We had a lot to get done yesterday, and accomplished very little of it. Some days are just like that, I guess.

We had quite a bit of stuff that we had been carrying around in the van that we decided had to go away, so I loaded it into the Explorer to drop off at a Goodwill or Salvation Army. It’s amazing what you discover that you had forgotten you own!

A little after noon we drove back to the car dealer in Winter Haven, where we bought the Explorer, to pick up the the SMI auxiliary brake that they had agreed to disconnect from the van, and to drop off the van’s title, which we had forgotten the day before. Along the way, we stopped at a Salvation Army store and unloaded the items we had to donate.

We had noticed a squealing noise coming from the Explorer, that I suspected was a fan belt or something like that. It wasn’t a big deal, just irritating. So I asked their service department to take a look, and they decided that a serpentine belt and a pulley were glazed, which was causing the noise.

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They pulled the vehicle into the shop to change them, and said it would take  a couple of hours to get the parts and do the job. Okay, we were there, they were paying for it under warranty, so we’d get it out of the way.

Well, we all know that no job ever gets done in the time allocated, right? The two hours stretched out to almost three before they were done, but they did a good job. This was supposed to be a quick trip, so I had not taken my iPad with me, so I spent the time reading old magazines about topics I had no interest in, while Miss Terry, always better prepared, had a book to read.

We needed to find a Fed Ex drop box to send the loan paperwork back to Alliant Credit Union, and we thought we had seen one in a shopping center we would pass on the way out of town. As it turned out, we were wrong, so we stopped at a hotel to ask if they knew of one nearby. They didn’t.

Again, if I had my iPad, I could have gone online and found one quickly, but we figured we’d pass a Staples or Office Depot, which usually does Fed Ex shipping. No such luck.

Miss Terry was driving, so I got online with my Droid Incredible and looked up Fed Ex, called them, and they gave me the location of the nearest Fed Ex drop box. Isn’t technology a wonderful thing? I entered the address into our Garmin GPS, which directed us a mile north, only to then tell us to make a U-turn and drive two miles back south to the drop box! Isn’t technology a wonderful thing?

Eventually we found the drop box, deposited the envelope, and headed back to the Thousand Trails campground. We stopped along the way for a bite to eat, made a stop at Lowes, and got back to our motorhome just after dark.

We’re due to leave here tomorrow, and we still have to pack the Explorer, get our hard kayaks onto the roof, and get some other chores done. All the stuff we had planned to accomplish yesterday!

Thought For The Day – Friendship isn’t a big thing, it’s a million little things.

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Well, it took a while, some trial and error, and my blood pressure was in the stratosphere for a couple of days, but it was worth it. Well, it was worth it to me. Miss Terry had to live with the grouchy bear I become when I get too stressed out from dealing with thieves and idiots, and I’m not sure she’d agree that anything is worth that! But, it all came together, and yesterday we resolved the issue with towing the Ford Explorer, and took delivery of it.

Actually, we already had it, because the folks at Dodge Chrysler Jeep of Winter Haven allowed me to keep it overnight Wednesday while we tried to figure out a way to get it set up to tow behind our motorhome.

As I wrote in yesterday’s blog, the Explorer requires a Neutral Tow Kit, which is basically an LED light that plugs in under the dashboard, and a simple computer procedure from a Ford dealer to set up the transfer case for towing. However, the company that made the kit for Ford has gone out of business, and a dealer in Oregon bought up every kit available and was charging $375 plus $30 shipping, for an item that originally retailed for about $30. What a rip off!

A lot of internet research, and repeated phone calls to my two most reliable technical guys, Greg White and Ron Speidel, confirmed my belief that any LED light would complete the circuit and work. Thanks for all of your help and patience with my repeated phone calls, guys.

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The next step was finding a Ford dealer that would “flash” the computer for me. Jarrett Gordon Ford, in Davenport, Florida was willing to try it, and it worked like a charm! A $2 LED light beats the heck out of over $400 to accomplish the same thing!

Once we knew that we could tow the Explorer, the next job was to unload our Ford van so we could drop it off at the dealer as our trade in, and do the paperwork. Do you have any idea how much stuff you can cram into an extended length Ford cargo van? A lot! We are going to have to get ruthless about what to keep and what to dispose of, because while the Explorer will carry the newspapers we take to RV parks and rallies, and our kayaks on a roof rack, it’s no cargo van.

What it is is a very nice ride, maybe the nicest we’ve ever owned. The previous owner was a Ford executive who special ordered the Explorer as his retirement present, and it has every option that was available that year. Leather interior, power seats, power windows and door locks, power sunroof, zoned climate control, molded in running boards, and more than I can remember. These pictures are from the dealer’s web site, and are not great, but hopefully they will give you an idea of what it looks like. It’s tan with a tan interior.

