Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Home Again, Alas

You would think that we would be glad to be home after over a month and a half on the road, but we were getting used to living in our home on wheels and the winter storm warning for later today put a damper on our enthusiasm for being back in the Frozen North.

One good thing right off the bat was a six pound drop in my weight from the time we left according to our digital scale. Hard to believe, given all the eating we did while away. Another plus was that the DVR managed to capture all our programs, albeit in standard definition, with 15% of the disk space to spare. We have a lot of TV watching ahead of us.

As we were getting ready to go out and get the vehicles squared away, the street sweeper came along for its spring pass. It went around the RV/trailer so we had to manually sweep the accumulation of sand off the street in front of our place after we were done.

First, I unloaded the bike. Then I unhooked the trailer and moved the motorhome forward. After putting the bike in the garage (behind the snowblower because I maintain an optimist is just a pessimist with no experience), I went to move the van out and found the rear drum brakes were seized up. They sometimes stick after it sits for a while, but the right rear was really frozen. I finally managed to break it free by rocking the van, but the price was a deep rut in the crusher dust driveway which we raked back to level. I hooked the van to the trailer and backed it into its spot in the back of the driveway. I do this because the trailer is so narrow I can't see it when backing the motorhome up and something as precise as hitting the driveway would be very difficult. Then I backed the RV in and put the van in front of it.

The outside of the motorhome was a mess from all the salt and slush yesterday. It will need a wash and wax as soon as the weather improves, as well as getting the antenna checked out and the roof checked, cleaned and treated with UV protection. I have an idea with the rear camera. The light overload mainly comes from the sun reflecting off the road and I believe that pointing the very wide-angle camera down is a mistake. It is billed as a "rear view camera" and, based on the photos on the Camping World website, it shows a view as if the camera was pointed straight back. It will be easy to give this a try.

As promised, the winter storm hit and the temperature dropped. The RV stayed warm inside because the furnace was running but it better warm up in the next few days because I only have a limited amount of propane.

Our first trip in the motorhome was a positive one. It is now set up pretty much the way we want it and we're looking forward to our next trip in a few weeks to North Carolina.

No comments: