Colorado: Visiting Family and Friends

October 15-21, 2019


After arriving safely at Cheyenne Mountain State Park we headed to one of the Red Robin’s in Colorado Springs, the draw of this one is that our son is a waiter there. After another great lunch there we headed to his place where we got to say hi to his girlfriend before she headed off to work. Plans were made for the next few days and the enjoyment of spending time with Tom, and Krystal, began.

Over the next week we spent their time off enjoying their company and doing a few tourist things.

Bishop's Castle

Jim Bishop

Over the years Jim has been single handily building Bishop Castle, all through the donations from the public. Jim’s Parkinson diagnose has brought a halt to any more building of the castle. Hopes are he has sat a Guiness record of the largest structure built by one man. There is talk of a foundation when Jim passes to preserve his legacy.

Royal Gorge

Anderson Farms Fall Festival; where we spent the day in a corn maze, wandered around a pumpkin field, and when the day turned to night, the place became Terror In The Corn with a haunted village and a paintball fight with zombies.

Not too many pumpkins due to an early freeze

We had a couple of days free so we contacted some local friends and arranged some meetups. Unfortunately we due to our time restrictions we weren’t able to catch up with everyone, we’ll try again next year for a longer visit in the area.

We first met Mark & Janell in AZ our first winter there, we’ve caught up with them a few times since. They now have their home base in Salida CO which was about a 2-hour ride from us on a very scenic route. An afternoon of catching up went by way too fast, looking forward to our next catchup.

We met Steve and Cathy on our Alaska Caravan, we had hoped to catch up with them when we were in Ft Collins but alas with our RV issues that wasn’t meant to be. Since there were only about 3 hours between us we decided to meet for lunch in Denver at Rock Bottom Brewery in Centennial, Dave enjoyed his flight A fun few hours and our visit was too quickly over, can’t wait to see them again.

Views from site 9 Cheyenne Mountain State Park.

As our departure day neared it was clear that we would be leaving in snow, so once again an adjustment to plans was made and we left Colorado Springs two days early. Very thankful we were able to make it to see Tom and Krystal, going to try and plan our visit a little earlier next year.

Until next time…

The Saga Continues

September 27-October 15, 2019


Since we were once again back at Lake Shelbyville we got back into our routine of volunteering and helping my folks out. Before too long we heard Lippert was going to get a mobile tech to us on 10/11 if not before. Maybe our visit with our son could be salvaged. 

My mom has the house decorated for Halloween, just a few of the scenes around their house. 

Meanwhile, a Grand Design tech, who was passing thru the area on the way to a rally, stopped by. Jack took a look and verified what our issue was, he and Dave also worked on moving the slides a little more center in their openings. 

On 10/10 at about noon we heard from Lippert, the tech was on his way and would arrive around 5pm, so around 4:45 we moved the rv to an asphalt parking lot in anticipation of his arrival. Bruce arrived about 5:15 and soon got down to business. By 8pm and despite the rain we had slides coming in better than they have in years-alright maybe we can get to CO. 


One last visit to my folks on 10/11 then on Saturday we pulled out early morning with Kansas City MO in our sights. We realized we’d be in very early and decided to get our tires rotated at Tire Discount in Blue Springs MO, not too far from our campground for the night. We arrived around 2:30 and about 4pm they had us move over to get started. Before too long we realized we had a tire problem on our hands. When they pulled one tire off they found bulging on the inside of the tire, an inspection showed bulging on the inside wheel well of all 4 tires, they needed to be replaced before we went any further. Of course, they only had 1 tire in our size and it wouldn’t be till Monday morning when their next order came in. Another delay :( 

Sunday we worked on another issue that had come up, one of the lugs broke and some of the lug nuts on tires weren’t the best. So off to the surrounding O’Reillys to find matching lug nuts, we cleaned a few of their stores out. We then took a walk around Lifestyles RV in Grain Valley MO, just down the road from our campground in Odessa at Country Garden RV Park. We stayed here two years ago on our way thru, it’s a small private campground next to the interstate. It was good to walk thru some of the new 5^th wheels, we know some we don’t want to consider. 

