Readers have been asking me for an update on how we like our new to us Winnebago Ultimate Advantage motorhome, now that we have lived and traveled in it for almost six months, as compared to the MCI bus conversion we built and lived in for over eight years.

Overall, we are both very happy with the Winnebago, though we have had to make a few adjustments. We love having the extra room the bedroom and living room slides give us. However, we actually had more inside storage room in the bus, due to the extensive cabinetry that Miss Terry designed and built for it.

But, even though we had three huge bays underneath the bus, we still have more basement storage in the Winnebago than we did with the bus. The reason for that is that one entire bay of the bus was used for our holding tanks, which do not take up bay space in the Winnebago, and also because half of one bay in the bus held our house battery bank and inverter, and half of the third bay held our twin propane tanks, plus the fuel tank for our Onan gas generator.

We had a huge gray/black waste tank in the rear bay, and when we were parked in a campground with full hookups, we could turn a diverter valve and let the gray water run directly into the sewer, which meant we could go a long time without dumping the waste tank. In the Winnebago we have to dump the black tank about every seven days. We could probably stretch that if we were boondocking and being very careful, but the difference in tank capacity is really noticeable.

After our first night in the Winnebago, we could really tell the difference in insulation between the two rigs. We built a lot of insulation into the bus, and it was both quieter inside, and much warmer (or cooler, depending on the season), than the motorhome. But, the bus had a single rooftop air conditioner that was vented directly inside, which was much nosier when running than the ducted basement air conditioner in the Winnebago.

After driving across the country in the Winnebago, I don’t know how I lived with the tired old Detroit diesel in the bus for so long. These days I think nothing of cruising up long grades at 60 miles per hour, passing eighteen wheelers, instead of crawling along in the right lane with the radiator misters on at fifteen miles per hour, hoping some eighteen wheeler didn’t run over us. The Winnebago definitely has more power and gets better fuel mileage than the bus did, but I find that I don’t have as much confidence in the Winnebago’s exhaust brake as I did the Jake brake in the bus when going down steep grades.

Everything in life is a tradeoff. Terry misses the household style refrigerator, gas range with oven, and separate washer and dryer that we had in the bus. But, the larger kitchen area and the spacious bedroom/bathroom layout of the Winnebago is much more comfortable. She’s learning to live with the Winnebago’s microwave/convection oven, and the Splendide RV washer/dryer combo.

When you add in a lot of creature comforts and handy accessories, such as cruise control, automatic HWH leveling jacks, automatic Winegard rooftop TV dish, two gas furnaces, and a heat pump, for us the Winnebago comes out the winner.

Several readers have asked us if we will be at the Winnebago Grand National Rally in Forest City, Iowa in July, if we’ll be vendors, and if I’ll be presenting any of my seminars at the rally. The answers are yes, probably, and I don’t know. Yes, we plan to attend the rally, we’ll probably be vending (I haven’t registered yet), and I don’t know if I’ll be presenting any seminars. I haven’t been invited to do any, and the inquiry I sent was never answered. But if you are a Winnebago owner and will be at the rally, and would like me to do a seminar or two, why not give the folks in Forest City a shout or an e-mail? They have no idea who I am, since we have not had our coach that long, but if they see there is an interest, they might invite me to do a couple of seminars.

Speaking of RV seminars, while our schedule won’t allow us to be at the RVSEF RV Lifestyle, Education and Safety Conference in Bowling Green, Kentucky, June 3-6, Walter Cannon has come up with an excellent RV education program filled with great seminars. There is a 10% discount for anybody registering for the conference before March 1^st, so if you plan to attend, register now and save yourself some money on this excellent program. 

Thought For The Day – Virtue is the only true nobility.

Register Now For Our Arizona Gypsy Gathering Rally

When last we left our erstwhile young RVers, they were in Kingman, Arizona, trying to decide whether to hang around while a windstorm came through the area, or to head over to Show Low ahead of the bad weather, so they could spoil grandkids beyond redemption.

We decided yesterday morning that we’d go ahead and hit the road. We really wanted to get settled in at our campsite in Show Low, and besides, I had drunk up all of the Pepsi in my buddy Mike’s house.

It was too brief of a visit, and if Kingman ever gets high speed EVDO wireless service, and if Mike ever restocks his refrigerator with Pepsi, I’m looking forward to going back.

Mike is a confirmed bachelor, so Miss Terry had fun making him a home cooked meal and a big batch of chocolate chip cookies while we were in town. I keep telling Mike that if he’d find a nice girl and settle down, he could have home cooking and cookies all of the time. But he’s pretty picky when it comes to women; he insists that the number of teeth they have exceed the number of tattoos. In Kingman, finding a woman who meets that strict criteria is quite a challenge.

