Sunsets

Since arriving in Georgia in the late 80's we have adjusted to many things.  But there are two things that I never really acclimated to; eastern time and rarely seeing a sunset because of heavy forestation.  Staying up 'till 11:30 to see Carson's, and later Leno's monologue made for an unpleasant moment when the alarm went off the next day.  But as unpleasant as that was, not being able to see sunsets drug on me more for nearly 25 years.

This moving into an RV and being able to make home wherever I wanted it to be was going to remedy the sunset problem and tremendously improve the stargazing as well.  But we got an unexpected bonus in that our current camping spot, while still just a couple miles from where we have lived for the last two decades, gives us a whole different view of the countryside.  The spot we are currently backed into borders a small farm that has gone fallow.  But it has not been left alone long enough yet that trees have grown back, and that is affording us some of the best sunsets we have seen in a long time, right out our full-width picture window on the rear of the rig.

Granted, these are not West Texas sunsets where the sky has layers of blood-red and orange, but I'll take it.  We'll get to the real sunsets soon.

Thanksgiving, Ahhhh

There was a lot of trepidation about how our Thanksgiving holiday was going to work.  We could have tried to squeeze everybody into the camper but it would have been tight, really tight.  But a very fortuitous thing happened a few weeks ago.  While visiting our daughter and son-in-law a few weeks ago, Justin just up and volunteered to have, and prepare Thanksgiving at their place.  Sounds great, let's do it.

But this did not eliminate the trepidation.  Our daughter's experience in preparing a holiday meal was limited to a couple of the cold side dishes and the green bean casserole.  AND, her and Justin's dietary habits lean toward the tofu and Trader Joe's style of eating.  No matter, we are all going to be together this Thanksgiving and that is the best part of all.  Next year we should be on the road.  Maybe we will be settling in to our winter spot in Texas or Arizona, or on a park host assignment somewhere in the South.  Maybe we can time it to be in GA for the holiday, we just don't know, it is too soon to tell; for now.

As Thanksgiving approached I received a text from Shauna suggesting that we divide up the cooking duties.  Cyndee and I were to do the family recipes for dressing (we have two, one from the Perry side and the other from the Reynolds side), scratch-made cranberry sauce, Jack Frost (whipped cream topping), pumpkin pie, and stuffed celery.  They would do the turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, and deviled eggs.  Okay then, I guess we will figure out how to do in a single convection/microwave what we used to "need" an oven and microwave and grill to get it done in.  Oh, and a whole lot of counter and table space.  Oh, and a two big refrigerators.

Hey, all it took was a little calculating to figure out how long it would take to fix everything, one after another.  At 5:30am it was up and out of bed with the first batch of dressing starting at 6:00am, sharp.  Everything worked out great on our end, we loaded up the little PT Cruiser with our goodies and headed south for the city.

It is a 38 mile drive into Atlanta from our location in Cumming.  The local news was predicting that traffic was going to be a big snarl.  There was a good deal of traffic but it was lighter than what we normally experience.  We made good time and pulled up a little before 11:00am.  As we approached the front door of the kid's house you could smell the aroma, a blend of roasted turkey and sweet potato casserole.  Chad was already there, in fact he had spent the night.  Said he wanted to stay at his sister's so he would not have to get up early to drive down, he could just sleep until time to eat.  Justin's brother, Aaron was there too.

Shauna and Justin were in the kitchen. Everything was coming along just great.

Shauna was checking on the turkey and Justin was putting the final touches on the mashed potato's. 

The rest of the day went great.  The parade was on in the background while we visited and lunch went great.  We all had at least a brief turkey coma and then we started to divide up the leftovers.  I think we each came away with a couple of days worth of meals.  There were plenty of potatoes to go around.  Justin whipped up twelve pounds of garlic mashed potatoes.

I think the mantle of the holiday feast has been successfully passed to Shauna and Justin.  They own it now, we will be coming "home" to their place from now on.

Hurricane Sandy did not directly hit the Atlanta metropolitan area but we sure have felt her presence.  Our daytime and nighttime temperatures are about 20 to 25 degrees lower than the average and the wind has been blowing steadily for almost a week without a break.

Now I know that wind for a week is nothing new to many of you.  It is a normal day in Texas, Oklahoma and along the coasts.  But around here if the wind gets above 15mph for a couple of hours they put out the red warning flags.  But for good reason, drought-weakened and diseased trees are coming down all over the place.  Atlanta is one of, if not the most heavily wooded city in the country, there is hardly a square foot that is not in jeopardy of a tree falling on it.  We have several monsters surrounding our little RV, and everybody else's RV in the park we are staying in.  Thankfully the owner of the park had a crew in just in September to prune healthy trees and remove questionable ones.  Still, when we get a good, long gust you can see heads pop out of the RVs to look and see if a tree near them has moved abnormally.  The wind should let up by tomorrow morning, barring anything happening tonight, everything is okay.

