Lake Havasu City in October

Thursday, October 17, 2013 – Here we are in Colorado River Adventure’s RV Park at Lake Havasu City.  After we arrived home in Chino Valley we opened the house, reorganized our motor home supplies, and killed a few hundred weeds in the yard.  Then, since the Chino weather was still quite chilly and our High Desert rally to Pahrump and Lake Mead was messed up due to closing Lake Mead RV, we decided to skip the rally and come over to Lake Havasu instead. 

The weather here is very comfortable.  And there are only a few RVs here in the park since the park opened only two days ago.  But we have things to do and friends to see.  Last night we joined friends from El Golfo for the dinner of the world famous barbecued ribs at the Havasu Elks.  We had a great chat about old times in Mexico.  And this afternoon Lynn’s longtime friend, Jim Lovewell, will be here for a dinner of spaghetti and meat balls at the club house.  This is the first dinner of the season so we should see some friends from years past.  Fun.  In the picture the boccie ball green is across the street beyond the white fence and the clubhouse is in the distance.

This coming Sunday it's back to Chino for doctors’ appointments and an EJ dinner at the Prescott Resort, then on to Mesa for a Holiday Rambler rally.  

Diamond Resorts International Members Annual Meeting

We are back in Las Vegas for a short stay to attend the Diamond Resorts International Members Annual Meeting.  Staying at the Cancun Resort which was recently acquired by Diamond making the total US resorts owned by Diamond at 31.  Diamond is really growing very rapidly.

Cancun Resort is a beautiful place to relax.  It has
two pools, 4 Jacuzzis (one of them for adults only), two restaurants with reasonable prices, and many other enjoyable features.  And they have 32 penthouse rooms, each with two bedrooms and lots of space.  We were fortunate to get one of them. The Cancun is located at the south end of the Strip near the South Outlet Mall with lots of good shopping.  A very relaxing place.

A Great Trip & Home At Last

Our 2013 Trip Route

Here it is Wednesday, September 11,2013 and we are home at last.  The trip home from Preferred RV was 290 miles with one stop for gas at Smiths in west Las Vegas. It started to rain east of Kingman and rained harder and harder to Ashfork then a steady drizzle into Chino Valley.  Highlights of the trip included 5 great days at the FMCA Regional in Albany, OR, where we met and attended seminars by the Geeks On Tour, an amazing couple who are experts on Picasa 9, smart phones, building and publishing your own Blog, and many other items associated with PCs and software.  

 And then we met the folks at the Monaco Service center in Coburg, Oregon.  The service writer, Matt, was a jewel.  We had a failure in our 120 volt Power System.  They found a loose connection so they replaced the complete unit including the breaker box, a set of connectors, and the converter.  And two weeks later when we had the slide problem they worked us into their very heavy schedule and replaced all the drive hardware with heavy duty equipment.  

Buck's Glass Bowl - Great Fun

In Lincoln City, OR, we discovered Glass Art where glass experts coach you through making your own glass item.  Since Buck had spent a high school summer molding glass lenses and prisms for the US Navy, he was very interested in this opportunity.  Buck handled the molten glass (above 2000 degrees F) under close supervision for much of the procedure until his coach took over for the tricky fluting and finish work.   Result: a beautiful glass bowl on our bar at home.  

Ghost Mountain - The Early Town

Our plans to visit Lynn’s step daughter had to be canceled when she called to tell us that Bandon had a very heavy mosquito infestation so we decided to head south on our way home.  We stopped at the newly acquired CRA RV Park called Ghost Mountain in Pollock Pines, CA and we had such a great time there we stayed for two weeks.  This park is situated in very heavy pines and is quite hilly.  It's the location where much of the Virginian was filmed.  After a three day visit with Lynn’s longtime friend in South Lake Tahoe, we headed south and ended up at Preferred RV Resort in Pahrump, NV.

On To Pahrump

We left South Lake Tahoe on Thursday, September 5th and headed south on US 95 for a quick overnight stop at Tonopah, Nevada.  Unfortunately there was no parking space available at the Tonopah Casino and there were no acceptable RV Parks anywhere in the area.  As we headed south Lynn searched for other RV parks where we might stay.  Much to our surprise we discovered that Pahrump was something like 100 miles closer than Las Vegas.  In looking for coast to coast Parks Lynn found the Preferred RV Park in Pahrump.  After 11.5 hours driving we arrived at Preferred RV at 9:15 pm.