In fact, I was driving it home and playing around with all of the buttons and knobs, and suddenly I started feeling uncomfortably hot, even though the air conditioner was on. I told Miss Terry later that if I had been a woman, I would have sworn I was having a massive hot flash. As it turns out, I had turned on the seat heater, an option I never hope to be in cold enough weather to need!

The base plate for towing the Explorer is on order, and it will be a couple of weeks before we get it installed. In the meantime, I’ll drive the motorhome and Terry will drive the Explorer for the little bit of running around we’ll be doing between now and then.

By the way, if you are a fulltime RVer who is having trouble obtaining financing on an RV or tow vehicle because the bean counters at your bank don’t understand our lifestyle, call my friend Eileen Gilmore at Alliant Credit Union at (773) 462-2200, extension 3621, and tell her I sent you. Eileen will go the extra mile for you. She handled the purchase of our motorhome last year, and the Explorer now, and she has always been great to work with.

While I was busy with all of the details of the Explorer purchase, Bad Nick stayed out of the line of fire, and wrote a new Bad Nick Blog titled Coloring Outside The Lines. Check it out and leave a comment.

Thought For The Day – Adversity introduces a man to himself.

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I have had a very frustrating couple of days, and if I had any hair left, I’d probably be pulling it out about now.

Our Ford van has 163,000 miles on the odometer, not counting many thousands more being towed behind our motorhome, and behind our bus conversion before that. It’s reached the point where it’s beginning to nickel and dime us to death. So we have been shopping around for something to replace it.

We found an absolutely beautiful low mileage 2005 Ford Explorer Limited 4×4 at a nearby dealer, and according to Motorhome magazine’s 2005 Dinghy Towing Guide,  the Explorer can be flat towed after the installation of a Neutral Tow Kit, which is about a $30 part. Cool, let’s do it!

Before we signed the papers, I wanted to double check on the procedure for setting up the vehicle for towing. Since the dealer selling the Explorer is not a Ford dealer, I went down the road to the Ford garage and told them what I wanted to do. They told me that basically the dealer plugs the Neutral Tow Kit into a socket under the dashboard, and then they ”flash” the vehicle’s computer to tell the 4 wheel drive transfer case to shift into neutral when I step on the brake pedal and push the 4×4 button, with the transmission in neutral.

However (you knew there was a “however” coming, didn’t you?), it’s not quite that simple. Ford no longer carries the Neutral Tow Kit, and the dealer can’t order one. I found one dealer in Oregon who has several of them in stock, for $375 each plus $30 shipping, and I found one on eBay for $500. Several websites list them, but nobody actually has one, they all want to take your money and put it on backorder.

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From what I understand, the tow kit is nothing more than an LED light, a plug, a template for mounting the gizmo, and three safety stickers.

I have spent the last two days online and on the phone, calling dealers all over the country, talking to a Ford district rep, and getting a different story from everybody I talk to. Some insist that I have to have the tow kit to make things work, some say all a dealer has to do is flash the computer program with or without the tow kit, and some say they have made their own replacement for the tow kit by simply wiring a 12 volt LED light into the circuit where the other tow kit would go. If you can find a dealer to flash it with a homebuilt replacement. Many won’t do it for liability reasons.

It’s a pain, but I understand the liability part of things. Years ago, when we first went on the road, we bought a new Toyota pickup to pull, and Toyota insisted it could not be towed. It was a manual transmission 4×4, so all I did was put the transmission and transfer case in neutral and we towed it for years with no problems. But the bean counters are all programmed to say no to anything, because “what if?”

Now, I think that Ford builds some very fine automobiles and trucks, and I also think that they have some very dumb and/or greedy employees. Three dealers immediately wanted to sell me a new vehicle, and when I told them I wasn’t going to do that, they had no time for me. Several service departments told me that an Explorer can’t be towed in any configuration, and others just scratched their heads and had no advice at all.

The very nice folks at Camper Connection pointed me toward a local Ford dealer’s garage, and the service manager agreed that the tow kit is nothing more than an LED light, a plug, a template for mounting the gizmo, and the safety stickers. Yesterday, the selling dealer let me take the vehicle to the Ford dealer, so he could try flashing the computer without the LED light in place. It didn’t work, so he told me to get an LED light, and we’re going to try again this morning.

Keep your fingers crossed for us. We love the Explorer, it meets all of our needs, the price is right, the financing is in place, but for want of a silly $30 part, the whole deal may fall through. Can you say frustrating?

UPDATE: We’re in luck! Jarrett Gordon Ford installed the LED light I got, and everything works fine for towing!

Thought For The Day – Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.

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The time comes for all fulltimers when illness, advancing age, changing interests, family needs, or some other reason causes us to make the decision to hang up the keys.