Even with temperatures hovering near the freezing mark at night we have yet to use the furnace.  So far all our heating needs have been met with just a simple little ceramic space heater.  At night we close the door between the upstairs and downstairs and set the heater to hold the temperature at about 66°.  Perfect sleeping temp.  The little heater is not overly taxed at these temperatures, it cycles on and off.  We'll see how it goes when we get into single digit temps in January.  I am keeping the propane tanks full in anticipation that the furnace will be needed.

Fall is festival time all over the country and the North Georgia area seems especially so.  There are way more festivals on any given weekend during this time than any one person can get to.  But in our 22 years in this area we have come to favor a few and found ourselves attracted to them year after year.  Normally we pick one, or if we try really hard we make it to two each season.  But now that there are no gutters to clean, lawn to mow, leaves to rake, garage to clean or the multitude of other things one has to do to keep a bricks and sticks kept up, we found ourselves with time to get to more this year.

A big one that seems to kick off the fall festival season is the Yellow Daisy Festival at Stone Mountain Park, GA.  If nothing else, it is large.  But it is more than just a big festival, it is a diverse festival.  It has attractions by corporate sponsors like you would see at a State Fair, the likes of Ford and the Texas Tourist Bureau.  Then there is the three acre pasture that doubles as a food court.  You can get everything from the ubiquitous foot long corn dog and giant turkey leg to some finer fare of local restaurants and caterers.

But the main attraction is the arts and crafts booths.  Hundreds of them.  This is what gets Cyndee going.  When she gets on the trails that make the circuits through the woods full of these booths she is 'in the zone'.

Next is the Ellijay apple festival.  This is a mountain town in North Georgia that became its county seat in 1834.  Half of the county's 427 sq miles is in the Chattahoochee National Forest and it seems the other half is covered in apple orchards.  It is a nice place to spend the day.  You can pick your own apples or get a bushel or two from one of the many apple stands that dot the country side.

The old, original center of town has preserved buildings that date back to before the civil war.  It seems that the whole of the old downtown has been converted into an antique'rs paradise.  Another place that Cyndee gets into her zone.

As Halloween approaches, our thoughts turn to pumpkins, and Burt's Farm is the place to be for virtually any kind and any size you have in mind.  This is not really a festival but it draws such large crowds it sure feels like a festival.

Burt's has a great selection of pumpkins that we have enjoyed for years to pick the 'perfect' one for carving.

This year we are living in a place that has absolutely no children so we won't be carving any pumpkins but we still liked shopping for them.

Heck of a month!  And this was not all of it.  We also celebrated my birthday by taking a trip to Cartersville and touring two museums and having a fantastic lunch in a place named 'The City Cellar'.  The shrimp and grits with andouille sausage was worth the trip all by itself.

Every October for 10 years running we have hosted a fall cookout/camp out.  There is a state park less than two hours from where our house used to be.  We would take a couple of days off on either side of the third weekend of October, reserve a campsite and bar-b-que shelter and have anywhere from 30 to 50 people come and hang out all weekend or just the cook-out day.

This year was no different except that instead of packing the camper for the last trip of the season, we were preparing our camper that is now our home, to be picked up and moved for a four day get-a-way.  I don't know if other full timers think about it this way but I think about the new level of risk.  I am about to take the roof over my head and all my possessions and hurdle them down the highway through a city that is ranked in the top ten for worst traffic in the country.  It has always been stressful driving through Atlanta, even under the best of circumstances, but this was a whole new deal.

With all the craziness of prepping the house for sale (garage sales, Craig's listing, and Goodwill trips), listing and showing the house, the ordeal of closing the sale, Cyndee's surgery, and building the new rig, I just about did not get the reservations for the campsite or shelter.  When I finally did get to it, at the behest of some of the faithful attendees, our normal weekend was not available.  Luckily I was able to get an October weekend but it was at the first of the month instead of the end.

Hard Labor Creek is a pretty State Park just outside Rutledge, Georgia, North of I-20, and East of Atlanta.  Like most campgrounds in Georgia, it is heavily wooded and follows the natural contours of the hilly terrain it is built on.  There are a few sites that are large enough to hold our rig, some are pull-through, some are back-in.  The park has been upgraded and just about all the sites now have 50 amp electricity but none have sewer connections.  With our new 100 gallon waste tanks, four days is going to be a piece of cake.  If we are careful with our water use, we can go almost two weeks with the Majestic.

So, two hours of breaking down, driving and setting up and we go from our home in the city to our cabin in the woods.

 

Not only did we have a very nice spot to park, but it also came with a very relaxing view.  It was hard to tell that there was anyone near us.  And to top it all off, we were within a short walk of the shelter where the bar-b-que was going to be.

 

Saturday came and as the usual routine, the cooking fire was lit at noon so that it could be ready for the grilled food to be put on by 4pm.  It takes several hours to get 500lbs of firewood and 50 lbs of charcoal just right.  But with ten years of practice we have it down pretty good.

