Living Our Dream

Heading South

Franklin, KY - Events of Wednesday, October 12 to Sunday, October 16, 2016

We pulled out of Scenic Hills last Wednesday morning and headed south toward Lower Alabama. We were originally going to skip our usual stop in Lower Alabama this fall and take a more easterly route through Charlotte and then follow I-95 along the coast into Florida. However, with Hurricane Matthew heading up the coast the week before we were scheduled to leave Ohio, we decided to go back to Lower Alabama after all to avoid the areas along the East Coast and any possible aftereffects of the hurricane.

Our first overnight stop was at Cedarbrook Campground in Lebanon, Ohio, which was about a three-hour drive. Cedarbrook has a little over 100 campsites, about a quarter of which are pull-throughs with the rest back-ins. Most sites have full hookups with either 20/30/50-amp electric or 20/30-amp electric, but some are water and 20/30-amp electric only.

The roads and pads at Cedarbrook are somewhat dusty gravel. Site spacing is a little close, but not too bad for a private campground. There is grass between most of the sites. There is free cable, and Wi-fi is available for a fee. The campground is pretty far from the interstate, so there is little traffic noise.

We got a pull-through site with full hookups and 20/30/50-amp electric. Our cost for one night was $51, which we thought was steep considering the sparse gravel, relatively narrow sites and the fact the Wi-fi isn't free. However, there isn't a lot of choice for campgrounds with pull-throughs at that approximate distance from Berlin. We used to stay at the RV facilities at the FMCA headquarters on the eastern side of Cincinnati, but that's not an option since we no longer have a motor home.

Our site at Cedarbrook

View of our row from the rear

On Thursday morning, we had another drive of about three hours to Grandma's RV Camping in Shepherdsville, Kentucky. We've stayed there a couple of times before. Grandma's has about half back-ins and half pull-throughs. Although they are a decent length, the sites (especially the pull-throughs) are quite close together. The roads are paved, as are the small patios. The sites themselves are all gravel (the gravel is relatively clean and plentiful) with no grass. There are full hookups with 20/30/50-amp electric and free Wi-Fi that was fairly fast. Grandma's is conveniently located right off I-65, and that means there is quite a bit of traffic noise. Our cost at Grandma's was $32 for the night.

Our site at Grandma's

View up the road from our site

We pulled out of Grandma's on Friday morning with a scheduled drive of almost four hours to our next stop in Cornersville, Tennessee, where we planned to layover for the weekend. When we pulled off at a Flying J just north of the Kentucky-Tennessee border to fuel up, Paul felt the trailer dragging as we were making our turn to approach the pumps. When he looked in the mirror to see if we had hit something, he saw the rear trailer tire on the driver's side sitting at an angle. Uh-oh!

We couldn't stop where we were because we were blocking the entrance/exit to 2/3 of the pumps, so we proceeded very slowly past the pumps to a parking area off to the side. Paul used the trailer's hydraulic levelers to lift the rear of the trailer to take the weight off the wheel so he could assess the situation.

Trailer wheel sitting at an angle

After removing the hub cap, we found the outer hub cover and the castle nut had both unscrewed and were stuck in a wad of grease inside the hubcap. The outer bearing had disintegrated.

Outer bearing disintegrated

Paul remembered reading in several of the RV forums in which he participates that people are having problems with bearings these days because the suppliers of the axles and hubs are using cheap, Chinese-made bearings. However, we didn't think we would have this bad a problem this soon. Paul was planning to clean, inspect and re-pack the bearings when we got to Florida this winter, and he would have replaced them all with US-made bearings if he found any problem at all. Obviously, he should have looked at the bearings over the summer.

We have CoachNet roadside assistance. When we called them, they said they would have a tech call us back to get more info. After waiting almost an hour for a callback, we discovered the tech had already called much earlier, but we had somehow missed the call. After calling CoachNet again, we had to wait almost another hour for a second call from a tech. They said they would send out a mobile RV repair service who would either make the repair or help us limp to a nearby campground or repair facility.

