time, went to lunch with Sandy. Our sandwich, with the awning as dessert, was a paltry 1500 bucks or so. An Alka-Seltzer helped a bit, and at least Phannie had a new door awning:

The old awning:

The new awning:

When the door awning first went kaput, we thought it wasn't that big a deal, but after a few rainstorms when we needed a little protection from the elements and sometimes needed a break from the hot sun, we decided it was worth the (gulp) price.

The Girard factory:

Phannie's in the bay for her awning while Sandy and I have an expensive lunch...

But were we through yet? Oh no, we've left earth's orbit! We had always been a little disappointed in the original lighting provided on the outside passenger side of the bus, which was, in reality, almost useless. And then, along came the digital age, and we couldn't help but notice that the newer coaches were being adorned with all sorts of LED light strings that even illuminated the ground underneath. Then we noticed they would change color, giving an effect that, well, may be appealing to some, but disco was a long time ago, and we old fogies were perfectly okay with white. Not wanting Phannie to be left lightless in her golden years, we ordered a string of LEDs under the awning and a set under the passenger-side slide, giving a nice effect at night, especially when we have outdoor guests. What we didn't realize was how sophisticated the system is. After installing it, the technician showed us how it was operated not by a switch, but from my cell phone! Not only that, it will also change colors, mimic a sunset, and even do a disco effect--flashing in rhythm to whatever rock tune I might have going on the phone!

This was hardly what I had in mind, and I can see visions now of my daughter watching her 74-year old father rockin' out to some heavy metal with disco lights in the background. I would probably never see her again!  (I have to admit that, in learning how to use the system, I accidentally turned on this feature, and I was frantic to get it turned off and back to white. I can just see Sandy trying to explain to the EMS attendants what I was doing at the time of my collapse.)  Here is a non-disco photo of the lights as they will be run unless I mess it up again:

Who knows what Phannie thinks of all this bruhaha?  She probably feels like Ethel Merman with a new necklace! No matter, the old gal has been good to us, and she deserves some special attention.

An unexpected plus was the surprise arrival of Don and Linda Cochrane, with whom we have been socializing for the past few days. They are always a lot of fun, and Don seems to have an inexhaustible supply of stories--as all of us pilots do. It's been enjoyable for a couple of old pilots to do "hangar flying" if not the real kind. So far, I think the lies have been kept to a minimum.

We will be headed back to Texas with a couple of stops with friends along the way before going back to Hondo. After that, we will be heading back north to Branson, where we will spend a couple of weeks with friends before my first knee surgery in November. But more on that later.  Here's hoping you will all stay well and happy until we meet virtually again!

Thank you, Lord, for this wonderful life; 

please forgive me if I fail to appreciate it each day as I should.

We don't stop playing because we get old; we get old because we stop playing. 

 ---George Bernard Shaw

"I get up every morning, and I just don't let the old man in." ---Clint Eastwood

  

Something's Flapping in the Wind Again; More RV Stuff I Like and a Cute Story

At Gallagher Acres RV Park, Benbrook, Texas...

Well, it is obviously going to the year for awnings and toppers. We were cruising happily down I-44, barely across the Missouri/Oklahoma state line when, suddenly, Phannie's door awning popped fully open in the slipstream, making, of course, a loud flapping noise. I slowed down immediately and took an exit that was close ahead, stopping soon thereafter to see what had happened. At first, I thought Sandy might have bumped the awning extend switch but, being clearly out of her reach (and snoozing to boot), that proved not to be the case. I tried retracting the motorized awning several times, to no avail.  

Across the freeway was an abandoned gas station, so I pulled in there and got out my ladder to assess the situation. The canopy was clearly not going to retract electrically, and it was held at full extension by folding arms that were heavily spring-loaded toward the extend position. I could force it, with great resistance, to retract, but the lock that is supposed to hold it in place was not working either. There was no way I could continue at any kind of speed with this thing fully extended, so I began to think how I might secure the awning closer to the side of the bus. Then it dawned on me: Bungee cords! I keep several sizes of bungee cords in the belly compartment, and I was able to use a couple of these to retract the awning closer to the side of the bus, although not quite fully. It would be enough, I thought, to get to a repair shop, so we left our parking spot and got back on the freeway. The awning was still flapping in the breeze a bit, not not nearly as much as when it was fully open.