 

As the years have passed our menu has evolved a little.  We have graduated from just dogs and burgers to pretty awesome ensembles of beef cuts, side dishes and desserts.  But the biggest change has been an addition of a low country boil.  A 60 quart boiling cauldron of potatoes, corn, sausage, and shrimp with time-honored seasoning courtesy of Old Bay and Zatarain adds to the fragrant aroma filling the open-air shelter.

 

Timing is nearly perfect, the low country boil and grilled food are ready at the same time and everyone fills their plates with the abundant variety of food and sits for a meal under brilliant sunshine and crisp fall air.

This year Cyndee and I felt especially blessed as family from South Carolina came over for the day.  Our Burdett cousins drove over from the Columbia area and joined us for the festivities.  We know how fortunate we are to have family that enjoys being together and we treasure the time we get to spend together.

Continuing our tradition, what cook out would be complete without roasting of marshmallows and making of s'mores?  After 7 hours of burning a huge pile of wood and charcoal, it is just right for roasting a perfect marshmallow and no one in this group lets that opportunity get past them.

 With that marshmallow roast it signals the end to another successful cookout.  The weather could not have cooperated more and the company and conversation were priceless.

But this was only Saturday night, the end of the cook out but not the weekend.  Cyndee and I had two more days to enjoy and we did.  Sunday was a day for exploring, we drove about twenty miles to another state park called Rock Eagle.  It is an ancient sight where very early people had piled rocks, some several hundred pounds in weight, into the figure of an eagle in flight.  It was a large structure flat on the ground and not readily identifiable from ground level. 

One has to get some elevation to be able to look down and see the shape all in one gaze.  But since this effigy had been built on the highest point in the entire county, nobody is sure how these ancient people viewed or used this monument.  Not to worry though, the CCC took care of that for modern day man.

Excavations by archaeologists have revealed very little, it remains a curiosity and is being preserved for future study.

We ate lunch in Madison, GA in the middle of the afternoon and then returned to Hard Labor Creek where we took in a couple of bicycle rides and refreshments while kicked back in our camp chairs under the awning.

Monday came all too soon and it was time to hitch up and return to city living.  Everything worked well.  I did have to fiddle with the leveling system a little but there was no hint of the problem I had with the brakes back in August.  We used a dump station for the first time and it took a little longer to empty the tanks in the Majestic than it did in the Kountry Star.  Because of the way I have to store the dump hose, I have to take the connectors off the hose to store it and reassemble them to use the hose.  Not as convenient as just taking the hose out and hooking up, but not a show-stopper.

The tow back to our city lot was pleasant and within minutes of parking it was as if we had never left.  Back to the corporate grind.

It has been nearly a month now of living in our new rig.  A couple of issues have come up; I noticed that one of my 40lb propane tanks was nearly empty.  That is really strange as it was typical for us to go a whole season on less than one 30lb tank in the Kountry Star.  Granted, we were cooking meals three times a day but that could not possibly explain the consumption I was seeing.  Being aware of this, I started looking for possible culprits.  The first thing was that both of us had been noticing a faint odor of propane when we opened the cabinet doors just below the range, so possibly a small leak there.  But then I saw the read-out on the refrigerator and the little dot that indicates that the fridge is running on electricity was not on.  Dang, the fridge had been operating in 80+ temperatures trying to keep a freezer cold enough to make ice.

After several days of working with the factory over the phone to try and diagnose why the fridge would not switch over to electicity we finally gave up and scheduled a technician to come out.  It was several days before they could ge to me but when they finally did, it only took them a little less than an hour to track the problem down to a fuse on the circuit board of the fridge.  The guy had to go through about three layers of electronics to get to it, but he found it.

Cyndee bought me a spray water bottle and I made a soap solution to start tracking down the suspected leak under the cook-top.  It only took three squirts and I started seeing bubbles.  A quarter-turn with a wrench and the problem was solved.  A quick trip to Ace hardware to refill the propane bottle and we were all set.

RV Ballet

While the brake problem was unsettling, it had to be put aside.  The task at hand was getting the old and new rigs positioned so that we could transfer all the contents from the Kountry Star into the Majestic with the daylight left.

I dropped the Majestic off in a school parking lot a couple of miles from the camp ground we are in and went to get the Kountry Star.  The intention was to position them side-by-side so that a couple of 2x12's could be laid across the door thresholds and make a "gangway" to carry stuff from one rig to the other without ever going up or down a step.  But the chosen school parking lot was too steeply sloped.  I would never be able to get the slides out (and back in again) with that kind of angle.  Time for plan B.

There was a chunk of land where a shopping plaza had been started.  They got the anchor grocery store in and a couple of shops on either side but the economy dipped and they left some paved roads to nowhere that looked like a good possibility for what I wanted.  I drove down one of the stubs and took a look; perfect!  Just what the doctor ordered.

