Getting Outta Here ...

IIt has been a few weeks since I posted here. That just means that nothing much has been going on. We are anxiously waiting to have the (towing) baseplate installed on the Jeep so that we can leave. That is scheduled to begin today and will take two days. Assuming no issues, we will finish packing up on Tuesday and depart Silver Springs after the first cup of coffee on Thursday. Our first stop will be back to Ormond Hitch just in case there are any issues, adjustments, or wiring problems that need to be addressed.

In the mean time I have been addressing several maintenance issues with the RV. Both the roof and the body of the coach have been in dire need of a cleaning. Getting up on the roof is a little scary for someone that has some fear of heights. But I got it done and checked out the sealing of everything protruding through the rubber roof. Leaks are an existential threat to an RV. Another maintenance task that is unfamiliar to home owners is sanitizing the water system. We have the capacity to carry 60 gallons of fresh, potable water. But that tank has been empty and unused for six months. So a few cups of bleach in a full tank of water will sanitize the tank and all of the water lines.

Next up were the batteries. Motor homes have two sets of batteries. The first is the chassis battery. Just like an automobile, there is a battery to start the motor and is charged by the alternator. And then you have the 'house batteries'. These provide power to things inside the RV, like the water pump, water heater, and all of the lights. The number of house batteries can range from one, in a small trailer, to as many as six for someone that camps without hookups and has a solar charging system. Our two batteries meet the needs for an occasional overnight off-grid while we are traveling. I tested the 5 year-old batteries when we first bought the motor home and they were marginal. So I just replaced them and cleaned up the battery box. If we did more boondocking (off-grid) then I could have gone with lithium batteries. These let you draw them down to almost nothing and can be recharged quickly. But for us, they are not worth the almost $1,000 price tag. So I bought regular lead-acid, deep cycle batteries for $75 apiece. A few days later, the four year-old battery in the Jeep died and I replaced that too.

An important safety upgrade made to the RV while we were here is a tire pressure monitoring system (TPMS). All passenger cars built after 2010 have them. But they are not required on motor homes or trailers. Tire blowouts on travel trailers are fairly common. Besides the safety issues of vehicle control, they can cause a lot of damage. So it is very common to find RVers installing a TPMS system. Ours has a total of ten sensors and monitors both tire pressure and temperature. The ten sensors include the six on the motor home and four for the Jeep. Yes, the Jeep already has them installed, but I can't read the results from the drivers seat of the RV. So the TPMS screen now sits right next to my RV GPS on the dash. Speaking of the GPS, I use the Garmin RV 770 GPS and love it. It is programmed with the size and weight of our RV and will avoid routes where we will not fit. So I recently added a Garmin backup camera. With the touch of a button on the screen of the GPS, I can see what is happening behind us, particularly with the tow vehicle. This will be very useful for the rare occasion that I pass someone on the highway. Now I can see that there is plenty of clearance between our towed vehicle and the passed vehicle.

So we are hoping to leave Silver Springs around 9 am on Thursday. Our next stop is a one week stay at Stone Mountain Campground in Georgia. My niece lives north of Atlanta and we missed our visit with her on our way down to Florida because of our breakdown. We are so looking forward to this visit. You may have seen Stone Mountain in the news recently. Stone Mountain is a huge quartz monzonite dome that sits over 800 feet above the surrounding terrain. On it's face is a large carving of several Civil War Confederates. I'll do an extensive blog entry once we have visited there.

So be safe out there and see you on the road......