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