I headed back to the school to get the Majestic.  I sure wish I had more practice with the automatic leveling system.  I was not quite sure of the command sequence for retracting the levelers and returning the landing gear to hitching position.  I guess I did not get it quite right as the rig proceeded to retract all the rams - the nose of the shiny new rig was headed for the ground!!  Luckily I did know how to do a panic stop of they system and caught it with just two inches to spare.  I switched the controls to manual and operated it that way for the rest of the hook-up.

A couple of miles later and I was positioning the Majestic on the stub road.  I unhooked again and went to get the Kountry Star.  Cyndee had everything on the inside in 'travel mode' and I disconnected all the services on the outside.  Another hitch up and away we went.  In less than five minutes we were inching up along side the Majestic.   Cyndee was spotting for me and expertly guiding me until the doors were aligned exactly opposite of each other.  Got out to open the doors and put the boards across but, woops, the rigs were so close to each other the doors could not be swung all the way open.  Okay, no problem, just back up ten feet, open both doors and bring it forward again.  Done.

At about 3pm on a hot, Georgia, August afternoon we start transfering the contents from one rig to the other without the benefit of any air circulation.  Other than being in a sauna, things went pretty smoothly and quicker than I thought it would.  The floor plans of the two rigs are very similar, so much of the stuff went from one location in the old rig to almost the exact same spot in the new rig.  But, layouts were not exactly the same so some piling of items on the furniture and in the floor was done and to be dealt with later, when hooked up to power (air conditioning) and with the luxury of time to think about it.

Between the two of us we probably made over a hundred trips between rigs.  Cyndee's clever idea of using laundry baskets to put all the loose contents of a drawer or cabinet in and carry them all at once instead of handfuls at a time worked great.  You could put everything from one small storage location in the basket at once and put it right back in it's new home all together.  Being able to keep things organized similarly from old rig to new has greatly reduced that feeling of disoreintation that is common when you move and you have to re-learn where all your 'stuff' is.

By now it was getting late and it was time to get both rigs to their parking spots.  There were a few little things in the basement, exterior storage compartments, and a couple of small cabinets that remained but they were not essential to living in the next few days.  They could wait until after we get settled in.  Right now we had to get the Majestic on its pad and hooked up to services and the Kountry Star to its storage spot.

The truck and Kountry Star were still lashed up so it was off to the storage location first.  Conveniently this location was a freshly graded and mulched area directly behind our camping pad.  The owner of the camp ground made me a deal that was financially attractive and I had the added benefit of being able to market my used rig by powering it up with an extension cord from my power pole.  But it was a bit of challenge to get the KS on the mulch pad.  While the spot where the rig was to be parked had been freshly graded and mulched, the area where I had to swing around and start my backing in approach was raw farm land, covered in tall grass and random stalks of volunteer corn.  It had also rained the night before so it was wet too.  It took several runs at backing up the slight incline onto the mulch pad.  The incline itself had its challenges but then when I got the wheels of the trailer on the fresh mulch pad, they sank like they were rolling onto a marshmallow.  That was more resistance to rolling than the dual rear wheels of the truck could take.  I broke traction several times, each time causing the back of the truck to slip sideways and cause the trailer to get crooked on its pad.  After several attempts I had beat down a decent enough path that I finally got the trailer close enough and called it "good".  Unhitching again and heading back to get the Majestic.

When I got there, Cyndee was sitting in the door watching a guy pilot a remote controlled helicopter.  Not one of those little ones you see in the mall at Christmas time but scaled model with a rotor span of almost three feet.  While it was pretty cool to watch, the guy had parked his vehicle right where I needed to back in so I could hitch up.  I backed up as far as I could, thinking he would get the idea and come and move his vehicle.  But as far as I could tell, he never even knew I was there.  The helicopter was pretty loud so I gave a tap of my air horns and that got his attention.  He landed the helicopter and moved his vehicle.  I hooked up and made my way to our lot where I was going to back this longer, heavier rig for the first time.

Not too bad.  I think the Majestic may be a little more responsive to changes in steering than the Kountry Star.  I got it on the pad in one move but it was not positioned side-to-side exactly where I wanted it so Cyndee worked her signaling magic to get me just where it needed to be.  Whew!

The day started with a pre-dawn departure from a truck stop, traversing South and Eastward from MO to GA for roughly seven hours, luckily averting a near brake fire, moving two rigs to a place for contents transfer, moving two rigs back to their respective parking spots, hooking/powering up, and all in time to eat a late dinner and hit the (new) sack for a much needed nights rest.  Today was quite the 'dance'.

Maiden Voyage

With training complete and the hot August sun beating down, it was time to hook up the Majestic to the Tow Beast and make the 900 miles back across the heartland from Junction City, KS to Cumming, GA.

Although I have towed longer and heavier loads when I was pulling a monstrous combine behind a grain truck through OK, TX and CO back in the mid-70's, I was still nervous about being three feet longer and more than 5,000 lbs heavier than what I was accustomed to for the last ten years.  The Tow Beast is easily rated for these loads but I will now be closer to the maximum ratings than ever before.  It is going to be interesting to see how it feels different in terms of the ride and accelerating/braking and just how big of a hit on fuel economy there is going to be.

