Snowy Range Pass

Snowy Range Pass

Wednesday, August 10, 2016

Searching for cool

After living with the excessive heat and humidity, we decided it was time to head north in search of fun times and hopefully much cooler temperatures. Our plan was to eventually reach northern Minnesota along the shores of Lake Superior.  Departing in early July for a planned four week trip.

A problem hit us right away.  After parking the motorhome in the driveway, I proceeded to open the main door to air the rig out.  The automatic step came out with what I ruefully called a happy dance.  It did this within a short period after we bought the motorhome and the motor was the culprit.  We knew that if we tried taking it to any of the RV dealers, they were sure to sit on it for weeks before returning it. We called a mobile RV tech that we had observed in a campground we stayed at locally while we were fulltime.  He came out first thing in the morning and found the problem. Again the motor had failed.  He brought the standard motor used on most two step Kwikee models.  Of course, ours was not one of those and required the less common model, which naturally was more expensive.  Luckily, they had one in stock and he returned early the next morning and installed it in short order.  I do not think it was anymore expensive than taking it to a service facility and waiting forever for them to order the part. The trip was still on.



Our first stop was to visit our daughter, Katie and her husband. She  had just been transferred to Maxwell Air Force Base for a ten month training program.  This is the closest she has been stationed to us, so it will be nice to have her relatively close for a little while.  Her sister Heather and the kids were also excited about them being close and had already arrived there before us for a visit. As luck would have it, the house she is renting has a 50 amp hookup for the driveway.  So we spent three nights mooch docking.  It was pretty hectic with some boxes still being unpacked and two kids running around, so not much in the way of pictures either. It was a great visit, but scored a big goose egg on the cool meter.








After three days, we headed out for places north.  We stopped for the night at a nice campground close to the highway in Clarksville, TN on top of the Kentucky border.  The Clarksville RV Park.




11 comments:

Gypsy said...

Your daughter's place looks pretty cool to me, if fact, it looks beautiful.

Unknown said...

Glad you got that step fixed. Sounds like our kind of luck....more expensive part etc. You were wish to call the mobile repair, so much easier. Good luck finding that cool weather!!

Wanderin' said...

It's great that you were able to mooch-dock. We've done that with our son and it gives us more time together.

We learned that Tennessee was not the place to leave our motorhome. It's hot and humid and our motorhome caught issues after that. Good luck finding the cool north. This time of year it's hard to find cool places.

Peter said...

Hm...Minnesota doesn't sound like a cool place to me. I know of high humidity and pretty high temps there. Campobello Island and northern maine would be the place to head for finding cooler temps though.

Sue Malone said...

Curious if you ever found cool anywhere. Seems as though that part of the country has been terribly warm all summer. Good luck and hope it is good now.

Erin said...

Sure hope you find some cool somewhere ... we have yet to see daytime temps below 95F.

Paul and Marti Dahl said...

When you find that cool, let us all know. It sure has been a long, hot summer. ;c)

Jim and Sandie said...

Definitely time to head further north and cooler temps. Montana hasn't been too bad. But some days I'm sure appreciative of that air conditioner. Have a great time.

Nickie and Jim said...

Mooch docking, I like that, very apt. I hope you found cool somewhere. We found plenty of bad T-storms up in northern Michigan/Wisconsin/Minnesota. Fingers crossed that you have better luck! We're back in Mobile AL for a while and the weather here is, in a word, unbearable.

Laura said...

I wonder if there is cool weather anywhere - it certainly has been hot here in Ontario. As August turns to September the temps should be better. September is my favorite time to camp here.

Bob and Jo said...

If you are close to Lake Superior, the world's largest air conditioner, you should be OK