It took the mobile repair service about 45 minutes to show up. The mechanic said we needed a new hub assembly complete with bearings and a new grease seal. Since we have disc brakes, which are much less common than standard drum brakes, parts are harder to find. The mechanic had no luck finding parts locally late on a Friday afternoon so he had no choice but to chain up our axle so it wouldn't drag and secure our dangling brake caliper to allow us to limp to a campground while he continued to look for parts. When he had the parts, he would come to the campground to complete the repair.

Axle chained up with brake caliper zip-tied to the top

Dad's Bluegrass Campground is located one exit (about 4 miles) north of the Flying J, and they had sites available. The mechanic followed us to make sure we made it safely. We checked in and got settled.

The campground sat abandoned for three years, and new owners just re-opened it four months ago. The website says they are a work in progress, and they are making repairs and improvements every day to bring the campground back. All in all, the campground has good bones. The site spacing isn't too bad for a private campground, the 50-amp electric was strong and reliable, and there was good water pressure. The owner is super-friendly very hard-working.

In addition to RV sites, Dad's has a few tent sites and a few cabins. Almost all The RV sites are all pull-throughs, and they have full hookups with either 20/30-amp electric or 20/30/50-amp electric. The roads and pads are somewhat dusty gravel, and there is grass between the sites. 

Our site at Dad's Bluegrass CG

View looking up the road behind our site

The campground is close to the interstate so there is some traffic noise, but it wasn't as bad as Grandma's. Being close to the interstate was a good thing in this case because, not only was it easy to limp there with the 5th wheel, but close proximity to the interstate meant a good Verizon signal, which was necessary because the campground has no Wi-fi. Our cost at Dad's was $35 a night with a 10% Good Sam discount.

About the only drawback to Dad's is there are a good many long-term residents, and some of their sites are somewhat cluttered. However, the owner says the long-termers are keeping him afloat financially so we can't blame him for being happy they are there.

We got a call from the RV mechanic late Friday evening. He located the parts, but they had to be ordered, and it was too late for them to be shipped until Monday. We told him we would pay extra to have them shipped overnight for a.m. delivery Tuesday.

We are thankful God was watching over us through this ordeal. The incident happened while we were at a gas station instead of on the interstate. Who knows what might have happened if the wheel had come off while we were traveling at 65mph! And we're also thankful we found a decent campground close by instead of having limp the 5th wheel a long distance or having to wait out the weekend in the parking lot of an RV repair facility.

Except for the two-hour delay in waiting for a call back from a tech, which was partly our fault since we missed the first call, we are very happy with CoachNet. They pay for the initial service call, but the RV owner is responsible for any work that is done after the service truck arrives. CoachNet will also pay for towing to the nearest qualified service facility if required. However, the biggest service they provide in our opinion is finding someone, anyone, nearby who can do the repair.

We did our cleaning chores on Saturday morning then tried to relax the rest of the day. The campground has live bluegrass music on Saturday evenings, but we we were still too frazzled from the episode on Friday to go up to the pavilion to check it out. We relaxed some more on Sunday.

On Monday, we decided we might as well make the best of a bad situation and do a little sightseeing. We'll tell you all about it in our next post.

Summerdale, AL to Berlin, OH

Berlin, OH - Events of Monday, April 27 to Friday, May 1, 2015

We got up on Monday morning, packed up the 5th wheel, pulled out of Rainbow Plantation and began a journey north toward Berlin, OH. We like Berlin, not only because it is located in the heart of Ohio's Amish country, but also because it is located about two hours west of where Lora, J. Michael and Lydia live near Pittsburgh. We are heading north a little earlier than we normally do because we have several family activities scheduled with Lora, J. Michael and Lydia in May.

We broke the journey to Ohio down into 4 legs with drives of a little over 4 hours per leg. Our first overnight stop was at Birmingham South RV Park in Pelham, AL. Birmingham South has gravel roads, and the sites have gravel pads. There are 40 or 50 full-hookup sites, some with 30-amp electric and some with 30/50 amps. The site spacing is fairly generous for a private campground. We got a pull-through that was relatively level; and, although many of the pull-throughs are a little short, we also got one that was long enough that we could leave the 5th wheel hitched up.

