We were up and busy early yesterday morning getting our motorhome ready to go to our appointment at Camping Connection to get our new door lock installed, and to have our second Norcold refrigerator recall work done.

We left the Thousand Trails campground a little after 8:30 to be at the shop for our 9 a.m. appointment. Camping Connection has been doing a lot of Norcold recalls, and I’m sure this sign helps. Along with the fact that they have such an outstanding reputation for professional RV service work.

This company doesn’t jerk you around like a lot of RV repair shops we dealt with when we had our Fleetwood Pace Arrow Vision, which we called the Motorhome From Hell. I can’t count the number of places where we arrived for an appointment, and then sat around all day, and more times than not they finally strolled out and tell us the parts needed for our repairs weren’t in stock, even though they had weeks to order them.

Not so with Camping Connection! They may be a small shop, but a lot of the big places, even the nationwide powerhouse in the industry, could take a lesson from them! Within five minutes of our arrival, they had pulled our Winnebago back to the service area and a tech was working on our repairs; a new entry door latch installed and the Norcold recall work done. We were finished and on our way by 11:30.

Compare that to the four hours we spent at Camping World in Mesa, Arizona back in May while they replaced two tire valve stems that they had screwed up in the first place! And by the way, one of the two valve stems they replaced failed again, because they crank them down so tight they mash the little O-rings in the stems.

We feel a lot more secure now that we can actually lock our entry door again. The original door latch was white, and this one is black, because Winnebago no longer stocks the white unit. But it looks fine, and more important, it works!

There were two other coaches besides ours at Camping Connection having the same Norcold recall work done. And remember, this is the second recall, because their first fix didn’t work. But, considering the number of RVs that have burned to the ground from refrigerator fires, it has to be done. We have seen RV fires, and trust me, they are an ugly sight!

Actually, we had two fires in our bus conversion, but thanks to Miss Terry’s quick response, and the lessons she learned in Mac McCoy’s RV Fire Safety classes, both were extinguished quickly with little damage.

Norcold was supposed to send customers a $50 gas card as compensation for their time and trouble after the first recall, not that $50 makes up for the hassles of calling around trying to find a shop that can do the work, sitting on your thumb for weeks waiting for Norcold to send the parts, because they won’t send a part out until you make the appointment, and then driving to a shop and sitting around waiting for the work to be done. This time around they are not even offering the $50 compensation. Not that it matters, since we never received the card from the first recall!

I have no idea why Norcold won’t just send their authorized repair shops a batch of the parts needed for the recall, so they could take care of customers as they come in.  Instead they make you wait while they send them out on an individual basis. I mean, they know that there is a potentially hazardous problem that could result in a fire, and even deaths, but they are either too cheap/lazy/stupid/incompetent (you pick an adjective, they all work) to just get the damn parts out there and installed. What a way to run a business!

We have one of Mac McCoy’s refrigerator fire extinguishers installed in our refrigerator compartment, and that makes us feel a lot more secure. Every RV should have one.

But Terry and I are in agreement that if our Norcold breaks, or if they have yet another recall (and I would not be at all surprised if they do), we’ll pull the piece of junk out and install a residential refrigerator. We had a Maytag refrigerator in our bus conversion for over eight years, and it never gave us a bit of trouble.

Thought For The Day – I’d like to help you out. Which way did you come in?

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Yeah, I know, you watch TV in your RV all the time. I do, too. In fact, I have for over twelve years now. But according to the dweebs at Dish Network, you can’t watch TV in an RV. Who knew?

In Monday’s blog, titled You Win Some, You Lose Some, I wrote that Dish Network had agreed to send somebody out to install a new DVR receiver in our motorhome. Since we already have an automatic Dish high definition receiver on our motorhome, “installing basically means plugging the receiver in and hooking up the input and output coax cables. The installation was supposed to happen yesterday afternoon. It didn’t.

About 8 a.m. the installer called, asked where we were, and I gave him the campground’s address and our site number. “Hey, you can’t put a TV dish on an RV,” the guy told me. “I have to mount a pole to the side of it to hold the dish. That won’t work.” I assured him that he didn’t have to “mount a pole” to the side of my motorhome, all he had to do was hand me the receiver and go on his way. He said he’d have to have his supervisor call me back.

That noteworthy individual called back a few minutes later to tell me that you can’t have a TV in a motorhome. Okay, here we go. We batted that one back and forth for a while, and he said that there was no way they were delivering my receiver to me. End of story.

I called Dish Network back and spent the next three hours on the telephone, mostly on hold, while a series of people who could barely speak English told me that it was illegal to install a TV in a motorhome, put me on hold, never came back, or eventually hung up.

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Finally I got to a Customer Retention Representative in the United States, who assured me that the only way it was legal for me to have a TV in my RV was to park it permanently on a lot and never move it again.

I asked her to stop reading off her cue card, and look at my account and note my RV waiver, and asked her what the RV waiver was for. She said it was to allow me to receive east and west coast networks while traveling in my RV. “Okay, if I can’t have a TV in my RV, why do I have an RV waiver on file so I can receive those distant networks while I’m traveling?” I asked her. She told me that the waiver was to allow me to receive east and west coast networks while traveling in my RV. (Yeah, I heard it before too.)