Preferred RV Resort

Preferred RV Resort is a member owned and managed park and has 272 spaces.  The restrooms, showers and 3 laundrys are the best we have found.  The park has a large, well equipped club house, good Wi-Fi throughout, a wood working shop, a stained glass shop, a heated pool which is covered in the winter, an indoor Jacuzzi, and much more.  

On To Ghost Mountain Ranch

Tuesday, August 27, 2013 –When we left the Monaco Service center we headed south on I-5 with a destination Canyon Creek RV resort in Winters, Ca.  This park really is in a canyon, a deep one beside a creek.  No Verizon cell phone service and no internet access.  No good.  So we hooked up the car again and headed 93 miles east up US 50 to Ghost Mountain Ranch where we are now. 

Ghost Mountain Ranch is a Colorado River Adventures park recently acquired.  It is in a mountainous area east of Placerville at 3700 feet and it is loaded with beautiful Ponderosa Pine trees.  And it has surprisingly good Verizon cell phone service and internet access.  Hooray!!!  

The pool really is shaped like a cowboy hat.  The RV sites were apparently put wherever there was enough space between trees without cutting any trees and the space was reasonably level.

We will be here for 4 more nights then on to South Lake Tahoe to visit Lynn’s longtime friend.  The smoke from the Yosemite fire has been quite bad in  South Lake Tahoe so, if it hasn't cleared when we get there, we'll only stay a night or two, then head on toward home.

Friday, August 16, 2013 – Here we are at the Monaco Service center.               

 Our fix list is finally complete.  Following is a list of the fixes completed:

1.    Living room slide has its new upgraded motors, steel shafts, and gears, and it seems to work quite well.

2.    Door frame has been adjusted and closes & opens now the way it should.

3.    The shower has been caulked and no longer leaks.

4.    2 new grab (assist) bars have been installed and are a big assist in entering and exiting.

5.    A new refrigerator light has been installed and seems to work every time where the original one was quite temperamental.

6.    Driver’s side window curtain has been adjusted. 

7.    The electric front shade was adjusted.

8.    The panel on the side of the pantry drawers was replaced and the side-to-side position of the mount was adjusted.  And also the side panel by the door was reinforced to prepare for mounting the new assist bars.

9.    And finally the hydraulic leveler jacks were recalibrated.

We also took the motor home down the road a mile to Paul Evert’s RV where they had agreed to install the cable we all thought was required for the outside TV to display DirecTV.  A very sharp technician there looked at the circuitry and found that the new cable was not necessary.  He showed us the correct input and channel settings and “Yeaaaaaaaaaah”, DirecTV appeared.  

Previous Journal entries.

Monday, August 12, 2013 – Here we are starting the first posting on our new blog.  We’ll begin by entering our Journal entries for a few previous dates.

Friday, August 2, 2013 – Here we are at the Monaco service center in Coburg’ Oregon.  It is Friday evening and the service center is closed for the weekend.  On Thursday the technicians analyzed our slide problem.  They found that the two motors that operate the slide mechanism were both destroyed.  They told us that the slide mechanisms have been upgraded and they would order new mechanism for us.  The new motors have more torque and the mechanisms have the steel crankshafts instead of an aluminum crankshaft.  They will be shipped here from Indiana, and should arrive in a few days.  That’s fine with us because next week we will be attending the FMCA rally in Albany, Oregon.  We will be back here on August 11 for the installation of the new slide mechanism.

Tuesday, July 30, 2013 – Here we are in the Paradise Cove RV Park in Wheeler, Oregon.  Not much of a park.  It’s on a very hilly site of the parking sites are terraced down to the water.  Where we had to park we could not get the TV satellite.  So last night we decided to move to a better site where our rooftop dish could get the satellite.  When Lynn tried to bring the slides in the large living room slide would not move.  Something is jammed.  We called Coachnet. They should be here some time by noon.  The technician who came was John from Skipanon Marine & RV, Warrenton, OR.  After we get the slides in and locked we drive over to Coberg, Oregon to the Monaco Service center.  This kills our plan to go to Ilwaco in Washington for a week before the FMCA convention.  Such is life with an RV.

Tuesday, July 30, 2013 – repair list for Monaco Service center.

1 - Living room slide is jammed.

2 - Door hard to open.  Door drags on the frame at bottom.

3 - Caulk the shower.

4 - Adjust the levelers.  Left side is low.

5 - Refrigerator light still fails to come on occasionally.

6 - Driver’s side window curtain needs adjusting. 

7 - Replace panel on side of pantry drawers and adjust position sideways.

8 – Bedroom TV.

9 – Grab assist bars.