Our site at Birmingham South RV Park

Our site also had a good view of the southern sky for our satellite dish, but most of the sites have at least some trees.

Sites with some shade

There were also some heavily shaded sites, but most of those looked to be occupied by seasonals.

Seasonals on the heavily shaded sites

Birmingham South has free Wi-fi that was fairly fast in the morning, but which bogged down a bit in the late afternoon. Fortunately, there is a good Verizon 4G signal so we could use that when the Wi-fi slowed down. There was some traffic noise from the 4-lane highway that is close to the campground. The traffic on that road diminishes at night so you can then hear the somewhat more-distant whine of the interstate. All in all, however, we didn't find the traffic noise to be that bad. The cost for our 50-amp pull-through site was around $37 plus tax.

On Tuesday morning, we headed out on the next leg of our journey with another drive of a little over 4 hours to Cages Bend Corps of Engineers Campground in Gallatin, TN, located northeast of Nashville. The campground is situated on the shores of Old Hickory Lake, which is a dammed up section of the Cumberland River.

As with most Corps of Engineers campgrounds, the sites are widely spaced. Most of the sites are all gravel, but there are a few that are paved. The roads are paved, but they are very narrow with steep drop-offs on one or both sides in some places. There are also a fair number of trees. Fortunately, our satellite dish was just able to clear the trees behind our site to lock onto a signal; but if the trees grow much, we would need to find a different site or use our tripod if we return in the future.

Our site at Cage's bend

View down the hill from our site toward the lake

All sites have 30/50-amp electric and water only. Obviously, there is no Wi-fi, but there is a good Verizon 4G signal in the area. However, the signal faded to 3G at times, and that may be more frequent on the sites that are down over the hill near the lake. The cost was $10 per night (half price) with our America the Beautiful Pass.

We scheduled two nights at Cage's Bend because we don't like to travel more than two days in a row if we don't have to. We didn't plan to go anywhere, so we didn't even unhitch. We just chilled out around the campground to take a break from traveling. It was the middle of the week so it was nice and quiet.

We did take a walk around the campground to check out some of the other sites in case we ever want to come back. There are some nice lakefront sites, but unfortunately, we only saw one where we thought we could get satellite reception.

One of the lakefront sites

On Thursday morning, we hit the road again to our next overnight stop at Big Bone Lick State Park in the northernmost tip of Kentucky a little south of Cincinnati. We got an earlier start since we would be losing an hour going from Central to Eastern Time. Big Bone Lick State Park has about 30 sites with electric (30 amp) and water hookups only. The water hookups are shared and are located between sites, so some of the hose bibs are pretty far away. Fortunately, we carry 75 feet of drinking water hose, and we needed all of it.

Our site at Big Bone Lick SP

View of a few other sites down over the hill from our site

The roads and pads are paved. The sites are all back-ins and are widely spaced, and most of them are short. Fortunately, we managed to find one that was not only long enough for us to leave the rig hitched up, but it was also one where we could get good satellite reception. Unfortunately, our site was sloped to one side so we had two wheels in the air to get close to level. The cost for our site at Big Bone Lick state Park was around $28.

Big Bone Lick State Park gets the "Big Bone" part of its name from the fossils of mammoths and other large animals that were found there. It is believed the animals were attracted to the area by a salt lick deposited around a spring, which is where the "Lick" part of the name comes from. The state park also has a visitor center/museum featuring fossils and displays about some of the animals whose fossils were found there.

After a one night stop at Big Bone Lick, we headed out on the final leg of our journey to Berlin, OH. This leg was almost 5 hours by the time we added a potty break and a stop for fuel. We pulled into Scenic Hills RV Park close to 2 p.m.

Scenic Hills has around 140 full hookup sites, about half of which have 30-amp electric and half of which have 30/50-amp electric. The roads are semi-paved (tar and chips). The sites are on three levels. On the middle level where the office is located, the sites are all gravel. The sites on the other two levels have gravel pads with grass between the sites. About two-thirds of the sites are pull-throughs. We got a back-in site in the back row of the upper level.

