Bella Terra or bust!

"Swan Lake" at Savannah KOA

Wow! We finally made it to Bella Terra.  We were chased down the coast by a fierce winter storm and experienced rare snow flurries in Savannah and Tallahassee!  But now we are here and although it's raining today, it is also in the 60's.  It feels great!   As the "driver" said, our trip here was pretty uneventful, which is what we were hoping for!  Thanks to the Webbs, we had a bit of Christmas in Rocky Mount just before they got a foot of snow...very rare...glad we missed it!  As an inexperienced "co-pilot" I reserved spots for us in KOA's  (Kampgrounds of America) in Rocky Mount, Myrtle Beach, Savannah and Tallahassee.  They were all pretty nice, but we especially liked our overnight in Savannah where we were invited to share a campfire with some really nice folks and learned alot about full-timing it.  It was very cold, but we enjoyed the lake with it's assorted waterfowl.  Our dogs were not impressed with the big birds...Poco Horn would have had a field day!  

Now, after almost two weeks in our Gus Bus,we have used everything but air conditioning...and it all works.  What is really wonderful was to use our heat pumps last night after relying on those noisy, propane-devouring furnaces.  But, we have been  cozy even in subfreezing weather!  Still feels like we're on vacation...some full-timers have told us that we will always feel this way...

heading out to Gulf Shores, Alabama

For the most part our trip down to Gulf Shores was uneventful, which is a good thing.  We stopped in Rocky Mount, North Carolina to visit with the Webb family.  We made some cookies, did some xmas shopping, and we visited the Gus-Bus.

Niece and grand nephews - Elise, David, Josh (Kathy in background)

shakedown cruise

Thanksgiving weekend was a little on the cold side at Morris Meadows campground in Freeland Maryland.  We were told a number of times by the staff at the campground that they throw people out if they find that you have aggressive dogs.  We were a little worried about Gus, but he was very well behaved and we just made an effort to divert our direction when walking him if we saw other people or dogs heading our way.  Both Vada and Gus adjusted to the RV lifestyle almost immediately and seemed very comfortable. There was an open field where I played ball with Gus to have an outlet for his energy. The field was easily seen by dozens of RVs, so we hoped that no one would turn us in to the RV police. We were lucky. I did have the electric on him just in case, but I never had to use it. We put Gus's bedroom crate in the bunk bed area, and he transitioned fine with the new surroundings. The problem will be when we install the desk. His crate will not fit under the desk, so Kathy bought a gate that we will install across the bunk bed area, and hopefully that will be an acceptable alternative.

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving feast at the Horn residence, and the Eyegabroads (Jenny, Tim and the boys Peter and Mathew) came down from New York, and Amanda came in from school. Jim and Alison and family unfortunately couldn't make it, and we missed not being able to have them there to enjoy the festivities. Peter and Mathew were so much fun. Peter has grown so much since we last saw him, and it was the first time we had seem Mathew. What great kids! (must be because of great parents).

Our shakedown cruise was a success!  We have included these pictures from the visit to our new RV home.

maiden voyage preparation

in the driveway

We needed a shakedown cruise before going away for multiple months, so we set off on a trip to Morris Meadows RV campground in Freeland Maryland so we could spend the Thanksgiving holiday with Kathy's family. Our plan was to leave Tuesday November 23rd. So the Friday before that we took the coach out for a spin.  Over to the New Jersey Inspection station first, as we were told we had 14 days from registration to get the inspection sticker. When we got there, the inspection agent looked at the coach and asked if it was diesel.  I said yes, and he replied that "oh, we don't do anything with diesel; we don't even place a sticker on the windshield".  I asked not expecting a reply "Shouldn't someone have told us this so we didn't have to make the trip?".  As expected, no reply.  Then on to get the coach fueled up, and back up the driveway.