The Majestic's ride profile is quite different from the Kountry Star.  First, of course, is the extra length.  But the biggest difference is that the Majestic is a lot lower to the ground.  With the Kountry Star I rarely had to worry about dragging the rear-end when entering or exiting steep driveways.  And getting high-centered going over raised railroad tracks was never a concern.  Not so with the Majestic, this thing is going to require me to pay attention to things like that now.  In fact, I used the skid rollers on the back of the rig within the first 500 feet of towing.  The driveway at the factory's front entrance was pretty steep and the big, steel rollers welded to the frame engaged the driveway for about two feet.

A short jog down the access road, pass in front of Ekrich Farms packing plant (they were smoking sausage on this day, smelled great) and up the ramp to I-70 East.  Accelerated to cruising speed, it was a lttle slower getting there than with the old rig.  The next several hours to Kansas City were comfortable and easy.  While this part of  I-70 traverses flat and almost featureless terrain, it does not provide much of a proving ground to assess how well the towing combination works.  But first impressions are that I am getting a smoother ride.  It is probably a combination of the extra weight and triple-axle MorRyde suspension on the trailer.

Just on the East side of Kansas City it is time to stop for a bio-break.  I found a trucker-friendly place and wheeled into one of their extra-long, pull-thru parking spots.  A guy in a Dodge dually pick-up followed me in and pulled around along-side me and rolled down the window; "Is that thing yours?" he said.

He then proceeded to ask one question after another and eventually got out of his truck and started walking around the rig and getting down and looking under it.  By the time we were done talking, I think he was going to head straight over to Junction City and talk to the New Horizons folks.

At first I thought this one guy would be a unique experience, but over the rest of this day and the next I was contacted on the CB and when stopped getting fuel I would be approached by truckers to say something about the rig.  Normally I never transmit on the CB, I just listen for alerts about road conditions.  But this trip had me being pretty talkative on the radio keeping up with the call-outs.

 

While I was stopped, talking to the first guy in the Dodge, I snapped a picture of the rig in its full travel mode.  I have since showed it around to friends, and those that are familiar with my truck have accused me of photo-shopping the picture to make my truck look small.  But this is no photo-shop job, it really does look that small when it is hooked up to the Majestic.

Click to Enlarge

Just like my trip to KS, I drove far enough into the evening for the temperature to drop so that it would be comfortable without needing an air conditioner.  I pulled into a Flying J truck stop in Kentucky and wound my way into the back where at least hundred commercial big-rigs had already pulled in for the night.  There were no marked parking spots left so I pulled in behind another late arriver, 18-wheeler and shut the motor off for the first time in more than 10 hours.

Parking was really tight, so there was no extending any of the slides.  I opened the vents and turned on a ceiling fan, fell into bed and was asleep in seconds.  What seemed like seconds later was a banging on my door.  One of the trucks parked directly across from me was getting an early (4:00am early) start and he was having trouble getting clear of his parking spot without coming in contact with my rig.  The banging startled me, I jumped up, put on my pants and threw on my shirt and went to the door to see what all the fuss was about.  But by the time I got there the trucker had manuvered his way out of his slot and was just pulling away as I stepped around the back of my trailer.

I went back in the trailer washed up, brushed my teeth, tried to comb my hair but gave up and just stuck a hat on.  I might as well get an early start too.  By 4:30am I too was pulling out on the highway and getting in some good distance before the sun, and temperature, rose.

By morning rush hour I was passing through Nashville.  Traffic was pretty easy and a couple of hours later I was approaching Chattanooga, and its mountain pass.  First it was the long climb to the summit, I was slow but not the slowest.  I passed several 18-wheeler rigs on the way to the top.  Not bad.  But now came the real test, I was about to find out whether I was going to get my money's worth out of those three axels and their disc brakes as I made the long, steep descent into Chattanooga.

Perfect!  I did not have to use one of the runaway truck ramps on the way down once.  The weight of the rig would push the speed up even with the engine brake full-on.  But just a brief stepping on the brake would pull the speed down.  This cycle would be repeated every few thousand feet and I never got to the point of seeing my knuckles turn white.  Looks like it is a good set-up.

A couple hours later I turned off of I-75 onto GA 20 and started winding my across the top of Georgia.  It is a narrow, two-lane road that undulates across southern part of the North Georgia mountains.  I manuevered through a couple of small towns until I pulled into the edge of my small town.  Wow!  Somebody has a problem, I smell brakes burning.  Was it that empty flatbed 18-wheeler in front of me?  About that time a guy pulls up along side me, rolls down the window and says; "Your brakes are smoking."  Aw, crap.

