2013-08-12

2013-08-12:  After lunch, I checked with the campground office to see if Norris (service writer) worked in the afternoon.  I was told that he worked until 3pm, but since we had arrived on the 11th, we should not expect him until the 13th.  I left our name and site number to let Norris know that we would not be there for the afternoon.  Marilyn and I drove to Tupelo, MS to shop at Sam’s Club and WalMart.  We were back about 5:15pm.  We still have to find a bottle of champagne for the 14th.

2013-08-13:  Morris came by this morning and reviewed our repair list.  It will be 2 1/2 weeks before we get in to a bay, so we will be staying here in the Allegro Campground.  After breakfast, I called Bay Diesel and made an appointment for Thursday to have our exhaust leak fixed.  That leak could be the cause of electrical short.  Then we went to Repair Bay #29 to see Tonya about getting the MCD shades for our windshield.  She said that because of the curve in our television cabinet Tiffin did not carry one for our rig.  The ones carried here are a straight rod across the windshield.  She indicated, and I found on the web site, that MCD makes a split set of windshield screens, so we will talk to the folks at the Tampa RV Show to see what we can do (of course we could drive to the MCD factory in McKinney Texas sometime).

That is all for now.  Type at you later.

2013-08-12

2013-08-10:  Today, I paid the car and motorhome insurance.  Then I paid for another year to be on the Sumter Oaks ERPU list.  We are number 8 on the list which will provide us an RV site for 5 years with a yearly cost of $750 plus electric.  We will also have to pay about $15,000 which will be returned at the end of the 5 year lease if we do not renew for $1, or whenever we cease wanting the long term lease.  We spent some time talking with Wanda and Wallace.  Overall, it has been a nice relaxing day

2013-08-11:  We left Raccoon Valley around 10am EST, and headed south on I-75 to Chattanooga, west on I-24, US 72, and AL 24 to Red Bay, AL.  We are parked in Tiffin Motorhome’s Allegro Campground on site No. 90.  We got the second to last full service site.  What a surprise, Steve Masterson is our next door neighbor.

2013-08-12:  This morning, Marilyn got me up at six to go walking before it gets too hot.  As we were eating breakfast one of the technicians came by to check our roof rails, the bottom of our driver’s side slide floor, and the wet bay.  Our wet bay floor was fixed a couple of years ago, and our 2006 Phaeton was made different from the 2007 and later models so we do not have a problem with the roof rails and the slide floor.

2013-08-07

Day before yesterday, in addition to writing a blog, I filled the fresh water tank, added a little water to the batteries, and checked the air in the motorhome tires.  Then yesterday, I backed up some computer files on my computer, and on Larry Jarvis’.

This morning, we said our goodbyes and left the Jarvis yard about about 10am.  First we drove to the fire hall to hitch the Jeep, and then we headed south and west.  We are stopped for the night at WalMart in Ashland, OH.  Tomorrow, we will move to Dayton, OH to have dinner with our daughter.

2013-08-05, Monday

As I wrote previously, we lost shore power electricity at the beginning of last month, but we still had a good couple of weeks parked in my sister’s driveway. Our 12 volt electric still worked, and we borrowed a 10 amp battery charger from my brother-in-law to keep the batteries up.  We also ran 75 feet of extension cord in a window so we could make coffee and toast in the morning, charge our phones and computers, and run my CPAP at night.  I was able to do some genealogy work, scanning pictures, getting pictures at local cemeteries, etc.

There were only two locations on Tiffin Motorhomes Inc.’s website to get repairs for our Phaeton in New York State.  One was in North Tonawanda a few miles from our friends, Larry & Carolyn Jarvis; and the other was near Albany, NY.  We chose the one in North Tonawanda since we could stay in Larry & Carolyn’s side yard, and were able to obtain an appointment for the 17th of July to determine what was wrong with our electricity.  Colton RV determined that there was a short that could be fixed with a new inverter.  After calling daily and being told that the inverter was not in, I stopped over on Wednesday the 24th.  Sean said that he would check with the parts department.  I overheard one service writher say that David, who I had dealt with, was no longer with the company.  After a while, Sean said that an inverter was being shipped from Red Bay, AL that afternoon.

On Monday, the 29th, I went back to Colton RV’s after lunch, and was told that the inverter had been received, and that they would put it in the next day (Tuesday) if I could bring over the motorhome at 8am.  After waiting all day on Tuesday, the technician said there was a short that he could fix by running a new wire to the GFI plug from the inverter, so we slept in a Jarvis spare room.  He did that on Wednesday, and we now had electricity on the passenger side  receptacles, but he said there was still a short, so on Thursday, he ran another wire from the inverter to the refrigerator.  This provided electricity to the receptacles on the driver’s side slide.  So we took the RV back Thursday night, after spending Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday in Colton’s waiting room.  (Total cost $200 deductible plus an additional $567).  We thought it could have been worse since their hourly rate was $125.