Our site at Scenic Hills

The campground has free Wi-fi, but it tends to be slow to very slow. There is a good Verizon 4G signal where our site is located, but our past experience has been the Verizon signal is very poor on the northern end of the lower level because that area is behind a hill.

The nightly rate at Scenic Hills is $35 with various discounts for stays of three nights or longer. We got the monthly rate of $595, which works out to less than $20 a night.

As we said, we headed north a little earlier than we usually do, and the weather was a little cool on the way up and when we first arrived in Ohio. The campground was indicative of how early it was because it was almost empty as you can see from the photo below showing some of our neighboring sites.

Neighboring sites are mostly empty

Although it was cool when we first arrived, the weather forecast was predicting a warming trend. Not only that, but this is a good time to be in Amish country because the farmers are plowing; the trees are getting new, bright-green leaves; the redbuds and some of the fruit trees are starting to flower; and the tulips and daffodils are blooming. We'll definitely be enjoying the scenery over the next month. Stay tuned.

Crossville, TN to Berlin, OH

Berlin, OH - Events of Tuesday, July 1 to Thursday, July 3, 2014

We pulled out of Spring Lake RV Tuesday morning and headed for an overnight stop at Whispering Hills RV Park in Georgetown, KY just north of Lexington. At almost 5 hours, it was a longer drive than we usually like to make. We also lost an hour going from Central to Eastern Time, so we didn't arrive until about 2:15 EDT.

Whispering Hills RV Park has about 220 full hookup sites with 30/50-amp electric. Most of the sites are back-ins, but there are a couple of dozen pull-throughs. However, most of the pull-throughs are rather short, and only about half of them will allow you to park and remain hooked up to your toad or tow vehicle. Even though we got one of the longer pull-throughs, we had to park with the front of the motor home hanging out on the road on one end and the car hanging out on the other. Fortunately, the roads are wide enough for other vehicles to pass.

Our site at Whispering Hills

View of some of the other sites on the row behind us

The gravel roads are somewhat bumpy in spots. The pads are also gravel, and they're nice and level. The site spacing isn't too bad for a private campground.

The campground has a nice pool, and there is free Wi-Fi. However, the Wi-Fi was slow so we used Verizon. There was a fairly good 4G signal, but even Verizon was a little slow at times.

Whispering Hills is a couple of miles from the nearest interstate exit, but it is close to the interstate itself so there was a good bit of traffic noise. It was hot when we were there, so we ran the air all day and all night which helped drown out the whine of the trucks on the interstate.

On Wednesday morning, we headed out to Berlin, OH in the heart of Ohio's Amish Country where we'll be spending the summer. At 5 hours, It was another drive that was a little farther than we usually like to go in a day. Although there are a couple of other campgrounds in and near Berlin, we always stay at Scenic Hills RV Park. It is run by a very nice Mennonite couple who keep the place in excellent condition.

The campground has about 120 sites on three levels. The sites on the upper and lower levels have grass between them, and the ones on the middle level are all gravel. All the sites have full hookups. In fact, there is no bathhouse, so the park is for self-contained RVs only. About half the sites have 30/50-amp electric and the rest have 30 amps. The roads are tar and chip, and the pads are gravel. The site spacing isn't too bad for a private campground, although there are a few sites that are a little close together.

Our site at Scenic Hills

View of some of the other sites in our row at Scenic Hills

We used to like to get a site on the lower level. A year or so ago, however, we stayed in the last row of the upper level where the owners like to put people who are staying for longer periods, and we found we really like it. For one thing, the reception for the campground's free Wi-Fi and for Verizon are much better on the upper level than they are on most of the lower level.

Speaking of Wi-Fi, Scenic Hills upgraded their Wi-Fi earlier this year. They replaced all the old transmitters and installed several additional ones around the campground to improve coverage. We don't know if the system upgrade was intended to improve speeds or not because with more people in the campground being able to get online, the system almost seemed slower than it was before. Fortunately, there is a fairly strong Verizon 4G signal on the upper level of the campground where our site is located, so we used that when the campground Wi-Fi was slow in the late afternoons and evenings.