Site 25-Country Gardens RV Park

Monday morning were at Tire Discount about 9am, tires arrival could be anywhere from 9-12, of course, it was closer to 12 by the time they arrived. Our warranty covered the old tires, we just paid the difference in the upgraded tire.  By 1pm we were back on the road with new sneakers, 440 miles to go before we called it a day. With the time difference, we pulled into the Goodland KS KOA about 7pm, a 7-hour ride with only one quick stop. No pictures of the campground since it was dark, suffice it to say it worked for an overnight, fuel and a Walmart were nearby. 

Tuesday we were up and out by 9am for our short drive to Cheyenne Mountain State Park, we made it safely and set up for our week's stay. We made it!! Can't wait to see Tom!!

Site 9

Until next time...

900 Mile Circle

September 20 - 26, 2019

Before we headed west we headed to Elkhart IN, the birthplace of our Grand Design. A 6-hour ride, made longer by the loss of an hour when we were once again in the Eastern Time zone, found us pulling into the Elkhart County Fairgrounds. We were able to choose any site we wanted, due to a function going on in some of the halls we couldn’t get to the area we wanted to stay in. There are trains going by constantly but with AC at night it wasn’t an issue.

The reason we went east before going south and west is Lippert had agreed to look at our RV and repair the broken weld issues we’ve been having. Hope this fix will give us the confidence we need to continue to travel in our house on wheels.

We enjoyed the weekend, doing some shopping at a few Amish stores, finding Dave his happy salt and just relaxing at home. On Sunday evening we met our friend Bill and his wife Tracy for a Mexican dinner. We first met Bill in 4/2015 when we took our home to the Grand Design service center. We’ve seen him a couple of times since but this was our first time sharing a meal together. Bill, along with Coley and Ryan Brady, formerly of Heartland RV are starting up a new RV manufacture company, Alliance RV. So dinner conversation was primarily focused on providing him an insight into what, as full-timers, we find important in a 5^th wheel. Before we knew it a few hours had flown by and we needed to get home so we could get a few hours sleep before our early wake-up call.

Monday morning we were up and on the road by 6:45 for the 4-mile ride to Lippert for our 7am appointment. Upon arriving we were soon met by Mathias who was going to be our technician, after going over the issues we’d been experiencing we left our home in his capable hands. After breakfast we headed over to Grand Design, we knew no factory tours were available because this week is dealer week. We needed some molding to replace the ones they were taking off the front end, after almost 6 years it had become brittle, wasn’t going to come off correctly and would have to be pieced back together. Nicholas Cotner, one of the service managers at Grand Design got us squared away quickly. While there we received a phone call from Lippert, they wanted us to come back so they could show us some things, didn’t sound good so with much trepidation, we headed back. By the time we arrived back at Lippert they had the front skin off, the front cap pulled back to expose the kingpin, they had found multiple welds that had broken. They wanted to keep the rig overnight so they could do a complete inspection. No problem with us, all we wanted was our home back in shape to safely travel, we’ve got plans with some of you and we want to keep those plans.

One of the things we wanted to do was take a tour of Alliance RV’s creation and prototype, of course, no photos as it’s all a work in progress. They are in the process of building a ginormous building for the production facility and have one prototype being built. We were quite impressed with what we found out and are considering one. Their focus will be quality, durability and customer service and plan to keep it a smaller operation, they currently think they will be in the 65k-85k price point, affordable without being crazy. With the issues we’ve been having work looking for something that has a strong structure, the bells and whistles aren’t what will sell us it’s how it’s built that will. They hope to have production started late this year or early next year. Currently, they have plans to be at the Tampa, San Antonio, and Denver RV shows. We wish Bill and his partners all the best.

Finding a decently priced hotel took some doing, with the dealer show going on decent rooms in Goshen were in the $140+/night range, finally found a highly rated Sleep Inn in South Bend for $79/night. Decent hotel but we didn’t sleep well, nothing like sleeping in your own bed.