We stopped at the Flying J for fuel, and because the RV island was backed up, and is so hard to get in and out of, I opted for the truck pumps, which ticked off one trucker. When we can use the RV islands, we do, but the layout in Kingman is terrible. On one occasion a few years ago we were struck for over an hour because someone had parked his pickup in a marked slot in front of the RV island and left in another vehicle, which made it impossible to pull a big rig out. We had to unhook our toad, and I had to maneuver our motorhome in a series of short back and forth turns to get past the truck. What a mess!

We got onto Interstate 40 just before 11 a.m. and began the long, slow crawl uphill all the way to Flagstaff, 150 miles to the east. Even with all of the work we’ve had down to our bus, it just is not suited to RVing in the West. At one point, between Seligman and Williams, our speed was down to 10 miles per hour, I was driving on the shoulder with my emergency flashers on, and even with the misters pumping water onto the radiators, our temperature gauge was flirting with trouble. We have come to realize that while our bus does okay back East and in the Midwest, it is just not suited for traveling out here in the West, where the mountains are high and the air is thin.

From Flagstaff to Holbrook is mostly downhill, and we rolled right along, even passing a slow moving eighteen wheeler now and then. When we left the interstate in Holbrook and got onto State Route 77 for the 46 mile run to Show Low, we began a series of long, shallow upgrades that again had us slowing down some, and the headwind didn’t help much. But within an hour or so we reached Show Low Lake Campground, a nice little city-owned campground where we usually stay when we’re in our old hometown. We had covered almost 300 miles since we left Kingman, most of it uphill.

We got the bus backed into our site, hooked up the 30 amp electric, (no water or sewer hookups here, just a dump station and several hose bibs scattered around), and then met my daughter Tiffany, her hubby Jim, and our granddaughters, Hailey and Destiny, for dinner at Pizza Hut. I swear those girls have grown a couple of inches since we saw them a few weeks ago at Sea World!

We’re going to be here a while enjoying family time, visiting with some old friends, and just relaxing in Arizona’s beautiful high country.

Thought For The Day – Seat belts are not as confining as wheelchairs.

Register Now For Our Ohio Gypsy Gathering Rally

We pulled out of Pacific Manor in Apache Junction just before 10 a.m. yesterday, got on the 202 Loop and followed it west to Interstate 10. Even though it was a Sunday morning, traffic was fairly heavy and we were grateful that we had decided not to wait until today to leave for Kingman.

We left the interstate at the 303 Loop, a nice two lane road with light traffic, and followed it north a few miles to U.S. Highway 60, which took us into Wickenburg.

Whenever we set out on a trip, even a relatively short 225 mile journey like this, I always try to have two or three alternative stopping points in case we need them. You never know when weather or mechanical problems can put you off your intended schedule.

The weather forecast had predicted strong winds later in the day, and we figured if the wind became a problem we’d stop at the Escapees North Ranch RV Park, a few miles from Wickenburg, for the night. But there was just a slight breeze, and it was coming from behind us, so we hooked up with U.S. Highway 93 in Wickenburg and kept on rolling. It’s not often we get a tailwind, even a slight one, and I didn’t want to waste it.       

We were a little concerned about how our bus would perform on the trip, because we’d be doing some climbing, and the temperature was in the mid-80s. On a couple of hills we slowed down quite a bit, and I had to downshift into second gear and run the radiator misters, but we managed okay.

About 110 miles north of Wickenburg, we hooked up with Interstate 40, and just as we got onto the highway and turned west, the wind really started blowing hard, slamming us broadside. It was another 18 miles into Kingman, and I fought the wind every inch of the way. If we would have been much further from our destination, I’d have found a place to pull over and wait until the wind died down.

But we made it fine, and arrived at our friend Mike’s house just after 2 p.m. We got parked and hooked up in his driveway, and about the time I completed those chores the wind really got serious. All afternoon and evening it rocked the bus viciously, and we said a silent thank you prayer that it held off until we were safely off the road.

It’s good to be here with Mike, we always enjoy our time together. He and I go back more years than the two of us have fingers and toes to count, and there have been some adventures neither of us is willing to admit to, back when we were young and foolish. Now that we’re old and foolish, we’ve toned it down quite a bit, though. We’ve not gotten any wiser with age; we just don’t have the energy any more to pull some of the stunts we used to.

Thought For The Day - It’s terribly unfair that youth is wasted on the young.

Register Now For Our Ohio Gypsy Gathering Rally