This was Kathy's first time directing, so we had a few kinks to work out going around the island in the driveway, but finally got it back in position on the outside of the driveway.   I pushed the button to put the jacks down and when the jacks hit the ground, a giant mass of hydraulic fluid spills out all over the driveway. Now with no hydraulic fluid the jacks would not completely go back up (or so I thought - more on that later), and the passenger side slides would not open since they are hydraulic controlled. We could still open the driver side slides as they are electric, and they are the bigger slides anyway. Kathy stored the dining room chairs in the bedroom so Vada would have room under that table, but we found out that if you can't get the passenger side bedroom slide open, that the chairs would not fit through the hallway.  Into the bedroom closet they went for now. So now we started the frantic calls, and trying to figure out what coverage we had with what plans to try to get someone out to get the jacks up, so I could drive it to the dealer to get fixed. It turned out that Tiffin gave us one year free of roadside service, but we couldn't get anyone out for the weekend.  In the meantime Kathy found the HWH hydraulic manual that explained how to release the jack pressure from the manifold.  It took us a while, but eventually found the manifold and backed out the nuts to release the pressure.  The jacks now appeared to be up (no shiny metal showing), but now I'm not convinced that they weren't up the whole time anyway.  I then took the coach Sunday night over to the dealer and stayed overnight so I could be there bright and early Monday morning for them to look at the problem. They discovered that a hydraulic line had melted because it was too close to the catalytic converter. They ordered the last one that Tiffin had in stock, and had it over-nighted since we needed to leave on Tuesday. Tiffin said that I would have to pay for the overnight service, but haven't received a bill yet, and I plan to talk to Bob Tiffin about it and see if he will waive that fee.  I decided not to stay overnight Monday, but head home, so we could finish loading the coach since we planned on being at Morris Meadows late Tuesday afternoon.

We finally got going (later than we planned) and headed first for Stoltzfus so they could install the hydraulic line, and then on to our destination.  It took them a couple of hours to finish everything up, and was getting late, but we were anxious to get to the campground, so we headed out with our hydraulics now intact, and got to Morris Meadows around 8:30 PM.  We had to stay in an overnight spot since the office closes at 5, and wait until the next morning to get our assigned space.
Here are some pictures of the coach:


the cockpit







  



kitchen






 



bedroom













first stop ... home

After signing the papers and making the purchase official on Friday October 29th, we decided that the traffic was too scary around West Chester, PA at rush hour, plus we wanted to try and get her up the driveway for the first time in daylight with friends and neighbors to help.  So we decided to leave her there and come back on Sunday for a more leisurely trip home.  It is a long drive from Bloomsbury New Jersey but we finally got there, bought some lunch at the local super market, and ate our lunch in our new coach. At the last minute, I decided to hook the Durango up to the coach.  Why shouldn't Kathy enjoy the first drive in the coach along with me?  I took the video of the instructions with us, just in case we forgot something.  It was really pretty easy to hook up, and then we were on our way home!

The trip home was mostly uneventful.  With having to keep track of 39 feet behind me, plus however much longer the Durango is, kept me in the right hand lane for most of the trip.  So when this woman on her cell phone was trying to merge into my lane while I was in it, I leaned on the hadley horns (glad we got that option) until she looked up in surprise to see that I wasn't going to move out of her way.  The trip through the toll boths was not a big deal but it was quite a tight fit.  We were almost home travelling on I78 when I turned to Kathy and asked if the U-Haul in front of us who had stuff that looked like it was ready to fall out, looked suddenly worse than it did a few minutes ago.  I immediately slowed down, and a good thing too.  Sheets of what looked like metal started sliding out and flipping up all over the Interstate.  By this point I had pulled off the road, as we watched people slam on their brakes and swerving around these obstacles.  No accidents, and no one hurt, so it all ended well.  We finally pulled back into traffic after it eased up, and finished the drive home.

When we arrived, my friend Tom, and a couple of neighbors stopped by to help direct me up the driveway, and get the beast turned around and placed on the outside part of the island.  The coach faired pretty well, and I only made one error where I got the back tires in dirt and caused a bit of a rut.  I filled it in later, so no worse for wear.