I drove 50 mph for about an hour until I spotted a large T/A travel center and pulled into the service/tire shop in the rear of the facility. I asked if they could just remove the entire canopy and its housing from the bus. After looking at it carefully, the mechanic determined that its attachment to the coach would not permit the device's removal without compromising the structure around it. So, I asked him merely to secure the canopy housing to its base using some long tapping screws, which he did. The awning's not operable like that, of course, but it is a low-use item, and it will be fine until we go back to Red Bay in a few months to get it replaced. I suppose I could have done this myself but, at this stage of life, I try to stay off tall ladders as much as possible. I've had too many older friends who have had nasty falls doing that sort of thing, so paying a young squirt a little cash to do that doesn't bother me at all.

I meant to take a photo of the placement of the bungee cords in partially retracting the awning but, in all the excitement, I forgot. Here's a photo of my collection of bungee cords; I find a real need for these things from time to time, and I wouldn't be without them:

The point here is that a variety of bungee cords is something every RV owner should have. In this case, they made the difference between getting back on the road and being marooned!  Here's a photo of the door awning after securing it with the screws:

As we left the T/A shop after the mechanic finished, I thought of the wind gust that dislodged our slide topper a couple of weeks ago near Memphis. What are the chances that such a similar but unrelated event would happen so soon afterward? 

I always try to mention my little discoveries of stuff that might interest other RVers.  In this case, I'm going to talk about water pressure regulators--you know, the things you attach to your hose to reduce excessive water pressure that might damage RV plumbing. While many higher-end RVs have on-board regulators (as Phannie does) as a preventive measure, I use a regulator at the hose bib to prevent a hose rupture and as additional protection for the coach, just in case. The problem is that most regulators have the pressure set too low. There are some others that have an adjustable pressure feature, but I have not had good luck with these. The ones I tried seemed poorly designed, difficult to operate or of low quality, and most did not allow pressure of 60-65 psi, which is optimum for my use. I recommend this one above all others:

It is a JR Products 04-62425 Deluxe High Flow Water Regulator, available at Amazon, but it's a trifle pricey at over 40 bucks. It is, however, of very high quality and delivers the perfect pressure. Accept no substitute, in my view.

I've mentioned in an earlier post the iPad I have mounted in Phannie's cockpit and the favorite apps I use for trip planning, navigating and cruising the highways (as well as email, messages and everything else you can imagine): 

In that post, I didn't mention the app, "Trucker Path," which I like better than Gas Buddy for finding good fuel prices (and a lot more), as it focuses only on stations that can accommodate big rigs. Below are some screen shots of a Trucker Path display showing two different stations with 18-wheeler access within six miles of each other on I-35 just north of Ardmore, Oklahoma. The highway is shown on the left side of the screen; when you click on the "T" an information box opens with all sorts of data displayed. The first shot shows a price of $2.73 a gallon at an independent station and the second, a Flying J, shows a price of $3.09. The decision was easy; I saved about twenty bucks by fueling at the first stop:

Best of all, Trucker Path is free!


Looks like good weather is going to stay awhile, so it's high time for Phannie to get a bath. Here is James, of Rec-RV Wash, hard at work sprucing up the old gal: 

I keep adding listings to the "Best of the Best RV Parks" page linked on the right side of this blog. The new ones added this calendar year are identified by this 🔺 icon. Some of these have been listed as a result of reader input (thank you, Steve and Jackie) that I always appreciate! This list has proven to be a very popular resource with several thousand hits already. If you know of a park that should be listed, please leave me a comment, and I will be happy to take a look.

Here's a neat story for Mother's Day:

While shopping at Trader Joe's today in Fort Worth, Sandy discovered in her grocery cart a set of car keys that had been left behind by the previous user. She immediately took them to the manager's office, where the distraught lady who lost them happened to be standing. According to the manager, the lady and store employees had been looking everywhere trying to find them, to no avail. The lady was very relieved and thanked Sandy profusely. After she had left, the store manager walked up to Sandy with the bouquet of flowers pictured below and expressed her appreciation on behalf of Trader Joe's. 

Well, impish opportunist that I am, I quickly grabbed the flowers from the manager and handed them to Sandy, saying, "Happy Mother's Day, honey!"  