The nightly rate at Scenic Hills is $35 with discounts for various lengths of stay of three nights or more. Since we are staying all summer, we paid the monthly rate of $595, which averages out to a little over $19 a night. There is no extra charge for electricity.

We had a couple of days to get settled before our daughter, Lora, and our son-in-law, J. Michael, arrived to spend the 4th of July weekend with us. We wanted to get grocery shopping out of the way before they arrived, so we headed to Walmart to pick up a few things. On the way, we stopped at Winesburg meats to pick up some of Paul's favorite beef snack sticks.

Winesburg Meats

We also stopped by the bakery at Der Dutchman to have cream sticks, which are long, cream-filled doughnuts. Cream sticks are available with white, chocolate, caramel (our favorite), strawberry and peanut butter icing on top. We love the cream sticks because the filling isn't overly sweet, and it is never gritty. They also inject the fulling from both ends of the doughnut, so they are always filled to the max. Yum!

Margery with her cream stick

After our cream sticks and errands, we headed back to Scenic Hills and watched the RVs pour in for the long holiday weekend. Lora and J. Michael arrived shortly after noon on Friday. We have a nice weekend of shopping, sightseeing and eating out planned. We'll tell you about it in our next post.

Nashville Part II: Wrap-up

Lebanon, TN - Events of Friday, May 31 to Tuesday, June 4, 2013

After we toured the Country Music Hall of Fame, we took a walk across the street to see the fountain at the Nashville Symphony Hall.

Fountain at Nashville Symphony Hall

From there, we could see a pedestrian walkway over the Cumberland River, which runs through downtown Nashville, so we decided to go check it out. From the bridge, we could see the stern-wheeler General Jackson pulling out from the dock downstream. The Jackson is a showboat that has afternoon and evening cruises on the Cumberland River.

Showboat General Jackson

We also had a nice view of the Nashville skyline from the bridge.

Nashville skyline

It began to spit rain as we stood on the bridge admiring the view, Fortunately, we only got a few drops, but we quickly made our way back to the car just in case. On the way back to the motor home, we stopped for a late lunch at Qdoba.

Qdoba

We both like the grilled chicken burrito served in a bowl without the tortilla wrap.

Margery with her grilled chicken burrito

After finishing our burritos, we headed back to the motor home to put our feet up for the evening. On Saturday, we hit the local Walmart to restock the pantry.

Margery's online research found Tom's Blue Moon Bar-B-Que in Lebanon near where we were staying that got very good reviews. We're always in the mood for good barbecue, so we headed there on Sunday afternoon for lupper.

Tom's Blue Moon Bar-B-Que

Tom's Blue Moon serves pulled pork, ribs, smoked chicken, beef brisket and smoked bologna. Sandwiches are $4 to $6, and dinner plates with two sides are $8 to $12. Ribs are $12 for a half slab and $20 for a full slab. There are also various combos with two to four meats that serve from one to six people for $10 to $45. We both had pulled pork dinners with cole slaw and potato salad for our sides for $8. The dinners also include either Texas toast or flat corn bread.

Pulled pork dinner with slaw, potato salad and flat corn bread

We both chose the flat corn bread because we have never had it before. It was made from corn meal-based batter fried up like pancakes, and it was yummy. The pulled pork was good, too. It was tender and moist with a hint of smoke.

They had two types of molasses-based sauces - sweet and sassy and sweet and spicy. We liked sweet and spicy because it had a little bit of a kick. They also had mustard-based South Carolina-style sauce. As the names suggest, the molasses-based sauces are definitely on the sweet side. The cole slaw and potato salad aren't sweet at all so they helped balance the sweetness of the barbecue sauce.

Paul at Tom's Blue Moon Bar-B-Que

We did some of our pre-departure chores on Monday, and hit the road Tuesday morning for a three-hour drive to our next destination in Bronston, KY. We got a relatively early start in spite of the fact it was only a three-hour drive because we knew we would lose an hour going from Central into Eastern Time. We pulled into Lake Cumberland RV Park around 1:30 Eastern Time.

