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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I wrote in Thursday’s blog post that while the Peace River NACO campground was okay, we really didn’t care for the town of Wauchula very much, and that if we could change our reservation and leave early and go back up to the Orlando Thousand Trails, we’d do it.

That same afternoon, I got a call from the folks at Camping Connection in Kissimmee telling us that both our new entry door latch and the parts for our Norcold refrigerator recall had come in, and they wanted to schedule a time to come in to get them installed. That was all the incentive I needed; I went up to the office, told them we needed to leave early, and they shortened our reservation. So yesterday morning we pulled out and drove the 75 miles  back to the Orlando Thousand Trails.

Traffic was light most of the way, but if you hear anything about a motorhome being involved in a high speed chase with the local police, here’s the story: We were on State Route 60, waiting for oncoming traffic to clear so we could make a left turn onto the ramp to U.S. Highway 27 at Lake Wales. All of a sudden, a police car roared up behind us with his lights and siren on. He tried to climb up onto the island on the left to get past us, but his car couldn’t get over the high curb, and I was stuck waiting for traffic to get out of the way.

The way the road and ramp are configured there, with curving concrete islands and guardrails, there was no place for me to pull over or go to get out of his way, except right onto the ramp, so that’s what we did the minute there was a break in the traffic. I sped down the curved ramp and onto the highway, our kitchen drawers flying open and things rattling around inside the coach, with him right behind us. The minute I was past the guardrail and had room to get over, I did, and he flew past us headed north. Once the excitement wore off, I told Terry I bet anybody seeing that was wondering if that idiot in the motorhome towing the SUV really believed he could outrun the cops!

Once we arrived at the Thousand Trails and got settled into our site, Charles Deutschmann stopped in to say hello. Charles and his wife Nancy were at our last Arizona Gypsy Gathering rally in March, and now they are parked in the RV site next to us. It’s a small world, especially in the RV community.

We took a ride around the campground, admiring the way folks decorated their rigs for the holidays. Some opted for simple things like Santa caps on their mirrors, or maybe a wreath or bow on the front end.

A few folks went a little further, and decorated a tree, or put out a lawn ornament or two.

But these folks take the prize. Talk about going all out for Christmas! I wonder if they carry all of that stuff in their motorhome year round, or store it someplace?

Our friends Dave and Jean Damon, who sell 303 products at RV rallies, are here at the campground, so we got together and had our Christmas dinner together at, where else? A Chinese buffet! The food was good and the company was even better. Here is a picture the waitress took of our well fed, happy group.

I’m glad we came up yesterday, because the weather is supposed to get nasty for the next few days, with wind and rain predicted for today. In fact, just before midnight when I wrote this, it was raining off and on, and the wind was really rattling our window awnings and slide toppers!

Today’s high is supposed to be 51 degrees, and overnight lows the next three nights are supposed to be in the 20s! I probably won’t be doing much, except sitting inside reading, watching TV, and oh yes, sniveling. Lots and lots of sniveling. Tell me again, why did I come to Florida for the winter?

Thought For The Day – Eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow they may make it illegal.

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Today is moving day for us. We are leaving the Orlando Thousand Trails preserve this morning, headed for Paradise Island RV Resort in Fort Lauderdale, about 220 miles south.

The “quicker” route is to get over to Interstate 95 and take the superslab south, but what fun is that? If you’ve been on one interstate highway, you’ve been on all of them. We prefer the “blue highways” that show us small town America, and where we can travel at a slower pace.

So instead, we are going to take U.S. 27 south, through Sebring and around Lake Okeechobee, hook up with Interstate 595, and take it to 95. Then it’s just a hop, skip, and a jump north to the campground.

Our friends Jim and Chris Guld, from Geeks on Tour, are staying at Paradise Island this winter, and we’re looking forward to spending some time with them, away from all of the hectic activity of an RV rally, which is usually where we cross paths.

We have had a very good time here at the Thousand Trails, and this is one campground we’ll be returning to again. Now that we have used up our allotted 50 nights per year that we get “free” under our Thousand Trails membership, any other stays are $5/night, which is a darned good price on a full hookup RV site! We do have to come back to this area in the next few weeks to have the nice folks at Camping Connection do our latest Norcold refrigerator recall, but during the winter the Thousand Trails keeps pretty full, so I don’t know if they will have an opening for us.

A while back, a gentleman named Ladd Lougee, an outdoor and fitness enthusiast, wrote me that he came up with the idea for a better travel chair when he was camping in the Mammoth Lakes area of the California Sierra Nevada Mountains. Ladd said that after squirming around in his chair in discomfort for the hundredth time, he asked if anyone else had a sore back from using the typical camping chairs. He was very surprised to hear that nearly everyone else in his group did as well. So Ladd said he set out to build a better chair, the result being the Strongback Chair.

Okay, a lot of companies and people contact me, telling me that they have come up with the newest and best whatever, from computers to books to widgets, and I have to admit that usually I’m a skeptic. Most of these outfits simply send me an e-mail press release and expect me to publish it, but I don’t do things that way.

I write back and tell them that if they want to send me one of their products to review I’ll look at it. But, they must be willing to accept the fact that if it is good I’ll say so, and if I think it’s crap, I’ll say that too. I seldom hear back from them after that. I’m never sure if they are just looking for free publicity, or if they don’t have enough faith in their product to let me try it. But Ladd offered to send me a chair to evaluate in his first e-mail. That’s always a good sign.

The chair arrived a couple of days ago, and after sitting in it a while, folding it up and stowing it in its nylon carry bag, and pulling it out to sit on again on different types of terrain, from grass and gravel to blacktop, it is absolutely the most comfortable camp chair I have ever sat in.

The chair is big and roomy, it has solid padded arm rests, a drink holder, and can hold up to 300 pounds, and best of all, its design incorporates a frame-integrated lumbar support that gives my lower back excellent support. Strongback Chairs come in two models, the Zen for smaller people, and the big, roomy Elite model that Ladd sent me.

My only problem with the chair is that Miss Terry likes it just as much as I do, so now we have to fight over it! Or maybe there’s going to be a new chair in her Christmas stocking this year?

Thought For The Day – Stop global whining!

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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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