Saturday, April 27, 2019

A good washing

I am trying out a new "wash" for the motorhome.  I have heard the jokes from my friends saying that by the time I finish washing it that I will be old enough to retire.  Yes, after finishing just over HALF of the washing, I am sunburnt and tired.  I did put on sunscreen before I went out today.  I am only washing the side in the shade, so I am waiting until a little later to do the other side.


The new wash I'm using is LustreLabs LXR.  It is a wash and chemical that is supposed to "seal" the clearcoat and provide a yearlong wax type of finish.  It is SUPER thick when it comes out of the soft-sided bag container.  I think it would be best to set the bag in the sun a while to warm it up before trying to measure it out for mixing.  It has the thickness of pancake syrup right out of the fridge.  You only need 4oz per gallon of water.

So far it has done a good job of washing.  I'm not seeing the "miracle" of resealing the finish.  I do see the color of the decal areas darken a bit, but I am not seeing the finish being restored like I hoped it would.  Don't get me wrong!  I am a bit of a realist when I read product claims and then use the product.  I have rarely been amazed by a product in comparison to when it is hyped up to be.  But it is doing a nice job with a good washing.

POWER!!!!

So there is a sign on the compartment that has all of the power systems in the motorhome.  It says 120/240, but don't you believe it!!!!  I made the mistake of wiring up a 220 to plug my new baby in.  It is a massive 3-prong plug that looks like a dryer or stove type of connector...and at 30 amps!  Connecting it up and turning it on made massive growl and then a loud "thump".  I knew I was in trouble.  Well, after a 1.5hr trip to an authorized repair facility for my inverter/charger, it was declared that "It's dead, Jim."   That was a $1,500 mistake.  Now it wasn't acting perfectly healthy to begin with, but that certainly finished it off.

So yesterday was a very stressful day for me as I was going to install the new inverter/charger myself that I had ordered off Amazon.  I couldn't see driving back 1.5hr to the repair place when I could probably hook things back up myself.  Everything was fine until I couldn't get ANY power from my shore connection.  I found that there was yet ANOTHER breaker inside that provides power connectivity to my inverter.  Once I figured that out, all was golden.  Here is a picture of the new pure-sine inverter that I installed in place of the destroyed modified-sine inverter that I put out of its misery.

A few weeks ago I replaced the "house" batteries as well.  The original setup was using (4) 12v deep cycle batteries in parallel.  I wanted to make sure I had lots of reserve power as I am looking forward to getting off-grid for camping.  I put in (4) 6v batteries that are connected in series and parallel.  I will get the same 12v power, but I will have a lot more runtime.  It calculates out to 450ah of power at 12v.
I chose to go with the Trojan T105 batteries...in case you are interested.  These are the gold standard for deep cycle off-grid RV type application.

Tuesday, April 9, 2019

Lisa in the RV

Lisa cruising down the road in her electric leather recliner doing cross-stitch.

Inside the RV opened up in the living area.  Lisa is taking it easy on the couch.

Monday, April 8, 2019

Beginning Our RV Adventure

This is what happens when you let your husband choose his own birthday present!!!  (Thank you George and Holly for your help in this huge RV purchasing project)!!

This has been a dream of ours for awhile now and we were blessed to find "The Bus" (which is what we are calling it right now).   Please, name suggestions are welcome!





Here is how our adventure started:  We flew to Tennessee to pick up the RV.   Wow!  It is so big!  Here is Jeff in a bit of shell shock within minutes of seeing the RV in person for the first time!



Thanks to Greg for giving us such a great walk through and explaining things to us.  Our brains were overloaded with great information!

Now it is ours and we have to get it home!  Nothing like being thrown into the deep end to learn to swim.    We drove just a bit down the road to a huge parking lot to get a few necessary supplies.  (toilet paper, M & Ms, you know the important stuff).
And Jeff made sure his first parking job would meet PopPop's approval!!!  Way to go - straight and centered!!



Jeff managed FANTASTICALLY!  And he loves driving it!  We wanted a short drive for the first night and so we drove 3 hours away to get help from the experts - my folks.  And there the real inspections and tinkering could begin!



You know it is tall when Jeff has to stand on a ladder to reach the wipers!

You have to put an extension on the bottom of the roof ladder just to be able to reach the bottom rung! 
CockPit


 Now to take the beast home.  Going 750 miles over the mountains to Florida!

Love RedBuds!

Huge windows!

Beautiful setting for our first night camping - Sweetwater Lake Campground

All set up and ready to camp!

Jeff ready to eat.

All closed up and ready to roll.

Second night camping north of Jacksonville.

Home Sweet Home!