The manager, suddenly scowling, just as quickly grabbed them back, saying to me, "Not so fast, buddy; you don't get off this easily." Then Sandy took the flowers, and both ladies high-fived each other. Shameless hussies, I thought.

Okay, maybe it wasn't my finest moment of chivalry, but you have to give me credit for helping affirm the age-old belief among all women that deep-down, every guy has the potential to be a jerk. (That was my goal, of course; and to my male friends--you needn't say anything; I know I'm your hero.)

This little good-natured exchange was all a lot of fun, and you just gotta love Trader Joe's, right?

Mary Lou and Harvey

The best part of the day was a fun-filled lunch with good friends Mary Lou and Harvey at Abuelo's, where we talked about our upcoming Hawaiian cruise with mutual friends Bubba and LouAnn.

We had a very short stop here in Fort Worth for a doctor visit, then it's on to central Texas to visit friends and relatives.

Thank you, Lord, for this wonderful life; 

please forgive me if I fail to appreciate it as I should each day.

You don't stop playing when you get old; you get old when you stop playing.

Stuck at home? Why not buy more toys?!

At home in Fort Worth... 

I enjoy a fairly generous leave allowance in my government job, but I burned a good deal of it recovering from hip surgery. Until the leave balance accumulates again, I will be on a pretty short leash in terms of time available for travel in the next several months.  This means we will be restricted mainly to short trips taken over extended weekends.  We took Phannie to San Antonio recently in a caravan with Bubba and LouAnn in their new coach that he has named “Woody.”  (You’ll have to ask him about the name; I’m not going there.) 

We enjoyed the trip immensely, and it was my first time driving Phannie after rehab.  The only casualty was a broken end cap on the entrance door awning, that damage having happened as we left home and struck a low hanging tree limb not far from our neighborhood.  The awning still works, but the broken end cap is being ordered by Bobby, my new mobile RV service tech.  If you ever find yourself in need of a first class RV repair service in the DFW area, I strongly recommend Bobby Dowdle at (972) 697-6325.  He’s also an expert satellite TV technician.

Corralled as I am by the leave gods, I am using this time to add more improvements to Phannie.  (What better thing to do with my money since I’m not spending it on diesel fuel right now?) 

The first “toy,” as Sandy calls these things, was a Pro Fill battery watering system, sorely needed in Phannie because Tiffin didn’t see fit to install the batteries in a pull-out service tray in 2006 Phaetons—in my book, a major oversight! This makes checking the water levels in the house batteries very difficult and the engine batteries almost impossible, because these are even further out of sight behind the house batteries!  I'm thinking about having the engine batteries moved to a small compartment adjacent to their current crowded location.

The Pro Fill System

Phannie's crowded battery compartment with Pro Fill installed

The next improvement was to replace the cockpit map lights.  The cheap plastic ones with tiny bulbs that Tiffin installed at the factory were almost useless in terms of brightness.  The only value of these things was perhaps to enable you to find a map; you certainly could not use them to make out any map details.  Lighting a candle would have been an improvement!  I ordered a couple of nice LED lights from Camping World, and they fit perfectly in the space available over the front cockpit seats.  They cost about $100 for the pair, but they are obviously of high quality and provide more than enough light for map reading (not that we do much of that now, with GPS and all).

The original two-bit map light over copilot's seat; Tiffin should be ashamed.

The solution:  About $50 from Camping World

Installation - A Snap!

Light galore - What an improvement!

The next “toy” was an induction cookplate.  I had been reading about these for some time, waiting for the prices to come down and, being a gadget freak, I just had to try it.  It is truly a marvel, and I’ve added a video here.

Induction Cookplate

So, what’s shaping up here with Phannie and all of her new accouterments is a very expensive static display.  We've got to get on the road so we can try out all the new stuff!  By the way, you may have noticed that I haven’t mentioned retirement day in a while.  The date I had set is not far off!  Will I actually take the plunge?  Who knows… I can’t wait to find out!

Motor Home...Airplane--Same Thing!

One is wise to perform a degree of introspection before entering the world of RV ownership for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the degree of tolerance one may have for annoyances like dealing with mechanical stuff that breaks down. 

