Back home to the barking, no view & cold

For 3 days we tried to out wait the bad weather but gave up on Thur. The consequences were a severe headwind (20-30 mph) all 370 miles on the last leg home. Top speed was 40-45 at times, twice in the 25 mph range climbing steep hills into the wind. 9 hours. And we paid for it with 6.5 mpg. At least 2/3 of the trip was into winds. Still ended up with 9.0 overall, so we could get average 10+ in moderate winds and temps. Better than to 6-7 mpg range I expected before leaving.
Linda has a better handle on where we went and did, see here blog. RV ran great, no major problems. Came back with a list of fixes needed. It was a rental and somethings were abused. All probably will be fixed before we go out on our next trip in Feb? Mildred's going in the hospital in early Dec and Linda has federal jury duty in Jan. Linda's also off the Israel and we have our yearly family reunion late Nov.
Was 84 in Brownsville yesterday, in 40's here. Was warmer in Madison and St. Paul than here too. 2' snow in Denver so I'm not bitching (much).
I enjoyed our trip. Wished there had been more to see in south Texas. The red tide prevented us from going to the sea shore. Coughing was bad, felt like a sore throat too. The roads were flat and straight. The wildlife in the preserves starts in Nov. thru April. The tourist season is the same time and RV parking is scarce. We now know where not to go. Texas is a dang big state. We drove 2140 miles never leaving to perimeter.
Looks like Florida or AZ is the winter spots. Summer is mountains or north USA.
The Venture really gets dirty in rains behind the RV. A problem needing a solution. I bought a cover but would just shred apart in the turbulence behind the RV.
Sincerely, your nomad friends (or family)
See Linda's photo album for more pics http://picasaweb.google.com/linda.french

No barking and a moving view from the picture window

Damn this is the life. Should have done this years ago. With 20 dogs around us at the house and only a view of neighbor's houses, is no life. Even though we are in one place we did not expect to stay more than one day it's better than El Paso. No traffic, I'm under even less stress than at home, I'm sleeping better, all the comforts of home including our own shower and a new soft pillow top bed. We're eating better because we're not eating out. Only twice in 2 weeks

The RV is running fine, getting 50+% more MPG than I thought before getting it. 9.5 mpg so far. RV monthly lot rents are $200 per month plus electric (<$100?).

I took the Venture and will be taking a 2nd bike on the next trips. The V10 in this puppy has 368 hp and 450 ft# torque. It does not even know it's pulling a trailer.

The cost of gas, lot rent or park fees, maintenance, license, inspections and utilities will be about the same as taxes ($3500), upkeep, & utilities on a house. No garbage & water fees, free Wi-Fi most places, no phone land line, no DSL, and no large house to heat/cool. Best of all NO POOL!

Sell the house and CD it. Interest alone could pay the gas.

Winter in the south, and summer in the north. We can visit New England, and many National parks we wanted to for years, staying days or even weeks where I haven't ridden the same roads a hundred times before.

It's time for a change. I'll miss my riding friends but we got to do this before we can't. LIKE due to the economy, age, health, global warming, Christ's return, an asteriod, a super volcano, a super nova....... did you see the bill boards in Dallas, watch out for 2012!

Oh it's big!