Some fulltime RVers enter the lifestyle knowing that they will only be traveling for a certain amount of time before they settle down, while others hope to travel forever, and only leave the road when forced to do so.

Hopefully, Terry and I are a long way from reaching that point, but like most of our RVing friends, we know the time will eventually come. We have talked about what we will do at that time in our lives, and where we might want to to live.

We lived in the little mountain town of Show Low, Arizona before we hit the road, and my daughter and her family still live there. But we know that we don’t want to return there, and neither of us likes Arizona enough to want to live there again.

We love being around water, we want a moderate climate, and we don’t want to be in a big city. However, we want to be close enough to the services we will need as we get older.

If we had to make a decision today, I think the Rockport/Aransas Pass area of Texas might be it for us. We love the laid back small town atmosphere, it’s on the Gulf of Mexico, with lots of opportunities for fishing and kayaking, and the cost of living is affordable. Because it’s only about 30 miles from Corpus Christi, there is easy access to any kind of shopping or medical services one could want or need.

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However, we also have thought about Florida, for its abundant water sports opportunities. Florida is God’s waiting room, because there are so many retirees here, and they are an important part of the state’s political and economic base. But, it is God’s waiting room, and I don’t see us being happy playing bridge and comparing varicose veins forever in some retirement community.

Having had big houses, small house, mobile homes, and just about every kind of dwelling available, we have both agreed that we’re very happy living in the small size a motorhome offers. We’d be very happy to find a lot someplace and live out our days in our home on wheels.

We know some fulltimers who have already purchased a lot someplace, in preparation for “the day,” whenever it comes. We almost bought a lot (actually three adjoining lots) in Aransas Pass a couple of years ago, but we felt like that would be the first string that started to tie us down, and we’re not ready for that yet. We worked hard to cut those strings so we could live the fulltime lifestyle. We worry that if we had a lot, we’d feel like we had to go back there every year, because why have it if we’re not going to use it?

Of course, if all goes well, I’ll follow my original exit plan, which is to bounce my last check, burn my last drop of diesel, and have a fatal heart attack, all on the same afternoon.

So what about you? Have you thought about what you’ll do when the time comes to hang up the keys? What are your plans?

Thought For The Day – I have never been in a situation where having money made it worse.

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Fortunately, most RVers we know are pretty mellow people who, aside from a heightened sense of adventure and a love for seeing what’s over the next hill and around the next bend in the road, are pretty much like anybody else you’d encounter anywhere.

Most RVers, especially fulltimers, seem to be pretty tolerant people, and accept everybody for who they are. We’ve sat around campfires where the group included everybody from retired surgeons to former schoolteachers, truck drivers, and mailmen. Nobody cares what you did in your past life, they just want to know where you were yesterday, and where you’re headed next week.

However, every once in a while we run into a snob. Such was the case recently when we had a conversation with somebody who proceeded to let us know that anyone who didn’t own the same type of upscale diesel pusher they did was certainly not on a equal level, and was probably mentally or morally suspect as well.

When talking about our Gypsy Gathering rallies, this person made the comment that they were not comfortable at our event because we let “everybody” in, even people in cheap used RVs, and that you never know what to expect from those kind of people. I was tempted to reply that until recently, Terry and I lived and traveled in a 34 year old homebuilt bus conversion. I guess that means we certainly qualified as those kind of people!

On the other end of the spectrum, I had an e-mail exchange with a fellow who wants to buy a cheap used diesel powered transit or school bus for about $3,000 to $5,000, spend a couple of thousand dollars converting it, and hit the road.

He told me that he doesn’t plan to put in a bed, just get a fold out couch from a thrift store, and that he won’t be adding a bathroom. He plans to spend a week or two at a time in different towns, staying at WalMart stores and truck stops, and that he can use their bathrooms to clean up in, when he needs to.

He went on to tell me that he won’t have to buy fuel, because restaurants are eager to give away their waste vegetable oil, and he can pour it directly into his fuel tank and go on down the road. He figures he could live easily on a couple of hundred dollars a month.

I tried to explain to him the hundred and one reasons why his plan wouldn’t work, from the fact that waste vegetable oil isn’t quite that easy to come by, and that you can’t just pour it in your tank and go, and that living in WalMart parking lots wasn’t exactly RVing. But the response was basically of the mindset of “My mind’s already made up, don’t confuse me with facts.”

So we have a prima donna who pulls up to a dump station and says “Well, ours doesn’t stink,” and somebody who basically wants to be a motorized hobo. Aren’t you glad most of the folks who park next to you at your favorite campground fall somewhere in the middle of these two? I sure am!

Thought For The Day -  Except for ending slavery, Fascism, Nazism and Communism, war has never solved anything.

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