Lake Cumberland RV Park has around 100 sites all with full hookups. As far as we can tell, all the sites have 30/50-amp electric. There is free cable and Wi-Fi for a fee. The area has Verizon 4G coverage. This time, the signal was pretty strong so we had no problem staying online.

The campground is located near Lake Cumberland, which is a popular boating spot, and most of their sites are seasonal sites. There are three loops, and the transient sites seem to be clustered on the center loop. About half the sites on the center loop are pull-throughs, and the other half are back-ins. About half the back-in sites have electric meters, so they can apparently also be used for seasonals. The weekly rate for our pull-through site was only $150.

The roads at Lake Cumberland RV are paved, and the pads are a mixture of gravel, dirt and grass. The grassy sites have a good bit of space between them.

Our site at Lake Cumberland RV

View down the road past our site

The campground seems pretty quiet with only a little traffic noise during the day and a few very distant trains that you can barely hear when everything else is quiet at night.

Lake Cumberland RV Park is located to the north of Daniel Boone National Forest. We'll be exploring a number of things in and around the forest while we're here. Stay tuned.

Nashville, TN to Frankfort, KY

Frankfort, KY - Events of Friday, July 27 to Wednesday, August 1, 2012

On Friday, we got moving relatively early because, not only did we have drive of over 4 hours to our next destination in Frankfort, KY, we would also lose an hour going from the Central Time Zone to Eastern. In addition to all that, we also had to hook up the car and then stop at the dump station on our way out of Lock A Campground.

By the time we hitched up, corrected a minor problem with one of the turn signals on the toad and dumped, it was after 9:30 when we got on the road. We didn't pull into Still Waters Campground in Frankfort until almost 3:00 PM by the time we also stopped for gas.

We stayed at Still Waters when we visited the Frankfort/Lexington, KY area back in 2010. Located about 10 miles north of Frankfort and about 30 miles from Lexington, Still Waters is a little out of the way; but it is a nice, quiet campground with full hookups on the RV sites, and with water and electric only on a couple dozen tent sites. The RV sites on the eastern side of the campground where we were located had 30/50-amp electric, but we think the sites on the western side have just 30 amps. The roads are gravel, and the RV pads are grass and gravel. The RV sites are all back ins, and they are fairly widely spaced.

Our site at Still Waters Campground

There are quite a few permanents at Still Waters, but most of the sites are neatly kept.

A mixture of permanent and transient sites at Still Waters Campground

Still Waters is located on the Kentucky River, which is a smaller river that is suitable for fishing and canoeing. The campground has canoe rentals and a van that will take paddlers and their canoes upstream. 

For the last few times we have been traveling (at least since we left Memphis), we have been hearing a noise from the engine of the motor home that sounded like an exhaust leak. Paul suspected a broken exhaust manifold stud, which not uncommon on the 8.1 liter gas engine we have. Paul had been under the motor home several times, but was unable to track the leak down. At Lock A with a relatively clean, paved pad, he was able to climb underneath and get a good look, and he finally found the broken bolt.

The engine used in our motor home was also used on some GM pickup trucks. Although a few Chevrolet and GMC dealers work on motor homes, most do not. Only those dealers who also sold GM medium duty trucks have the heavy-duty jacks, lifts and tools that are required for a lot of the work on larger vehicles. Therefore, Paul decided a Workhorse repair shop would be our best option for repair since Workhorse manufactured the chassis of our motor home. We found Bluegrass International Trucks in Georgetown, KY about 45 minutes from Still Waters was listed as a Workhorse repair facility, so we decided to bite the bullet and get the repair done while we were in Frankfort. Navistar, the parent company of International Trucks, apparently signed up some of their truck dealers to help expand the service network for Workhorse motor home chassis when they bought Workhorse a few years ago.

Before we left Nashville, we made an appointment at Bluegrass International Trucks for the Tuesday after we arrived in Frankfort. We got up early on Tuesday morning and drove to Georgetown. Unfortunately, when we got to the repair shop at 8:00 AM, they had no record of our appointment. They were backed up, but agreed to squeeze us in.

