Well, it took Lazydays 4 hours to wash our new Baby and put two clamps on the air filter. Bottom line…we got out of there about noon. Flying J was right next door so I wanted to top off our fuel tank. I made the right turn into the Flying J and the Baby wet it’s pants. You know that big frig this Baby has. It has big doors and you can keep a lot of big things in it like a half gallon of ice tea. Yes it did…every ounce of it. We had ice tea even on the outside of the rig dripping down the side below the slide out. Hey, it’s broke in. We got the 9 gallons of fuel and spent a little time cleaning up. I hooked up the Jeep while Carol was thankful that we don’t put sugar in our tea.
Down the road several things went on and came off. We bought some transport plastic for the front end and installed it before we left. New front end paint and the open road don’t mix well. It got some wind under it due to our quick application and it was howling like a coon dog getting their first smell of a coon on opening day. It was loud. We pulled off the side of the interstate and removed it. That was resolved.
Next I learned something about the transmission and its shifting points. I was cruising at 60 MPH and noticed I was still in 5th gear vice 6th. Then I remembered driving the other new Winnebago and the salesman telling me they shift differently because of all the smog stuff. Since he was a salesman I didn’t pay much mind to what he was saying. I did notice it did shift different and others have mentioned to me. This shifts into 6th gear above 62 MH under normal accelerating. All the motorhomes (diesel) that we’ve had in the past shifted about 57 MPH. So, I pushed the MODE button to on, on the Allison shift pad. It then shifted at a little slower speed. Then I kept the button on or it would shift down cruising at 60 MPH. It’s a new learning thing just like the exhaust brake and the Jake brake difference. I have to brake earlier and harder with this than the Beast due to the difference in the braking systems. The two stage Jake brake on the Beast wins hands down. The exhaust brakes prior to 2008 worked a lot better than these new ones that work off the turbo. I won’t get into the details now.
The 360 Cummins seemed a little peppy and stepping on the accelerator pedal was very necessary if that makes sense.
We arrived at the SKP park near Bushnell called Sumter Oaks. It’s a prior mobile home park that has been converted to a RV park. Nice looking with the Spanish moss hanging down and large sites with FHU 50 AMPS. No local TV and very little sat unless you have a portable dish set up. About $22 a night with tax.
We parked across from Marilyn and Larry Forbes who greeted us right away. They’re great people! They read this so I had to say something nice about them in here….smile…
Oh back to the Baby…It leaked hydraulic fluid on the back of the Baby and on the Jeep. I was told that that a mechanic had over filled the reservoir. I removed some fluid out before we left but evidently not enough. I will wipe down the Baby and Jeep and remove some more fluid. I rather have too much than not enough at this point. Plus when I was detaching the Jeep I noticed that I hadn’t hooked up the electrical cord to the Jeep/Baby. It was still inside the Jeep. Oh well. I already tested that all out a few days ago so I know it works. Now I just have to get the cord out. Remember that I hooked up the Jeep during the mess with the ice tea. That’s how easy a mistake can be made for sure. I also don’t have to use the 12 inch hitch extension with this RV. The receiver is more out from the body than under the body. I like that because it’s less stress with this stock set up than the hitch extension.
Thursday morning it got down to 55 degrees here…yea… I can test the Baby’s heating system and did. I only tested the heat pumps (2). No problem plus the heat not only comes out the roof vents but the floor vents too at the same time. That’s a nice added touch. We like that. Tomorrow we will test the LP heat probably.
Get this…we probably won’t see 90 degree temperatures again until summer of 2015. Not next year but the year after. The 80’s will be gone by the wayside pretty soon too. Again won’t have them probably until the summer of 2015. Why???? We head back to Texas where it will be in the 80s for a while. Then heading West in late November early December we won’t see any high temps and being in AZ/CA over the winter we won’t see any high temps. Then in late April we head North towards Alaska. We won’t be coming back until September. The high temps will be gone where we will be going. Brake out the long sleeve shirts/pants and even some long john’s….that’s kinda of a yea….
Anyhow….see ya…
