I got up about 4 AM and it was cold. We ran one electric heater over night. It was 50 degrees in the rig. I turned on 3 electric heaters, two up front and one in the back. I was running 28 AMPS on one leg of the two leg 50 AMP service. About a hour later I turned on the diesel burner base heat (Hydro Hot – Aqua Hot) in the front and it got warm real quick. The base heat is real good but it burns diesel. One it smells sometimes depending on the wind and two it’s expensive even compared to electricity. It sounds like a small generator too when running. How expensive? I don’t know for sure other than it’s seems like more. Going down the road the furnace runs off the same system but uses the water in the engine. It’s warm and no cost. I guess I should be going down the road in cold weather and not stopping. Sounds good to me.
Well we got the Beast back at 10:45 after it passed the water test. We left at 11 AM. The water test consisted of being in a booth and hitting a RV with a lot of high pressure water. Here at Newmar it’s a very good test. I say it’s great for major leaks but what about those little leaks? Oh well. It passed their test and they insisted that it go through it.
We got 1100 miles to go to get to Livingston. Our stops are not planned at all. I’m considering stopping in Effingham, IL at the SpeedCo and getting an oil/filter change. The Beast is at it’s 20K mile recommended oil change interval. If I don’t get it changed now then it won’t get changed until our trip out west in late December. I would change it myself. What do you put 25 quarts of used oil in while draining it and then what do you do with it afterwards. SpeedCo (www.speedco.com) will do it for $239 and that includes the 25 quarts of oil, 3 filters, lube, check the front hub levels, etc. I think that’s a pretty good price and hard to beat.
We stopped at Effingham, IL at the Fly J. Diesel was $4.06. Then we got additional 3 cents off using the Fly J card. Plus we charged it at no additional cost. On line on Fly J web site fuel was suppose to be at $3.99. We had gone 300 miles at this point with another 800 miles to Livingston. We means we now can make it there without filling up again. Fuel in Livingston is cheaper than other places along our route. We skipped a SpeedCo oil change.
We went another 100 miles (total 400) and ended up at a Cracker Barrel in Marion, IL. We were level so we put out one front side and one rear slide. We don’t fit in their RV spaces because of the Jeep. We just pull into car spaces furthest away and don’t have a problem. We have 700 miles to go tomorrow (?) and will see how it goes. This return trip is “get ur done” because of Carol’s fly out of Saturday. She has only so many days to train me to do things on my own. Hey..food in food out…..
See ya.