RVs--especially motor homes--are, by design, fiendishly complex because of the difficulties in marrying a house and a vehicle. In terms of opportunity for things to go wrong, you get the worst of both worlds. The degree of complexity follows a general formula: The more expensive the RV, the greater its complexity and the number of things that can break.  There is also another irrefutable fact:  Breakdowns will occur at precisely the most inconvenient time and at a location that has been devoid of human beings since the Mesozoic Period.

The fact is, motor homes are marvels of engineering and, in terms of reliability, are much like airplanes, in that there is almost always something wrong with them; and I know a few things about airplanes, having flown them many thousands of hours in my flying life. The difference is that the large passenger-carrying airplanes I flew are built with redundant systems, so that when something critical fails, there is a backup to lessen the likelihood of a catastrophe.  In fact, airlines are permitted to operate their aircraft with certain components inoperative, but these are tightly controlled through the use of a Minimum Equipment List, approved by the FAA, that sets forth those things that are "go" or "no go."  Most passengers would be surprised to learn that the aircraft on which they are flying is more likely than not to have something wrong with it.  This appears to be true of motor homes, as well.


Now, you may be thinking something snarky like, "Well, duh! What exactly did you expect in buying one of these mechanical monstrosities?"  


Actually, I was fully certain there would be more maintenance issues when we traded our fiver for Phannie, and this has proven true.  However, I still think the positives outweigh the negatives if traveling comfort is the primary consideration and, of course, it is, as I was definitely built for comfort and not speed.


Lately, Phannie has suffered a couple of additional mechanical discrepancies (that's aviation industry terminology for mechanical things that are broken; a pilot knows that it's much less alarming to tell passengers there is a "mechanical discrepancy" than to say something is "broken" or "busted" or "crapped out" or "tango uniform"--an impolite pilot term that I probably never used).  It's for that same reason that, as an airline passenger, you may hear an announcement from the cockpit asking if there is a doctor on board, but you will never hear a pilot asking if there is a mechanic on board!  But, I digress.


I'm a little reluctant to chronicle all of Phannie's mechanical issues, lest someone gets the idea I consider her a "shop queen."  Well, I don't but, because she is a 2006 model, it would be unrealistic not to expect some problems to be appearing.  On the positive side, there have been no issues with the high-cost items like the engine, transmission, chassis, appliances, etc.  Besides the one broken wire that affected the engine's computer, most of Phannie's "discrepancies" have been related to convenience items.  


Except for one instance--the broken wire that required a tow--the repair costs have been sufficiently low that they have not reached the level of the insurance deductible. So, I've decided that, by blogging about these hiccups, I'm not complaining, but figure I may provide a little insight that may be useful to someone considering the acquisition of a motor home:  Here's the bottom line:  Mechanical problems are inevitable; it's all about how you deal with them and whether you have a history of being arrested for assault.


I drove Phannie down to Vogt RV in Fort Worth to have the slides inspected (recommended by Tiffin every six months) and a repair done to the electronic brain that controls the coach levelers.  This brain--actually a black box--is located in one of the forward cargo compartments.  The mechanics found that the levelers' control box  had not been properly secured to the ceiling of the cargo bin and it was hanging down, held at a crazy angle by its wiring bundle.  This was creating problems with the levelers, as the electronic gadgetry had no internal reference as to what "level" is because of its cockeyed position.  The Vogt mechanics did a great job securing the box back to its level position, and all the levelers work fine now.


Soon afterward, I found that the power awning would not extend.  At the same time, a faint beeping noise began sounding from inside the cargo bin where, among other electrical components, the black control boxes are located for the levelers and the awning.  I didn't connect the awning failure and the beeping, but I could tell that it was in the general area of all the electrical stuff I mentioned.  Because the beeping was not very loud, I elected to shut the cargo door let it beep until I could get a mechanic to look at it.  By the time I got around to calling Jesse Sees, my favorite mobile RV repair guy, the beeping had sounded for a couple of weeks!  When people came over, they would invariably ask, "Why is your coach beeping?"  Embarrassed to tell them I didnt' know, I made up answers like, "It's the alarm system," or, if it was an older person who asked, I would say, "What beeping?"


When Jesse arrived, he quickly found the problem.  The wind sensor had failed (retracts the awning automatically when its gets windy), and the beeping was a fault alert.  Because the awning's brain was located in a corner, I did not notice the little switch on the outside cover that disables the alarm.  