After dinner we found that the receptacle in the bedroom that I plug my CPAP into did not work.  Friday morning we found that the electric hot water did not work, the receptacle for heating the engine oil did not work, and one of the circuit breakers did not work (it still has a short somewhere).  Went back to Colton’s, and about 3pm we were told that the tech still had not found the short, which was probably the cause of the problem in the first place.. 

Marilyn suggested that we pack up and go to the manufacturer in Red Bay, AL.  The service writer thought that might be a good idea.  We had originally come here because our extended warranty would run out at 70,000 miles and we now have 69,700, so the inverter would not have been covered by the time we reached Alabama.

So, day after tomorrow, we will start our drive south.

July 25, 2013

The last time I wrote was on 7/14,  We said goodbye to my sister on the evening of the 14th because she had to work on the Monday, and we were leaving on Monday the 15th.  We drove to North Tonawanda, which is between Buffalo and Niagara Falls,  where we have been staying in Larry & Carolyn Jarvis’ side yard.  Our service appointment with Colton RV went fine on Wednesday the 17th, and they identified our electrical problem as a dead inverter.  The service writer said he would order a new one from Tiffin, which could be in as early as Friday or Monday.  I started calling Friday, Monday and Tuesday to be told the inverter was not in.  On Wednesday, I went to Colton’s.  The service writer was no longer with them, and Sean had the parts department check on the inverter’s status.  Sean said Tiffin had not had one in inventory, but assured me that one would be shipped that afternoon and probably be in next Monday.  We shall see.

Since we have been here at Larry & Carolyn’s, we have continued walking 3 miles most mornings.  We have shopped at Sam’s, WalMart, and various other stores.  One day we drove to Crystal Beach in Ontario, CA.  It is a beautiful beach on Lake Erie, where Larry’s son has a cottage for his family to enjoy on weekend get-a-ways from Buffalo.  Marilyn and Carolyn also shopped for some Canadian brand grocery items (President’s Choice  cookies and Salsa plus some special hand cream) that Marilyn has been wanting since our supply from last summer’s trip to Nova Scotia and PEI ran out.

2013-07-14

We have been keeping busy for the past week.  Last night and the night before we attended my 50th high school reunion activities.  It was very nice seeing my friends that I have not seen since our 40th reunion.  Even though we come to my home town, Oswego, NY, once every year, and drive and shop around town, we do not run into those friends that stayed in the area.

Other than that, I have been busy doing genealogy research.  I have been several times to the Oswego Public Library where they have the local historical society’s various cemetery lists.  They were helpful in finding a few of the graves that I have photographed.

Last weekend we went to Peck’s Cemetery in Scriba NY for the more recent Forbes’ burials and to St Peter’s Cemetery in Oswego for McDonald grave stone pictures.

Last Wednesday, we drove to Scripture Cemetery in Sandy Creek NY; then Stone Mills NY to look in the Stone Mills Cemetery; stopped in Clayton NY to get some good XXX Sharp Cheese from River Rats; and our final stop was Old Evans Mills Cemetery in Evans Mills NY.

Last Thursday we drove to North Boyslston Cemetery in Boylston NY; then Riverside Cemetery in Copenhagen, NY; followed by Osceola Village Cemetery in Osceola NY.

Friday and Saturday we tried finding some Putney’s in Riverside Cemetery in Oswego NY,  I have only found 2 so far.

This afternoon we will have a family gathering and potluck at my sister’s home in Scriba, and tomorrow we will drive to North Tonawanda so we can visit Larry and Carolyn Jarvis and get the motorhome fixed on Wednesday.

2013-07-07

We drove up to my sister’s and her husband’s home (driveway rv parking) last Sunday afternoon.  They live a mile outside of the city limits of Oswego, in the town of Scriba.  We stretched out the electric cords and plugged in to her outside 20 amp circuit.  Tuesday our shore power died.  Wednesday morning about 1:30 am, our inverter electric died.  There are two circuits on our inverter; the top one (a/c, microwave) works, but all other electrical plugs do not work.  The generator will power the air conditioners, but no other electrical outlets.  All 12 volt functions work.  I called Tiffin (manufacturer) and the tech guesses that the transfer switch or the inverter is bad.  Then I looked for Tiffin repair places in NY.  There is one in Amsterdam (150 miles east) and another in North Tonawanda (150 miles west).  Since our great friends (Jarvis) have a driveway we can park in in North Tonawanda, I obtained an appointment for July 17th.  In the meantime we are doing well with one extension cord plugged in to the refrigerator, one to a battery charger, and one to the interior of the motorhome to which we connect one at a time – CPAP, coffee, toaster, fan, plugs for charging phones and computers.  Temperatures have been up to the mid 80s, so we survive by going in to my sister’s air conditioning during the day.

I have been spending my time working on genealogy, and we have both been reading.  We will be glad when we have more electrical functions returned.

Hugs, and Type at You Later.