At 34.5 feet long, 8.5 wide, 12' high and 15,000 lbs it's almost intimidating. We sit as high as Semi-trucks, it is a house on a truck chassis. The slide out is 14' long. The Queen size bed will have to be replaced, it terrible. It was a rental so many small things need fixing, covering up or replacing.
If it wasn't a rental it would have been $37-47k. But we got it for $32k including 5 new tires, @ $325 each. It has 51,500 miles. For a truck this really not that much, but like cars are hard to sell if over 100k miles, when we do want to sell it. It's a 2005 Ford Fleetwood Fiesta 32S (32' on inside?)
It has much storage space. Enough to live in. We took all of the STUFF out of the 88 Dodge RV and put it in the new to us RV and have many empty compartments.
Now the bad. With a Ford 6.8 liter V10, even with Overdrive and Fuel Injection will only get 6-8 mpg. Has a 75 gallon gas tank. At $3/gal and a 60 gallon fill up = $180 for 400 miles.
It takes up the entire front yard from drive way to the north end of the lot.
The other bad, Camping World. Disclosed it was a rental when I called about picking it up, bad start. Went to pick it up, promised gas and LP, not done, no inspection sticker, no instruction manuals, no clock, wrong chassis battery, asked them not to clean it and they did. Drove it home everything seemed OK they did not have anything to do with.
The other good. We will be seeing family more and be out of the house more where I can ride the Venture in newer places. I'm really bored riding anywhere near El Paso. Sorry friends your leader is leaving you. You should have showed up more on Sat's.
Don't be surprised to see Linda's mother also on our wonderings.
When do you want to see us? You Yankees will have to wait for spring. 1st trip is to Garland and South Padre Island.

Too many options

We're thinking of upgrading our 16.5' Conversion Van RV Class B to something bigger. The fold down couch/bed is barely big enough for Linda and I to sleep on. It's like 30" wide, slightly wider than a twin bed. See Pic. Every time we want to roll over at night we have to wake up to do it. To get to the toilet we have to scoot to the bottom of the bed, turn around and lean backwards onto the toilet, up one step. A full size (double) bed would be like luxury.
The kitchen sink is in the corner hard to reach. The stove is out where it can be used but we don't use it, we don't fry foods, it's bad for you. We do have a microwave and toaster oven to cook in.
I like our present RV size and it get's good gas mileage even pulling the trailer and motorcycle. Easy to park anywhere, even at home. We only have room for a 24 footer at the house.
Most Class A's are 30' and up. They get 6-10 mpg compared to our 15-17 now. There are a 100's for sale in Dallas, Albq. , Tucson and Phoenix. Very few in El Paso, of course.
We started out looking at diesels but most are $40-50k. Gas engines are much less $10-30K. You can buy a lot of gas for $10,000. ~4000 gallons! or 30+k miles additional. Most RV's for sale have about 50k miles on them. So the drive train still has lots of life left.
Then if we ever wanted to live in it we need a washer/dryer combo. Most do not have one, most are not wired/plumbed (prep'ed). But I can do that. For $1200!
Then our health insurance is only good in El Paso. Linda's elderly mother is another problem.
But we want to get out of El Paso and do something else, other than just sit here on our lazyboys.... And then there's selling to house and doing something with all this "STUFF".
Nothing has jumped out at us to buy, YET!

HD's are not for me.

A new friend brought his Harley 2002 Road King (850# touring bike) over to my house to service it. I can't find the oil filter, but the owners manual says there is one SOMEWHERE!??
This has a 2nd generation older style engine. But it looks like it was designed in 1902, not late 1990's. It is way low to the ground but the owner is height challenged and needs it lowered 1-2" more. The handlebars are way out to the sides, great for leverage, but I road a 50's Harley and they were the same, don't they ever update? Not a lick of oil was ever put on any lever, rod or pivot. So everything squeaked. But the pipes are so loud you'd never hear that.
The saddle bags cover pivots weird but they don't fall off, surprising for an American made product. I had to get my American (English) tools out. Back to the crappy inch system. Harley's are still not using metric, which is way easier to use because everything is a whole number, in mm's.
It's a beautiful black bike, but shows every speck of dirt. They use 3 hidden screws for every 1 the Japs use. The Japs use the KISS system. Keep It Simple S........
I like the Harley's belt drive but 4 of 5 of my bikes have a drive shaft which is even better. Never needs replacing, belts should be replaced every 30-50k miles. I'm sure from Harley it is over $100 plus installation of $2-300.
It uses 20w-50 wt oil. Ancient heavy oil, which went out on Jap bikes back in the 80's. Not very energy conserving. Some oils now are 0w-20 wts., very thin. Harley's still leak oil, and the oil is so black when changed at 2000 miles looks like 10,000 on Jap bikes!
To say the least I'm NOT impressed. They are super expensive new ($15-35k), do hold up their value well (Why, I'll never figure out), are an American Icon, sell at least 50% of bikes sold in the US. They still do not have a good reliability reputation. In my opinion are 1900's butt ugly.
Oh Ya. It vibrates so bad they have to put in special rubber dampners in it so your hands and feet don't hurt or go to sleep in just a few miles.
Now that bike in the picture, is cheap ($5500 new, $2000 now), is reliable (will go 150k miles) with minimal work, fast (12 sec. qtr. mile, 145 mph), smooth (almost no vibration), was stylish in the early 1990's and still gets good comments, weighs 200 lbs less and gets 40-55 mpg (friend's HD gets only 38). The Suzuki has the same load capacity as a HD, has 100 hp vs 60 in a HD (so it walks away from HD's up hill) , handles as good or better on the twisties. Why have a Harley??? I have 5 bikes for the price of 1 Harley......