On June 23 we headed north to Panguitch over night and then on north with stops at Utah Lakes, Heyburn for two nights, the Wild Horse Casino at Pendleton, OR, and the Vancouver Elks for two nights.  We were happy to spend only two nights and the Vancouver elks which is very close to interstate 205 with its continuous traffic noise.

Thursday, July 4, 2013.  Here we are in Vancouver Washington at the 99 RV Park.  Today we visited the Pearson air museum.  It was extremely interesting.  The history includes the story of early airplanes and early pilots.  The new museum also contains one of the early Stanley steamer cars.  To start the car you first half to light the burner under the boiler. In 30 to 60 minutes the car is ready to move.  After the museum we went to a local brewery.  The service was so poor we went to a Denny’s restaurant and had a great deal.  The weather here today is unusually cool.  The weather forecast here says it will warm up considerably next week

Next Monday we plan to go to the Washington coast where we have reservations for one week at each of five Coast-to Coast Parks.  Then on August 6 we will go to Albany Oregon to attend the FMCA’s Regional rally.  After that will start making our way south toward home. 

Saturday, July 13, 2013 - Our trip has been good so far.  We were in a campground on the north side of the Columbia River with a good view of the Pacific.  Ilwaco is 7 miles away in Washington.  Just south of Ilwaco is the Coast Guard lifeboat training station.  This is where they deliberately roll a 44 foot boat to teach the crew how to survive a roll in rough water. 

Then we had a bit of a problem with the motorhome.  We were watching TV one evening when the TV just quit.  All breakers were ok but the back half of the motorhome had no 120 volt electric.  We knew that Monaco/Holiday Rambler has two major service centers in the US, one in Indiana and the other one in Coburg, Oregon, just 200 miles south of us.  I called them and they had me turn on the back air conditioner.  It worked so that meant that the transfer switch is ok.  The technician concluded that there was a problem in the converter circuitry.  He said it was going to be complicated so we should bring it to Coberg.  Matt, the Service Writer told us they had a 6 week waiting list but bring it in and they would work us in.  We got it back today with a brand new combination breaker/converter/junction box and everything works.  This is a 15 building motor home construction facility where they built Monacos and Holiday Ramblers until recently.  Erlin, the mechanic who worked on our rig worked in the factory building RVs before they closed it.  Great mechanic and great service!

Sunday, July 15, 2013 - While at the Monaco Service Center we asked them to fix several minor items.  They adjusted the cable latch on the slide out kitchen cabinet, fixed the refrigerator light, and replaced the vacuum door spring. The mechanic also suggested that he replace the wooden panel on the side of the kitchen cabinet.  To do that and adjust the Walk-In door we made an appointment to return to the service Center on August 15^th.

From here we head to the Oregon coast for three weeks, then back here to Albany, OR for the FMCA Regional.  After that we go 40 miles south where we have a return appointment at the Monaco Service Center to have the entry door adjusted and to replace a plywood panel on the side of the kitchen slide out.  And one half mile south of the Monaco Service Center is the Oregon location of Paul Evert’s RV where we have an appointment to install the signal cable from the DVR to the outside wall mounted TV.   Then back to the Oregon coast for a visit with Lynn’s long lost step daughter.  Finally we head home in early September.  That is the plan to date.

Finished With Monaco Service Center

Friday, 8/16/13 - Here we are at the Monaco Service center.  Our fix list is finally complete.  Following is a list of the fixes completed:

1.    Living room slide has its new upgraded motors, steel shafts, and gears, and it seems to work quite well. 

Installing The New Slide Hardware

Fascia Must Be Removed To  Get The Slide Out

2.    Door frame has been adjusted and closes & opens now the way it should.

3.    The shower has been caulked and no longer leaks.

4.    2 new grab (assist) bars have been installed and are a big assist in entering and exiting.

5.    A new refrigerator light has been installed and seems to work every time.

6.    Driver’s side window curtain has been adjusted. 

7.    The electric front shade was adjusted.

8.    The panel on the side of the pantry drawers was replaced and the side-to-side position of the mount was adjusted.  And also on the side panel by the door was reinforced to prepare for mounting the assist bars.

9.    And finally the hydraulic leveler jacks were recalibrated.

We also took the motor home down the road a mile to Paul Evert’s RV where they had agreed to install the cable we all thought was required for the outside TV to display DirecTV.  A very sharp technician there looked at the circuitry and found that the new cable was not necessary.  He showed us the correct input and channel settings and “Yeaaaaaaaaaah”, the DirectTV appeared.