Happy Easter!

Just a quick note to let everyone know we made it back to Indiana and are settled into a campground about 7 miles from the grand kids. Rudee even took a turn at the wheel of the motor home.

We dropped the bike off at her Mom's house and will store it there for a little while and we also returned the U-haul trailer. The brake system on the Dakota is great! So much better than the Blue Ox "brake in a box" system we were using. This is so much easier to set up and works in conjunction with the brakes on the coach rather than on inertia like the other one.

The weather here is supposed to turn cold for a couple of days with the highs only in the 30's and the lows in the mid 20's. The campground just opened for the season Friday and they have not turned the water on to the sites yet. They are planning to do that either Thursday of Friday so we topped off the on board tank at the office and will run off that until we can hook up here at our site.

We are still discussing what to do about the bike but I think a plan is starting to come together so Steve and Joan, don't give up on us taking that ride together just yet! :-) I'll keep you posted.

is this a crossroad?

We pulled out of the campground right at 10am and headed North. We took the I-410 loop around San Antonio before heading North on I-35. The traffic was heavy and as usual everybody was in a big hurry. I stayed in the right lane and ran my usual 60-62 MPH as the traffic whizzed by us. Texas seems to have some high speed limits for my taste. I suppose 70 MPH is no big deal on the interstates but we have been on some pretty rough and curvy two lane roads here where the speed limit is 75 MPH which seems like a recipe for disaster to us.

We ran into a little construction where the lanes were narrowed down with those cement barricades lining both sides of road. Just before entering the construction a larger class A motor home passed us running 70+ MPH and then changed lanes abruptly into our lane. He was going too fast and his maneuvers were too abrupt for that large a vehicle. He was driving that big RV like it was a small sports car! Right then the construction area started and as I was slowing down to give this moron more room the lanes shifted and his motor home begin swerving in his lane towards the barricades. Rudee yelled "look out he is going to hit" and sure enough the rear end of his motor home scraped along the barricades. Somehow he got control and moved back into the travel lane and away from the wall. He never even slowed down! Luckily we were far enough back to miss any carnage but would rather not have a front row seat to watch it! Luckily this guy was not towing anything or it could have been a lot worse, so if your the couple from Minnesota in the Class A traveling north on I-35 yesterday morning who now has a large scrape on the right rear of their coach .......... SLOW DOWN!

We stopped for fuel at a Flying J north of Austin and Rudee made us a quick lunch while I filled the rig up. Continuing north we exited at SR 31 in Waco and once out of town this turned into a really nice 4 lane road with almost no traffic at all. We passed through a couple of towns but really enjoyed this part of the trip. We arrived at M&G shortly after 4pm and they showed us where the hook ups were located. That's when we noticed "the problem". I always walk around the rig at every stop checking on the tires, tow bar, bike straps etc. I did that at the Flying J and all was well. When we got here the bike seemed to be leaning back away from the rear of the motor home at more of an angle then I thought it should. Rudee agreed and we started looking at the lift and found this.

That is a 1" tear in the steel on the lift (to the left of the hitch pin in the photo) and if it continues the bike, most of the lift and our tow car will all three tear away from the motor home. This is not good! 

We have been having trouble from day one with the lift going up and down and they told us all we had to do was shake the lift to get it to work. They said it must have some dirt or a metal burr causing problems and we were planning to take it back to have that issue fixed. Obviously the problem is a lot more serious then dirt! I told them I would be bringing the lift back and expected a full refund and would have to rent a trailer to transport the bike now. I also emailed them photos of the damage. They seemed concerned and acted very suprised the steel was actually tearing. Hopefully they will have no issues standing behind a defective product. Their lifts are supposed to hold 1000 lbs (bike is a little over 800) and allow you to tow a vehicle weighing up to 6,000 lbs (our Dakota is under 5,000) so we are within the advertised operating specifications of the lift. The tear is at the point where all the stress' of the bike bouncing caused by bumps in the road are centered so I just don't think their lift is as capable as they advertise.