Finally the light seemed to go on, and she had a solution to my problem! She told me that I was a valued customer, and all I had to do was park my RV and not move it anymore, and I could get my free receiver. But if I did that, I couldn’t keep my distant networks, because then I wouldn’t be traveling anymore.  Okay, next nitwit please.

Then that nitwit’s boss came on the line, who was another nitwit,  and explained that only Standard Definition receivers would work in an RV. Not High Definition, and not DVR receivers.

Aha! So I can watch TV in my RV, just not HD TV?  He said yes you can have an SD receiver, but no, you can’t watch TV in an RV, because every time you move, somebody would have to come out and reinstall it. Huh? Are you getting a headache yet? I was getting chest pains by then!

I told him that I know many, many RVers who have HD DVRs. I even called Bill Adams from Internet Anywhere to be sure I wasn’t missing something. Bill is the recognized expert when it comes to mobile TV and satellite dish systems. He assured me that I could use the HD receiver in my RV, with my automatic Dish HD antenna.

But when I called Dish back, after talking to Bill, they assured me that Bill was wrong, you can’t have a TV in an RV.

If it weren’t for the fact that my Winegard Trav’ler automatic rooftop dish can’t be reprogrammed to DirecTV, I’d switch today. As it is, I’ll just sit here and remember the good old days, when gas was $2 a gallon, and I could watch TV in my RV.

Thought For The Day – Politics has taught us that it is not necessary to understand things in order to argue about them.

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By 7:20 yesterday morning I was pulling out of the Orlando Thousand Trails, taking the Explorer to Camping Connection to have the Blue Ox base plate and SMI auxiliary brake system installed so we can tow it behind our Winnebago motorhome.

I actually got there a few minutes before their staff did, but once Tim, the tech who was doing the work arrived, it only took him a minute or two to check me in, and then he dropped me off back at the Thousand Trails. Tim said he’d call me by noon to have us bring the motorhome in, so they could set up the air line for the SMI brake, and then test to be sure everything was working properly.

Back at the campground, I snoozed for a little while, then Pat McFall from PressurePro called and we talked for a few minutes. Pat told me that they had just left the Escapees Dream Catcher RV Park in Deming, New Mexico, where it was fourteen degrees! Okay, so tell me all about global warming!

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About 11:30 Tim called and said he was ready for us to bring the motorhome in, and when we did, it took a couple of hours to hook up the airline on the motorhome, test everything out, make a couple of fine tuning adjustments, and we’re good to go. Tim did an excellent job, all of the work was tidy, and it’s obviously a very professional installation.

We had an older SMI Duo auxiliary brake on the Ford van, which gave us excellent service, but we decided to upgrade to their Air Force One, which provides proportional braking, is very user friendly, and installs under the hood, out of the way. An air line runs from the Winnebago’s air brake system to a hookup on the back of the coach, and I plug in an air cable to that and to a hookup on the Explorer, and every time I step on the motorhome’s brakes, it also activates the brakes on the Explorer, with the same amount of pressure. If anybody is looking for a used auxiliary brake, send me an e-mail. I’m selling our older unit cheap.

When we’re ready to go, all we have to do is hook up our Blue Ox tow bar and safety cables, clip on the breakaway cord that stops the dinghy if it were to come loose for any reason, put the Explorer’s transfer case in neutral, and off we go. Quick and easy.

We know a lot of RVers who don’t use an auxiliary braking system, and I was just as foolish for many years. I learned my lesson when some fool ran a red light in front of me a couple of years ago, and I had to make a panic stop. The front wheels of our Toyota pickup ended up sitting on top of the motorcycle rack on the back of our bus conversion. Fortunately, we didn’t have a bike on the rack at the time, so the only things destroyed were the rack and our tow bar. But it could have been a lot worse.

Before we left, we also told the nice folks at Camping Connection to schedule us for our Norcold refrigerator recall. Yes, we did have the Norcold recall done at RV Renovators in Mesa, Arizona back in May. They did an excellent job and there was nothing wrong with their work. This recall is because Norcold’s fix in the first recall apparently isn’t working. There have been a number of RV fires that have originated in the refrigerator compartment, and some people have watched their RVs burn to the ground. If you have a Norcold refrigerator in your RV, check the Norcold Recall Website to see if yours is included in the recall of the recall.

Be prepared to wait at least a month before you can get the work done. Just as with the last recall, the shops I have talked to all said Norcold is very slow in sending out the units needed to get the problem fixed. Maybe if it were their homes that were in danger of burning up, they might move a little faster!

Thought For The Day – I carry a gun because a cop is too heavy.

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Miss Terry was still feeling pretty yucky yesterday, so we stayed home and didn’t do a whole lot of anything. I wrote a couple of articles for the next issue of the Gypsy Journal, answered a few e-mails, and called a subscriber who also wants to tow a Ford Explorer behind his motorhome, and was having the same problem locating a neutral tow switch. Since his part number is the same as the one for our Explorer, I think he can do the same bypass with an LED light, and make it work.