Tuesday we had a slow start, with nowhere to be till our tour of the Jayco 5^th wheel line at 2pm, we stayed till almost check out time. Our tour of the Jayco dispelled any idea of us considering them, while they do have a robust frame there are some factors to their coaches we didn’t like, most importantly the interior doors Dave would have to duck to get thru. We met some people that on the tour that heading to the Montana tour right after so we figured we tag along. Since we would be going by Lippert we made a quick stop there and found out it would be closer to the end of the day before we got our home back. Our tour was of the Montana 5^th wheel line was quite eye-opening, having already owned a Montana we were pleasantly surprised to see they’ve improved their quality quite a bit. Glad to have taken the time to check both manufactures out.

We arrived back at Lippert to learn the extent of the problems our home had to have fixed. In a nutshell, we were close to a catastrophic failure. The welding we had done in VT helped hold the RV together, glad we made the decision to cancel the Maritime trip, one day we’ll make that trip. Below is the post Dave made on Facebook after we got our home back.

“As some of you might have heard, we were having issues with broken welds on the frame of our home. We had some welding done in Vermont to the welds I could get to. We decided to cancel the rest of our trip to the Canadian Maritimes because we didn't have confidence in the rig and head to Shelbyville Illinois where Faye's parents live. The welds seem to hold as we traveled from Vermont to Illinois but we still didn't feel safe traveling with this rig anymore. We contacted Lippert Components, the company that built the frame and nicely asked if they could offer some advice or help in making us feel that our rig is safe enough to travel the country like we have been. Lippert contacted us back and to make a long story short, asked us if we could come to Indiana to their shop for repairs, so off to Indiana we went. Lippert had the rig for two days with 3 guys working on it. The problems were a lot worse than I thought. After removing the front skin and loosening the cap, they found about a dozen broken welds that including the ones we had repaired. They ground off the old welds, re-welded and reinforced all the problem areas. Reinforced around the pin box and proceeded to inspect the rest of the frame. They found the frame was cracked above the Equalflex (where the springs come together) units on both sides, they welded plates on both sides of the I-beam on both sides of the rig. They welded on all new spring mounts, installed new Equalflex units and new Equalflex mounts. Then they dropped the belly and found two broken cross members which they repaired and reinforced. We were very close to a catastrophic failure and were a danger not only to ourselves but to anyone around us on the highway. We've worked our rig hard and it's been on some pretty bad roads including Alaska. We've put over 70k miles on her and it probably took a couple years to get this bad. I'm just thankful to Lippert for stepping up and repairing my 6-year-old rig to make it safe again for us to continue our travels.” 

 

 

After profusely thanking those who were responsible for fixing our home we headed back to the Elkhart County Fairgrounds. A good night of sleep Tuesday, and Wednesday morning we were ready to hit the road for points west. As we brought the large super slide in it was binding a bit but we’ve had issues with it before, with a little persuasion it went in. 335 miles we arrived at Tailwater West COE Campground on Lake Coralville, we volunteered last summer for this project just had never stayed there before. Both of our living room slides gave us problems going out, frustrating. More things to figure out but first, we just had to head to our favorite Mexican restaurants in the area. Last summer we must have eaten at La Fiesta Mexican half a dozen times, once again it didn’t disappoint.

Thursday we spent the day trying to figure out what was going on, calls to JD the Grand Design service manager and Jack a Grand Design tech resulted in the conclusion that our frame has lost its camber, something I had never heard of. Evidently, when frames are made they are made so the frame has a smiley face to it when the RV is built onto the frame it levels the smiley face out, it appears our frame now has a frown in it resulting in our slides binding as they go in and out. The only way to fix that is to have more work done by Lippert, the only problem with that is they can’t get us in till 10/21. By dinner time we knew we couldn’t continue on our travels and had to head back east. Since Friday morning’s weather was supposed to be rainy with thunderstorms we decided to head to Lake Shelbyville, by 6:30 pm we were on the road and just a little after 11pm we pulled into Shelbyville. While we don’t like to travel at night much less pull into a place that late we know this area so well and we’d been in this site all summer so it was no big deal.  We’ve opted to come back to Lake Shelbyville where we can volunteer a few days for our site and once again spend time with my folks. We’ve canceled our reservations in Ft Collins but still have our Colorado Spring reservation on the outside chance we can get the RV taken care of earlier than 10/21.