Bluegrass International Trucks

They pulled us into a service bay in fairly short order. As you can see in the photo below, there were school buses on both sides of us. There were about two dozen more school buses parked all around the lot. Most were new and were being prepped for delivery to the various school districts. There were also some older buses that were being serviced to get ready for the upcoming school year, which starts in just a few weeks here in the South. All those school buses was the reason Bluegrass Trucks was so busy.

Our motor home was surrounded by school busses

In order to remove a broken exhaust manifold stud, you first have to remove the entire exhaust manifold. Unfortunately, additional studs usually break when you try to remove the manifold because the studs and nuts get quite rusted because of all the heat. We knew getting the motor home repair completed in one day was iffy, but we were hoping they would allow us to stay in the motor home in the parking lot if they had to keep the rig overnight. 

Unfortunately, it wasn't getting the old studs out that was the biggest problem. The 8.1 liter GM engine used on the Workhorse chassis uses longer manifold studs than those used in the GM pickup trucks, and no one in the area had a new stud kit for the motor home version of the engine in stock. The shop couldn't get the parts until the following morning. And once they got the old manifold off, they couldn't move the motor home out of the service bay, so we weren't able to stay in it.

There are numerous motels in the area, but after watching episodes of the Travel Channel's Hotel Impossible, we have become really wary of staying in a motel. The program features Anthony Melchiorri, known as "The Hotel Fixer," who helps struggling hotels and motels uncover their problems in order to become more competitive and improve their businesses. The TV program is an excellent marketing resource for RV sales because of all the hidden problems and behind the scenes deficiencies it reveals in many hotels and motels!

We did some checking online at Hotels Guides and searched for pet-friendly accommodations. We decided on the Best Western a few miles away. We could have gotten a less expensive room, but we chose a motel that was rated very high by verified guests and at a price point we could manage. 

We stopped in the motor home and packed our overnight bags and grabbed computers and reading material. By the time we left the repair shop a little after noon, they had not only removed the old manifold, but they had gotten all but one of the old studs out. That one had not broken, and they were probably waiting for the penetrating oil to do its work.

View of the left side of the engine through the wheel well

Except for going out for a quick dinner, we spent the afternoon and evening at the motel. We watched the Olympics, read and played on the computer. We took along our Verizon modem, but the motel had free Wi-Fi, and it was pretty fast. Freeway adapted well and not only enjoyed all the new smells, but didn't find anything objectionable under the bed. LOL

The motel turned out to be very nice. The room was clean and up to date, and the bed was fairly comfortable. They had cookies and popcorn from 6:00 to 8:00 in the evening (the chocolate chip cookies were excellent), and they had a hot breakfast buffet in the morning. The breakfast buffet wasn't nearly as good as the one at Der Dutchman in Berlin, OH; but it wasn't bad, and it certainly was convenient. There were scrambled eggs (they weren't even rubbery), sausage patties, sausage gravy and biscuits, cereal (hot and cold), fresh waffles, sweet rolls, muffins and fresh fruit (bananas and apples).

When we called Bluegrass Trucks on Wednesday morning, they told us the parts had come in as scheduled, and they were busy putting things back together. We checked out of the motel a little before the 11:00 AM check out time and headed a few miles up the road to Bluegrass Trucks to wait. A little before noon, we saw the motor home being pulled out of the shop for its test drive. It took about 45 minutes to get the paperwork squared away. Apparently, someone with the authority to add up all the charges must have been at lunch. The price was around $600, which, according to one of the RV forums Paul participates in, was very reasonable. After we paid the bill, we were were finally on our way.

We commend Bluegrass Trucks for their excellent service. Even though our appointment somehow got lost, they bent over backwards to accommodate us. They made every effort to meet our needs and were pleasant and professional. We highly recommend them.

It was great driving the motor home with a quiet engine again. We got back to Still Waters and got set up in time to finally have lunch in the middle of the afternoon.

We love our home on wheels, but we didn't realize how much until we had to spend a night without it. We really enjoy being home again. We're taking it easy for a couple of days. Margery isn't feeling her best, but we're sure to get into a little something. Stay tuned.