I am so glad we can park in our driveway.  It makes it so much easier figuring out what to store in it, try things out before going on our first trip without having to travel a few miles down the road to an RV campground.  Plus I was able to spend an hour here and there until I finally removed all the pieces of the bunk beds.  It is now ready for the new office furniture.  We ordered a desk and accessories from Versa and hope that it comes before we leave for Bella Terra in Gulf Shores, Alabama for the winter.  Kathy made reservations for us from the end of December until the end of February.

dining and entertainment

In the beginning

After Kathy spent months researching what our new home on wheels would be, we finally settled on what we think will be the perfect coach for us.  This story begins on September 4th, 2010 when we took the trip to Stoltzfus RV to make the deal to purchase our Tiffin Allegro RED QBA38.  We liked the RED because of the layout.  Most important to me since I am still working, is that I need a place to work where I can make work phone calls and not disturb others.  The QBA38 had an area for bunk beds, so the plan was to remove the bunk beds, and turn that area into my office.  There are doors that can be closed to seperate that area from the rest of the coach so it was the perfect choice for that.  Also since it was a Rear Engine Diesel, and on a raised rail chassis, the basement storage area was huge.  If we are going to be on the road for months at a time, having a decent storage area was important.

We went to the Hershey RV show the week of September 12th, 2010 to look at the new 2011 models, go to a lot of the seminars and buy some of the extras we would need for the show prices.  At the Hershey RV show we met the Parts manager from Stoltzfus and ordered the Blue OX Adventa LX towing system. While we were at the show we also ordered the Weingard Trav'ler HD Satellite system for DirecTV.

our first glimpse

  On October 10th, we made the trip to Red Bay Alabama to see our new coach on the assembly line.  They let you see three days of your coach on the line where it comes in as a chassis and engine, and leaves for the paint shop almost fully built.  We missed the first two days because of the Schutzhund trial for Gus's BH (we passed, yay!!).  So we were there for the third day on Monday, and stayed on Tuesday to get the full tour of the plant and see what we missed with our coach by not being there the first two days. It was very exciting, and a lot of fun.  They let you walk around, getting in the way, asking questions, and not a soul even hinted that we were doing anything wrong or getting in the way.  In fact they continually asked us if everything was ok, and was there any questions or concerns that we had that they could take care of.  Getting there was another story. We left Newark airport and headed for our connecting flight in Charlotte North Carolina.  When we got there we were told that our flight to Huntsville Alabama was cancelled, and that we would have to fly to Reagan National airport to get another flight to Huntsville. Then, that flight was delayed for three hours.  We finally got in to Huntsville and picked up our rental to head for Red Bay.  We arrived finally at the bed and breakfast we reserved and crashed from exhaustion, and to get up bright and early the next morning to see our new coach on the line.



waiting for under coating



We took video of our time there so that we could refer back later to verify what we heard and saw.  Here is a picture of the new coach coming off the line so that it could go to the bay were they do the under coating.  At this point it was close to being done on the line. It would go back for a few hours the next day before going off to the paint shop a few miles down the road.  We could have stayed for that, but you know the quote about watching paint dry and all that.

On October 22nd, 2010 Kathy and I made the trip to Stoltzfus RV to pick up the Durango after getting its modifications so it can be towed.   We also had them add the braking system.  We got the SRI Air Force I which is a unit installed into the engine compartment and ties into the car's hydraulic braking system. I liked it because there was nothing to disassemble each time you want to drive the toad.  Just disconnect the hitch and go. It also is keyed to trigger the brakes proportially by signals from the air brakes on the coach, not on sudden deceleration. While I was settling the bill in Service, our salesman Frank asked Kathy to accompany him outside, and that he wanted to show her something.  It just so happened that our new coach just came in from Red Bay Alabama that day, and that Frank didn't get the time yet to call us at home to tell us.  He was surprised that we were there that day coincidentally.  This is the first time we saw her painted and got the chance to actually walk through her before we took ownership.  The following week on October 29th we came back to finalize the paperwork and bring the new coach home.