I pulled over the first place that was big enough to hold me and got out to have a look-see.  Couldn't believe it, I drove 900 miles without a hint of a problem and within two miles of home I nearly have a brake fire.  I used my IR temperature gauge and the temperature of the center, passenger side disc was almost 500°.  All the others were measuring about 230°.  Since it had been quite awhile since I dropped down to town speed I am pretty sure that these temps were considerably lower than the temperature that caused them to smoke.  I was within a mile of home so I decided to go ahead and slowly limp in.  There is an old rig to move out of and a new one to move into before the sun goes down.  I'll deal with the brakes later.

Training - Day 2

I spent my first night in the new rig after the first day of training.  Most of the evening was spent reading user manuals, a lot of user manuals.  Multi-plex lighting, two-zone thermostat for the two A/C's and two furnaces, three different models of MaxxFans (whole house fans, two manual one remote controlled), 42" HD LCD TV, Denon Home Theater System, Samsung Blue-Ray Player, multi-fuel (propane & electric) fridge, Whirlpool Velos Oven/Convection Oven/Microwave combo, Fisher & Paykel drawer dishwasher, LED lighting, 12 volt systems, 120 volt systems, and the list goes on.

So my head is spinning a little and now it is time to get my outside orientation.  Jeff started us out at the front of the rig.  In the forward compartment of the "basement" are two sub-compartments.  The lower one holds the house batteries.  These are not your ordinary car batteries.  They are however the usual classification of deep-cycle batteries found on RV's and boats.  But that is the only thing usual about these.  These babies are 6 volt, there are four of them total and paired to deliver 12 volts each from two banks of two.  And they are AGM (absorbed gas mat), there is no free-liquid.  This makes them essentially maintenance free, more rugged and more durable.

But all this is not without a price.  These batteries are HUGE, they are almost eighteen inches tall and weigh a total of 500 pounds!  I sacrificed a lot of storage space and carrying capacity for the security of being able to power virtually everything except the air conditioners for a few days before charging is needed.

But that is not it.  You have to have a way to manage the power distribution and charging of these monsters.  Much of what they power is 120 volt AC so there has to be an inverter to step those 12V's DC up to 120V AC.  Here's ours:

This (the white box) is a MagnaSine inverter rated for 3000 watts and has a built-in computer that monitors all battery activity.  There is a remote control panel in the power management cabinet inside by the front door.  There is a CAT 5 cable routed from the storage compartment to the monitor/controller.

It knows the condition of the batteries and can adjust the charge rate based on what temperature the batteries are.  You can tell the system what kind of batteries they are and it customizes how it charges and discharges the batteries so that you get the most out of them while extending their life.

To the left of the inverter you can see the two-stage whole-house water filtration system.  This filter system is for particulates and has charcoal for taste and odor.  Every drop that comes into the rig goes through these filters first then it is on to the plumbing and individual faucets.  There is a second, reverse osmosis filter that feeds a separate faucet on the kitchen sink for drinking and cooking and another line to the ice maker.  Cyndee has never met a glass of water she likes, until now.

Just around the corner from the battery compartment is the BigFoot leveling system.  In all our years of RV'ing we always had to tote around boards and blocks of various sizes to put under the wheels so that we could level the coach from side-to-side.  There are very few campgrounds in the country that have truly level parking spaces.  While it is not absolutely necessary to have your rig level, it does make things like your fridge work better if it is.  And it is nice to have doors stay where you put them and not have your eggs roll off the kitchen counter, or you roll out of bed, and the water in the sinks and shower to drain.  So there was always the routine of putting the rig in the position you wanted, reading the bubble levels, estimating how much to put under which wheel, pull forward, put the blocks down, back up onto them, and see if you got it level on the first try.  The front-to-back leveling was much easier.  You just had to raise or lower the jacks to get that direction level.  Once you had done this a few times, it didn't take very long.  Cyndee and I could get it done in less than five minutes.  But it did take two of us working in a well choreographed routine.  Now, with the automatic leveling system it is a one-person job of just pushing some buttons.

This system is yet another computer.  From a menu you pick "unhitch" and, with the remote, lower the front jacks to lift the rig off the truck's hitch.  Then you pull the truck out of the way, go to the menu choice of "auto-level" and step back.  Using sensors that are buried in the frame at the front and back of the rig the system starts dropping the rear jacks and once it feels the weight it begins to start adjusting for level.

It is pretty cool to hear and watch.  Lots of hydraulic pump sounds and seeing almost 19,000 lbs of camper being elevated and tilted to a good position.  The system has a lot of latitude to work.  The hydraulic rams have quite a bit of stroke length and can accommodate a pretty sloped parking spot.

The spot we are in now has a pretty good slope from front to rear but the BigFoot just kept lifting the back (and lowering the front) until everything was trued up.  Even if that meant lifting four of the six tires off the ground.

Our propane system is about the same as it was on our old rig, two thirty-pound tanks.  The difference with this new rig is that the tanks are mounted on a slide out rail system.  This makes it very easy to get the back tank out for refilling.  Another convenience feature we did not have before is the automatic switching regulator.  When one tank runs empty, it automatically starts drawing out of the second tank.