Sunday, after we got to Bushnell, I noticed that one of the kayak rack mounts we had attached to the roof rack of the Explorer had shifted. So yesterday I tightened all four of them up as much as possible. These racks are not going to be a permanent solution, and we’d like to replace them with Thule Hullavator kayak racks. The Thule racks are pretty spendy, but they will make the job of loading the kayaks much easier.

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The folks who live next to the Escapees campground have several donkeys, and the RVers who stay here like to feed them carrots and apples. Anytime someone walks up to the fence, the critters come running up looking for goodies.

They are friendly animals that seem to love attention. We spent quite a bit of time petting them.

This little guy was a bit shy, and mama kept him from getting up close to the fence.

We also saw this turtle crawling along, and took its picture. The donkeys were curious about this strange animal, but they all seemed to coexist pretty well.

A while back this feral hog wandered onto the property and has settled in with the donkeys. Feral hogs are a growing problem throughout the south, and all the way to south Texas.

The donkeys don’t seem to mind the squatter amid their  presence, and they pretty much ignore him. The hog, on the other hand, must be lonely, because he was looking for love in all the wrong places. Several times while we were standing at the fence, he tried to mount one or another of the donkeys, without much success. I don’t know, maybe he should have found a barnyard with Shetland ponies in it instead. Who knew we could find live piggy porn right here at the Escapees RV park!

At 4 p.m. I went over to Social Hour at the activity center, and said hello to some folks. Terry still wasn’t feeling well, so she stayed home and worked on proofing a new book I want to get in print soon. As I was walking to the activity center, I spotted a converted Prevost bus that looked familiar, so I knocked on the door. Sure enough, it was Ron Walker, a fellow we knew from our bus nut days that we have not seen in several years. That’s one of the neat things about the fulltime RV lifestyle – we never know when or where we are going to run into somebody we met someplace else at another time in our travels!

If Terry is feeling any better today, we may go shopping for different kayak racks. Or, we may just stay put so she can rest up some more.  I’ll know what we decided by this time tomorrow.

Bad Nick took advantage of the day to post a new Bad Nick Blog titled How About Some Common Sense? Check it out and leave a comment.

Thought For The Day – You cannot be lonely if you like the person you are alone with.

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There are already a lot of folks here at Elkhart Campground for our Eastern Gypsy Gathering rally, and with the rally just a few days away, more are rolling in every day.

Wednesday afternoon, our good friends Jim and Chris Guld from Geeks on Tour arrived, having just driven across the country from Redmond, Oregon to get here. I was so happy to see them that I forgot myself for a moment or two, and actually scratched their French poodle, Odie, behind the ears.

Jim and Chris are presenting nine seminars at the rally, including Managing Digital Photos With Picassa, GPS Navigation & Trip Planning, Google Earth, E-Mail Issues On The Road, Every RVer Needs A Blog, Blogging – Beyond The Basics, Picassa – Beyond The Basics, Internet Love Story – Living & Working On The Road, and Internet Connections On The Road. That’s a lot of information to be shared. Jim and Chris have a tremendous following, and their seminars are always packed.

Then, yesterday evening two of our favorite people in the world, Stu and (Froggi) Donna McNichol, pulled in next to our Winnebago. We’ve known Donna for a long time, ever since she was one of our students at Life on Wheels, and we got to meet Stu at our Western rally in Yuma, Arizona in March. We instantly felt a bond with Stu, and we enjoyed our time together there. I have kept up with their blog, 2 Taking A 5th, just to see what new adventures they have had.

Another couple we have known a long time, Joe and Marcia Jones, also arrived a couple of days ago. We haven’t had time to tour their beautiful new to them Kountry Star diesel pusher, though we have seen plenty of pictures in their Chasing the 70s blog.

There are so many other folks here that I can’t remember everybody’s names, but it sure is great to see everybody.

Yesterday, I made what I hope are the final changes to the rally seminar schedule. Since we ran out of rooms, some of the seminars will be in the big tent we rented, and hopefully that will work out okay for everybody. We’re keeping our fingers crossed.

While I was busy with that, Miss Terry went to Office Max to pick up the name tag blanks for the rally, then to Sam’s Club and WalMart to buy the coffee, hot chocolate mix, tea, sweetener, creamer, Styrofoam cups, and everything else we’ll need for the morning coffee and donuts at the rally.

It costs us over $1,000 for the coffee and donuts, cups, etc that we go through at a four day RV rally, so we were delighted when we got a message yesterday that the nice folks at Bradd & Hall furniture here in Elkhart wanted to sponsor them for one of the rally days, to help offset our costs. How cool is that? Bradd & Hall is a major retailer of RV furniture, and last summer when we visited their showroom, we found some great deals on chairs, sofas, and tables.  They also have RV flooring, day/night shades, and other goodies for your motorhome, bus conversion, fifth wheel, or travel trailer.

We’re getting down to the wire now, and there is still a lot to do before the rally starts. But we’ve got a lot done already, and a lot of folks here who are ready, willing, and able to pitch in for whatever needs done.

Thought For The Day – Don’t worry about avoiding temptation. As you grow older, it will avoid you.

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