Until next time…

Sweltering Infamous

August 1 – September 19, 2019

The last 7 weeks we’ve been sweltering away here in central IL. Our days have been spent volunteering, seeing my folks along with a visit from my brother, enjoying visits from friends and trying to stay cool. Not an easy thing to do in the heat and humidity.

In an effort to try and stay a little cooler, we moved to Lone Point, a local COE campground and under some trees. Lone Point Recreation area is a small campground on Lake Shelbyville that had some renovations done earlier this summer, they still had one volunteer site open so we moved there. It certainly was nice to get some shade on the RV but soon after Labor Day, when the campground closed we moved back to the volunteer sites at the Dam West Recreation Area, a day-use area. Unfortunately, with the planned budget cuts for the Lake Shelbyville Project, this campground won’t be open next summer.

Lone Point COE campground

Volunteer site at Dam West Recreation Area

We’ve spent our volunteer time doing a variety of jobs, our main goal for August was rescuing a very large garden that hadn’t been tended to in 5 years. Wish I had taken a picture before we started, we took tonnage, massive quantities of weeds out the garden. It looks quite barren and stark by the time we were done but next year it’ll look much nicer. We did a few rotations at the visitor center and the month of September we trained for our positions next summer. Next year we will be doing checks, on the loaner life jackets, at all of the beaches and boat ramps and also checking the bulletin boards around the complex for their required information. On our other day, we’ll be delivering supplies and fuel to the campgrounds. We also plan to put some time in making sure the gardens are not lost again.

In early August my brother Andy, his wife and one of their daughters were in town to visit with our parents. They were in the process of relocating to TX and decided to make a trip out of it. We had a good time catching up and look forward to seeing them when we get back to Port Aransas where our RV lot is located and where they will now reside in what was once their once vacation rental.

Awhile back in one of the girls’ only Facebook RV groups I belong to one of the members was looking for folks from the Hudson Valley, I commented we weren’t currently but had grown up there. She was looking for RV’ers because she was doing an article for the local paper. By the time I saw the post it was the day she was finishing the article but a few emails back and forth and she had the information she needed to include us in the article. Our friends' comments on FB were laughable, did we make ourselves famous or infamous? 

Our friends Alex and Paul visited us twice these past 7 weeks, we enjoyed doing some of the local tourist stuff, playing lots of cards…Dave’s game, and numerous visits to the local Mexican Restaurant.

 A visit to Casey IL-"Small Town, Big Things"

Two-story outhouse in Gays IL, sure wouldn't want to be the bottom person

One of our many meals at Mi Veracruz in Shelbyville IL, think we jump-started their new business. 

One hot September day Dave was enjoying a beer from Triptych, that he purchased when we were with our friends Curt and Glenda. I went to check him in on Untapped and saw that Curt was enjoying a beer that day from the same brewery, what a coincidence.

We did get to take a visit a place my dad had wanted to check out for a few years. The former Sangamon Ordnance Plant was in Illiopolis IL and was one of the largest producers of artillery ammunition. All that remains are bunkers in crop fields. Being the WWII buffs Dave and my dad are they enjoyed driving around seeing what was left. Who would have thought a place like this existed in central Illinois.

My parents are the reason for us coming to IL during the hot and humid summer months. They no longer have handyman and are needing more help as the years go by. We spent our summer working around their house, getting their to-do list done, and helping them get to doctors and outpatient surgery appointments. We got to enjoy a number of meals at our favorite local restaurants and just spending time together.

Until next time...