The utility box on this rig combines all the "ports" that were spread out all over the driver's side of the other rig.  In one nice and tidy box there are hook-ups for city water, holding tank valve handles, fresh water fill system and cable, satellite and network interface connections.

In addition to the cable and satellite connections in this utility box, there is also an over-the-air "bat-wing" antenna on the roof.  This too has evolved from a hand-crank raise/lower/point device to powered.  It does a great job of bringing in the new digital HD signals.  We did not have HD service on our TV in the stick-n-bricks.  We spend a lot of time saying "oh, wow, look at that, you can see the pores in their skin".

If you were observant, you may have noticed a little something extra attached to the mast of the antenna.  This is a WiFi antenna and it is fed through a junction box and conduit on the roof to the energy management closet inside the rig where it is attached to the WiFi Ranger (essentially a wireless router).  This antenna will pull in even weak WiFi signals from a mile or two away as long as it has line of sight to the signal.

The signal is then fed to the router which in turn is supporting both of our computers, both of our phones and ultimately any wireless, internet device we install.  This means that we should be able to pull in the traditionally weak signals from campground offices and establish a solid high-speed connection when our neighbors can't even see the signal with their built-in WiFi cards on their computers.

Around back, you can see the large window arrangement.  We really like this feature, it opens up the feel of the inside of the rig and most of the places we have been it also provides for nice views.  Right now we are overlooking what was once a Georgia farm from before the turn of the century.  Now it has gone fallow and is a mixture of volunteer hay and corn that gets mowed every three weeks or so.

In the foreground of the above picture you can see the bird feeding station (click on any picture to enlarge it and see details) that we decided not to dispose of with the rest of our possessions.  There is just too much entertainment from the cast of characters that this thing draws.  Brightly colored song birds, doles of dove, chipmunks and squirrels all come in for a bite to eat.  But it gets interesting when when the hawks start coming in to dine on the diners.  They will glide overhead and let out one of their shrill screeches and everything at the feeder starts looking for a place to hide.

Something else that we were sure to have put on this new rig was a rear hitch.  The old rig did not have one and it was a real pain dealing with the bicycles, either getting them lashed to a ladder-mounted bike rack (you needed a PhD in geometry to get it to work) or using the front bumper hitch on the truck, which put the bikes in your field of vision and virtually blocking the headlights.

This set-up is nice and tidy and it is beefy enough that we could add much heavier things, like a scooter rack.

Moving around to the entrance side, we have our "patio" which is shaded by a 16' long awning.  This awning is a big jump in technology from our previous one. 

The old one had lots of latches and bars and tensioners.  And everything had to be adjusted manually, one side at a time.  This new awning is done with no more fanfare than the flip of switch.  It is electric and is operated from inside the coach.  Deployment has gone from a 15 minute work-out (usually just when the weather, or daylight was right) to seconds of holding down a switch without regard to weather or light.

By the way, that white trailer in the lower left background is my previous rig sitting in its storage spot.  Know anybody looking for a lovingly-used, well appointed 5th wheel?

The forward storage compartment, aka basement, is pretty large.  Of course this is relatively speaking in terms of a trailer.  We have probably triple the basement space that we had in our old rig.  Our old frame had a structure similar to the transmission hump in your car, leaving just a little space on either side.  This frame is like having a front wheel drive car.  There is no hump and the floor is flat all the way across.

 

This new-found space has its plus' and minus'.  The good thing is that we have room to put a lot of things that were just not possible to carry before.  The bad news is that we have room to put a lot more things.  Between 500 lbs of batteries and probably another 500 lbs of "stuff", the weight of the rig is getting pretty high up in the front end.  You can not see it from this photograph, but the space passes all the way through to the other side where there is a single-wide access door.  We are trying to be organized with this new space and containerize everything.  I am sure that the use of this space will evolve with time.

Yet another new technology that comes on this coach are its frameless windows.  These windows completely eliminate the channels and vinyl trim that are on the traditional aluminum framed windows.  There is nowhere for water to collect and no vinyl to mildew and crack with age.  Just a clean, smooth look that should be much easier to take care of.

Whew, long post, I know.  But it was a long day of training.  If I thought my head was swimming a little on the morning of this training, it really was afterwards.

Training - Day 1

I rolled into New Horizons at 10:00am, sharp.  There were introductions to the people that would be working with me for the next few days doing the training as well as addressing the punch-list (like putting on one of the two propane tanks that they forgot, or plugging in the electrical part of the fridge so it would run without consuming propane).

Jeff was my primary contact for training.  In his very capable hands we spent the first day going through the inside of the rig.  Much was familiar, but not exact to what I knew from my 11 year-old rig.  RV technology had come a long way in the last decade.