Since the wind sensor was not something I considered worthy of repair, I told Jesse just to turn off the switch, and he collected eighty bucks for his mighty effort and the service call.

The culprit...see the little switch on the left just above the screw?

These are the little revelations that come my way as I get used to Phannie.  Let's hope the learning phase is done before my cash supply is done. 

Sunrise, Sunset

 At home in Lindale, Texas...

This is going to be a difficult post, I'm afraid. After much thought, prayers and yes, gnashing of teeth, it now has become clear that Phannie and Mae must come to an end. It is almost like losing a member of the family after almost 20 years of posts about our RV journeys.  If you've had the fortitude to read through it all, you will have lived it as we did, learning from our mistakes and loving every bit of it. This will, sadly, be the last post.

We have been so fortunate to see in person so many wonders of our country that most people see only in photographs. And we will have this blog, which we will have printed, to remember it all. 

We are so honored to have reached officially more than a million pageviews. (They didn't start counting until we had written for the first five years.) We thought about our readers a great deal, and we are humbled that you followed us along from newbies to, well, needing to hang up the keys.

Let me hurry to explain that our decision is not based on any physical ailments that are taking us away from RVing. Well, there are a few annoyances that are common when one reaches elderly status, but we just know the time has come. It is much like when Sandy and I retired from our professions and became fulltimers. Sandy asked one of her retired schoolteacher friends how she would know when it's time to retire. "Don't worry; you'll know," came the answer. And so it was when I retired, and so it is with the end of our RVing journeys.

One of the hardest things to contemplate is the handoff of Phannie--and Mae--to someone else. Phannie was our home for eight years of fulltiming and 13 years of ownership. We've driven her more than a hundred thousand miles, and she has never been anything but dependable. Not a single breakdown, not a single failure to start the Cat engine with a few turns, not even a single "check engine" light in all that time. We know we were lucky to get one of the "good years" of Tiffin motorhomes, and we had the good sense to have her lovingly serviced all that time. That is probably the main reason she has been so faithful. There is also the fact that she's been driven fairly often instead of setting idle--something that is supposedly not good for big motorhomes. Sandy will definitely cry when Phannie leaves for the last time, and I can't promise that I won't.

We're getting her ready for sale now, and even that is saddening. It seems every personal thing we remove brings back a memory, and that slows down the progress. Moreover, I'm conflicted as to what kind of price is appropriate. It's so hard to put a value on something that is so much like a friend.

I do know that whoever gets Phannie will have an inexpensive, well-maintained coach fully set up for fulltiming. We added so many extras--a residential refrigerator (and door icemaker) with a new pure sine-wave inverter. In addition, we removed the old TVs and put flat screens in their places; it has a Trav'ler dish for Direct TV. We installed a third air conditioner (2006s only came with two). We had MCD powered shades installed in the cockpit and manual MCDs in the "parlor." We replaced the unreliable Atwood jacks with Bigfoot levelers--there are a number of other goodies like upgraded headlights, a powered reel for the electrical cord, fancy lighting under the main slide and under the awning...there are others, and I can't think of them all, but they cost tens of thousands of dollars. And there are the service records--every single one since NEW. And, painful as it was, financially, she has just had all her belts, hoses and airbags replaced, along with new Koni shocks. That was about six grand that the new owner will probably never have to pay. And, oh yes, you won't ever have to spend a penny on DEF; it's not required for these classic coaches. The Cat C7 diesel engine's average overhaul comes at around 500,000 miles, but I'll bet this one would go much longer. I even use a special additive that replaces the diesel fuel lubricant that was taken away by the EPA.

I'm giving you all this information, dear readers, because there may be someone out there or someone you know who would like to get an older classic Phaeton that may be the best-equipped in the country for a small fraction of her original $315,000 price tag. I'm seeing prices now in the 70s, and the lower end of that is what I'm initially thinking. Oh, yes, and Mae is for sale, too. A 2014 Honda CRV with 115,000 miles that has been equally well maintained. This would be a complete reliable fulltiming package for someone who doesn't want to spend much money--around 80k. Anyone interested can email me at mikemills159 at pm.me.

It is incredibly difficult to say goodbye; let's just say, "See you later."

Thank you all for twenty wonderful years!