I left off on my last post in March at the FMCA diesel club rally. We had a good time, met nice people, and learned more about our motorhome. All good stuff! We then went to the FMCA international convention in Tucson which also was great fun. Kevin and I were in the advance team working parking for the 1500 motorhomes that showed up. It was a busy time so I got behind posting. We were parked where the red arrow points, right behind the big music stage.
We were lucky enough to be right behind the main music stage. We just sat in our own comfortable lawn chairs and listened from our motorhome.
And then I came down with COVID, undoubtedly from the rally. Sigh. I knew it was possible, even probable, but at some point you have to trust the science that says we are protected.
In case someone reading this is one of the rare people who haven’t gotten COVID yet, I can assure you it sucks. My first symptom was a sinus cold from hell. I get these occasionally from my allergies, but this time it progressed to where I could hardly stop coughing. Took a test – negative. Then I came down with fatigue that was unprecedented. I started sleeping 14 hours a day, and Kevin had to drive the motorhome. I just wanted to get home! The day we made it home I took another test, and this one was so positive! The test line was 3 times thicker than the control line. I basically slept most of the day for about 2 weeks. Gradually the sinus disaster slowed down, and I began to feel human. Luckily Kevin, though positive, was not nearly as sick as I was. He took care of me, and my son brought us groceries during the time we were contagious. By late April I was feeling human again, almost a month after I started being sick. Oh, and I am double vaxed and boosted!
While I was recovering, we set up appointments to get some work done on the motorhome. Our big electric slide wasn’t retracting evenly, and it was making dreadful noise. We checked a bunch of places in Iowa, but I couldn’t find someone I felt comfortable with. We made appointments in the Red Bay, AL area and headed down on 30 April.
We spent the first night at a lovely Corps of Engineers site on Mark Twain Lake, Ray Behrens campground. As usual, it was lovely with big sites and mixed sun and trees. Also as usual, I forgot to take a picture! The next night we spent at Boothill RV Park in far southern Missouri near Portageville. It is in a handy location and clean. It is mostly long term residents this time of year, but there were lots of sites that will be filled up during summer with transients. And it was yet another no picture location! We made it to Red Bay on Monday just after noon and found a nice spot at the Red Bay RV Park. It is just a parking lot, but it has full hookups and is far enough out of town that it is nice and quiet.
On Tuesday, Waylon Burroughs took our old captain chairs and the new covers Tiffin had sent to replace the severely deteriorated ones we had. He brought the recovered chairs back on Wednesday. Here you can see the old and new covers.
Wednesday we had Scott Petty put in a SoftStart for our front AC. It keeps the initial power surge when the compressor turns on to be much lower. I had bought it during a Black Friday sale, and it was much easier to let Petty install it then Kevin.
Thursday we had an appointment at Precision RV to have the slide looked at. Turns out it had broken pieces! It needed a new complete set of parts on one side, and they got it at a discount from Tiffin because they buy half sets that Tiffin doesn’t use in the Service Center. Nice! While they were at it, they fixed the door awning that never has worked very reliably plus adjusted a bay door latch that was getting sticky. They also lubricated all kinds of things, showed Kevin how to do it in the future, and cleaned out the air conditioners on the roof. They also inspected all kinds of things, and everything else was good! I really, really liked these guys. They were very interested in showing us how to do our own preventative maintenance which was nice. Highly recommend!
As usual when we are in Red Bay, we spent time driving around. It was very warm – mid 80s – and very green. The wildflowers were lovely in the meadows. I apologize for the photos because I forgot my camera and had to take these pictures with my iPhone. I think you can get the idea though.
We are off tomorrow morning, much more confident in the readiness of the “house” part of the motorhome. I have a yearly maintenance appointment scheduled for the chassis in a couple of weeks. We will then be ready to go!