The first thing that struck me when stepping in was that it was bright and airy.  Our Newmar rig had a color scheme that was based in a dark blue, but for the New Horizons we chose to go with earth tones on the textiles and a light colored oak for the woodwork.  Wow, was it different.  We got just the effect we were looking for.

Lots of windows, and large too, contributed to the open and airy feeling.  You can see from the photo that lots of light gets in but you can't see from the inside that these windows are heavily tinted and double-paned for low heat gain.  It was a hundred degree day when this picture was taken with the rig taking full sun and it was comfortable inside.  No doubt with some help from the two A/C's.

The couch is a residential size and takes up more width than we planned on.  We were supposed to have small tables on each end of the couch but there just is no room.  I kept one table and put it between the recliners.  The other table went back into the factory.

The galley turned out great.  With the deeper counter-top and island, we have about triple the counter space of the old rig.  The pendant lights are something new for New Horizons.  The ceiling height above the island is almost 9 feet and the lights do not hang down low enough to be a problem, for most people.  I have only bumped my head on them once.

The sink is much bigger too.  Large enough to get a 12" skillet in it all the way.  Going from our Newmar rig to the New Horizons rig we increased our length from 34' to 37'.  A little more than a foot of that new length went into the fridge.  We more than doubled our freezer and fridge capacity and got an ice maker too!

Another area where we picked up a little more space was the pantry.  The old rig had fixed shelves that were deep and sometimes hard to reach all the way back and retrieve your ingredients.  This rig has pull-out drawers, and lights that automatically come on when you open the door.  Very nice.

Check out the "shoe garage" we had them build.  The shallow coat closet at the entrance door usually extends all the way to the floor.  We had them raise the floor of the closet just enough to be able to slip a couple of pairs of shoes under the closet and keep them from being something to trip over.  Those are my size 14 cross-trainers you can see the heel of.  They almost fit completely under.  No clutter in front of the door.

In the picture above, see the large drawer, down low, on the left under the kitchen counter?  It is not your every day drawer, it is a drawer-dishwasher.  And because of the way it works, you need a remote to operate it!

Back to the living room.  The entertainment center is another place that used a good chunk of that extra three feet of rig.  The upper cabinet houses a Denon home entertainment console.  Everything; TV, radio, blue-ray player, game console (which we did not get) are piped through this console.  Between the upper and lower cabinet is a window that we had them put in.  Most of the time there is just a fixed TV mount in this area but we really wanted to maximize the number of windows and be able to gather as much light, and scenery as possible.

But to have both a window and a TV, the TV had to be mounted on a lift.  Remote controlled of course.

The surround sound system is pretty nice but the subwoofer is a little on the powerful side for an RV.  I think my neighbors have no doubts when I have a movie on.  I'm going to have to read up on how to tone down the base.

More electronics - In the cabinet above the coat closet is the energy management system.  This cabinet houses the displays for monitoring the levels of the fresh, grey and black water tanks; the control for the water heater to run on either electric or propane, or both; the charge controller; the inverter; and whole house surge protector.  And the switches for all three slide-outs. 

Up high is a Wi-Fi Ranger.  This is a signal amplifier, it picks up wi-fi signals from a campground that are weak from an antenna on top of the coach and brings them inside and rebroadcasts them at full strength.  I can now get signals from campgrounds that are normally not worth connecting to and communicate at high speeds.  The cables dangling in front of the Wi-Fi Ranger are CAT 5 cables that can be plugged into the router.  The cables are already routed to strategic parts of the coach.  One goes to the entertainment center, one to the bedroom entertainment center, one to the utility box outside and one to the pre-wired set-up for the solar system.  When, or if, I add internet enabled or computer control by wi-fi devices all I have to do is plug them in.

On to the bedroom.  If you read previous posts where we did a factory tour while they were building our coach you will remember the shots of the bedroom wardrobe/entertainment center being built.

Here it is, all finished and installed.

And with the TV "deployed".

The cabinet in the center, bottom is a cedar-lined hamper.

Directly opposite the wardrobe is the queen-size, sleep number bed.

The bedroom comes standard with a shelf above the bed but we had them build cabinets instead and put in 120V power outlets on each side of the cabinet.  We have our weather alert radio plugged in and tucked out of sight here.

There is a nice amount of space in the area around the bathroom sink and shower.  It will be easier for the both of us to get ready for the day at the same time in this rig.

And also room to work on laundry day.  Washer on bottom, dryer on top.  Both do small loads and seem to take longer than full-size models but should do fine in keeping up with the laundry for just the two of us.

The shower has a curved front with a large, clear skylight above it.  And there is an integral bench at a height that is actually useful.  We had a bench in our old rig but it was shallow and short, making it impractical to use.  This one is comfortable.

Tonight I try to use all these systems and confirm they work.  I won't be able to verify the cable TV connections as they have no connection here at the factory and I can only get one, fuzzy channel on the over-the-air antenna.  So I am off to find a Red Box and rent a movie.  Tomorrow is "outside" training and working on things on the punch list.