We have located a U-haul trailer nearby to rent for the bike and will see about picking it up later today. We will go ahead and get the new brake installed on the Dakota this morning,, load the bike onto the U-haul trailer and will then start towards Indiana. Right now we are not sure what we are going to do in regards to the motorcycle. We can buy a trailer and tow it behind the motor home but that puts us back into two vehicles again and we were trying to avoid that. Plus we would have yet another vehicle to maintain and insure. We have talked about letting the bike go and not have a motorcycle anymore. This is a tough one because motorcycling has been a big part of our lives for over 20 years and we do enjoy it but does it fit into our "new" lifestyle? We don't know what decision we will make, right now we are focusing on getting everything back to Indiana where we can relax and discuss our options. Is this another crossroad in life? I'll keep you posted.

the great escape

Monday morning started out busy but Monday night was a total zoo. I was busy all night long with trucks and equipment running in and out of the gate. It seemed like the bell was going off every couple of minutes. When I check someone in I always look up the road as far as I can to see if another vehicle is coming. This night it seemed like I would no more get the door to the motor home shut and start to sit down when "ding, ding" I would be out the door again. Yep no nap time for me tonight! :-(

Things became a little more "normal" later in the day Tuesday but one of the bosses warned us we would have another busy night so I got ready for another gate guard work out for our last night here. Luckily the rush through our gate never materialized and traffic died off to just a couple of vehicles all evening. I was even able to get about 3 1/2 hours of quality sack time on the couch. :-)

Once the sun came up this morning we finished our packing up and prepared to move off the pad to make room for our replacements to park. Our service guy, Robert, was leading them to our (now their) gate and helping them get hooked up. He called us around 7:45 and said they had just left the yard but the other guards motor home started overheating after only 5 miles. They pulled over and found a broken hose. Robert ran back into town and was able to get supplies and make a temporary repair and they were back on the road in a little over an hour.
We had hoped to be on the road by 9am but ended up leaving an hour later than we thought. Our departure was not without it's own excitement though. Once we knew Robert had fixed the new guards motor home and was back on the road towards us, I started our motor home and raised the leveling jacks up. They came up just fine and got busy rolling up our electric cords. When I walked by the motor home I could hear the low air pressure alarm still beeping. That's seemed odd because I felt like the engine had been running long enough to build up the necessary pressure and the alarm should have turned off. I hopped into the drivers seat and sure enough both my air pressure gauges showed "0". Oh oh.
In a diesel coach if you don't have air pressure in the system then you cannot release the parking brake, which is a good thing because even if you got the parking brake off you would not have any brakes to stop the motor home once you started rolling. :-o
I told Rudee we had a problem and I started looking for a reason. I knew the air tank and air dryer was under the motor home between the front wheels and there are two cables that you can pull to drain the air and moisture out of the system. I had done this several weeks ago after we had parked at the gate. I followed the cables back to the valves they were hooked to and started "fiddling" with them. I had one of our two way radios and Rudee had the other one, She was watching the gauges to see if they moved at all. I "fiddled" the right one a little and then after I "fiddled" with the left one she radioed me that the gauges were climbing! Hooray! I did a quick leak down test on the brakes just to make sure they were operating correctly and we were back in business!

Since we got a later then anticipated start, and I was not wanting to drive a long distance with only a few hours sleep, our trip today was only a little over 100 miles. We stopped at Braunig Lake RV Resort which is a Passport America Park on the south side of San Antonio.  The park is nice but we are packed in like sardines. They have some nice amenities with a pool, hot tub, fishing lake, and a large clean laundry and of course you are just a few miles to downtown San Antonio.
We wont be staying to do any touring though. We have another 250 miles to travel tomorrow to get to the M&G factory. They have an area in their parking lot for us to park and spend the night while we wait for our appointment Friday morning.  We are not going to be in a big rush getting on the road tomorrow and are looking forward to a relaxing travel day. I'll keep you posted.