Part 2 "Would you out up with this?"

Found my old financial advisor who now works at Wells Fargo. Met with him 2 1/2 weeks ago after a 1 1/2 week delay setting up a meeting. Finally got tired of his delays and called Wachovia. Left a message with Mildred's consultant. He doesn't call back. Called Wachovia about 3:45 pm Friday and set up appointment with a different consultant for Tuesday 10 am.
At 4:10 pm on Friday, (who calls that late?), Mildred's guy calls, I told him forget it, too late. At 4:20 the first guy finally calls after 2 1/2 weeks says, he set up an appointment, guess what time on Tuesday, I tell him forget it, too late.
I called my present financial company I'm trying to drop. I talked to a young girl, with 0 (ZERO) knowledge, asking for a new advisor in Denver in our time zone. She calls the advisor that just ticked me off, the guy that did not call me for 2 1/2 weeks. She says, he will get me someone in Denver, which I asked for in the first place. I asked when I might get a call back, she doesn't know. I say to her "your company is on their way out".
Part 3 soon, in just 2 1/2 weeks.......... In the mean time we are losing money not invested.
Pic has nothing to do with this topic except it's retired like me. SR-71 Blackbird. Fastest plane ever.

I'm good

I can fix 90% of most broken things. My philosophy is: "If it is broken and you fix it, your ahead. If it is broken and you can't fix it, no loss" I've saved at least $100,000 doing things myself. That indirectly goes into the bank, not in someone else's pocket.
I don't feel sorry, if you don't even try. "But what if I make it worse?" I've heard so many, too many times. It's broke, what you got to lose?
You know how many things there are in this house, broken? ZERO. If I can't fix it it goes in the garbage. Threw out a 25+ year timer today. I tried.
That goes for replacing it. If it is necessary, I buy another, but I hate retail prices. Ebay has saved me $2-4000. 182 items bought so far. And you have to know pricing. The cruise control on the RV keeps accelerating, not safe. I tried 3 times to fix it. It's gone now. So onto Ebay. Found another used one for $3 MORE than a new one. BS.
So what did I do? I put in a manual one that holds the throttle steady. $10. AND it saves gas because a normal "hold the same speed" cruise control wastes gas in hilly country. Where do we live? Not out on the Permian Basin or the flat lands of the Midwest.
Today a friend came by. His EGR, A/C was not working, plus his wife was getting headaches. He described the problem. We hooked up a diagnostic tester I had ($100) and a vacuum gauge. The code readout said the EGR was not getting sufficient vacuum. The vacuum gauge confirmed it. Traced it down to a a melted vacuum line running against the hot exhaust. In 1/2 hr. it was fixed. Friend was amazed I did it so fast. He's suppose to buy us lunch next week. I'll remind him.
HONEY DO's, what are those? Rarely does Linda ask me to fix something. Oh, today he brought me a heart shaped "do-ma-thingy". It had a broken leg.
Get out there and fix something now!!!
But sometimes I get tired of hearing "Chuck, would you please (you finish the sentence)".
Pic: Oh! ya! She does not need any fixing...........................................!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!