A nice trip...

[bsavage]

Well, H-E double toothpicks must have frozen over, because we're just home from a lovely 6 day trip with (almost) all systems working well and as intended! Whoooooo hooooooooo!

And, since we're all always trying to figure out how to fix whatever might need fixing (or changing, or modifying)... I thought I'd take a moment to celebrate "When Things Work"!

So, we departed Cave Creek, AZ last Wednesday morning at about 7:30 a.m. (yep, on the road that early!!!)... spent about 10 hours on the road to our first night stop in Mina, Nevada on our way to Chehalis, Washington for a Motorcycle Trials Event. Mina is home to one of our favorite podunk bars (within walking distance of the RV park) and nice people. Got gifted some turquoise and gemstone rocks from the bar owners, and a lesson on the local rock mining. Generator, A/C, TV, and Satellite all working perfectly!!!!!!

On up the road towards Eugene, OR. Mapquested 2 route options, and on board navigation gave us 3 options. We chose the one on the navigation that looked like we were taking 395 N from Susanville. Followed the navigation (as I mentioned to Dear Husband to Be that it disagreed with my mapquest directions...), which put us on 139 N from Susanville. If you've been there, or checked the roads that coaches over 40' are prohibited on, you know why we shouldn't have been on that road, which we realized within 4 minutes. But of course, there are no U-turns with a 42' coach plus 16' trailer on this winding, narrow, mountainous road. Make it through there and further north, then NW on 58 across Oregon. Wow, there's a road! That has to be the longest mountain descent we've ever experienced. It was fantastically beautiful, and as always, we were comforted by our friend Jake the Brake. Spent the night at the Eugene Walmart... they had a "drive through" Garden Center! No, we didn't drive through, but as we are avid gardeners, I did walk through before departure in the morning, and had to adopt our new fiddle leaf ficus, now aptly named "Eugene". Eugene made the rest of the trip with us and is already planted in our pond garden.

On the road by 8:30 a.m. for the drive to Chehalis. This is an easy day... we arrive by 1:00 (okay, we missed the turn off for the event, then thought we missed the correct street to the event, blah blah blah... suffice to say we turned the coach around in the same truck parking lot twice, in a Veterans Memorial parking lot once, and around the block for a correction once). Better directions to the very remote site would have been appreciated! But, nevermind, we arrived, weather was great, good friends, good food. Competition on Saturday, and Tony took 1st place (hooray!) in his class.

We set off right after the event to head back south to Ashland, OR to visit my son and his girlfriend at their home there. Pulled in to local RV park at about 11:00 pm, a bit of a wind-down, and to bed. After getting to sleep in, we unloaded the Harley V-Rod and drove south the 10 miles to my son's house for a lovely visit and walk around Ashland. Later, back to the Coach, a quick nap for Tony, and my son came to pick us up for dinner, which we had at a lovely restaurant in Ashland. Back to our home on the road, a movie, and sleepy time! (That was Sunday, if you're keeping up!).

Monday morning, back to Mina, NV nightstop, a walk over to our little bar, back to coach, movie, and sweet dreams.

Today, depart Mina at 7:45 a.m., back home by 6:00 pm. All this, with mostly everything working perfectly!

(Okay, the dump tank valves and switches, all just replaced, refused to work initially... no lights, no action, no dumping. Called Monaco tech support [and repair place], both indicated there were manual dump valves on passenger side. Eventually found them, and after engaging the manual valves and then closing them, the electric valves and switches were back on and working! Ahhhh, the mysteries of RVing!).

Anywhoooo, cool, comfortable, and lovely. A very nice (albeit whirlwind) trip... I think it was almost 2800 miles round trip (Tony would know better, but not surprisingly, he's sleeping!).

It's really good when it's good, this journeying around our beautiful country in a comfy coach!

[bsavage]

Well, H-E double toothpicks must have frozen over, because we're just home from a lovely 6 day trip with (almost) all systems working well and as intended! Whoooooo hooooooooo!

And, since we're all always trying to figure out how to fix whatever might need fixing (or changing, or modifying)... I thought I'd take a moment to celebrate "When Things Work"!

So, we departed Cave Creek, AZ last Wednesday morning at about 7:30 a.m. (yep, on the road that early!!!)... spent about 10 hours on the road to our first night stop in Mina, Nevada on our way to Chehalis, Washington for a Motorcycle Trials Event. Mina is home to one of our favorite podunk bars (within walking distance of the RV park) and nice people. Got gifted some turquoise and gemstone rocks from the bar owners, and a lesson on the local rock mining. Generator, A/C, TV, and Satellite all working perfectly!!!!!!

On up the road towards Eugene, OR. Mapquested 2 route options, and on board navigation gave us 3 options. We chose the one on the navigation that looked like we were taking 395 N from Susanville. Followed the navigation (as I mentioned to Dear Husband to Be that it disagreed with my mapquest directions...), which put us on 139 N from Susanville. If you've been there, or checked the roads that coaches over 40' are prohibited on, you know why we shouldn't have been on that road, which we realized within 4 minutes. But of course, there are no U-turns with a 42' coach plus 16' trailer on this winding, narrow, mountainous road. Make it through there and further north, then NW on 58 across Oregon. Wow, there's a road! That has to be the longest mountain descent we've ever experienced. It was fantastically beautiful, and as always, we were comforted by our friend Jake the Brake. Spent the night at the Eugene Walmart... they had a "drive through" Garden Center! No, we didn't drive through, but as we are avid gardeners, I did walk through before departure in the morning, and had to adopt our new fiddle leaf ficus, now aptly named "Eugene". Eugene made the rest of the trip with us and is already planted in our pond garden.

On the road by 8:30 a.m. for the drive to Chehalis. This is an easy day... we arrive by 1:00 (okay, we missed the turn off for the event, then thought we missed the correct street to the event, blah blah blah... suffice to say we turned the coach around in the same truck parking lot twice, in a Veterans Memorial parking lot once, and around the block for a correction once). Better directions to the very remote site would have been appreciated! But, nevermind, we arrived, weather was great, good friends, good food. Competition on Saturday, and Tony took 1st place (hooray!) in his class.

We set off right after the event to head back south to Ashland, OR to visit my son and his girlfriend at their home there. Pulled in to local RV park at about 11:00 pm, a bit of a wind-down, and to bed. After getting to sleep in, we unloaded the Harley V-Rod and drove south the 10 miles to my son's house for a lovely visit and walk around Ashland. Later, back to the Coach, a quick nap for Tony, and my son came to pick us up for dinner, which we had at a lovely restaurant in Ashland. Back to our home on the road, a movie, and sleepy time! (That was Sunday, if you're keeping up!).

Monday morning, back to Mina, NV nightstop, a walk over to our little bar, back to coach, movie, and sweet dreams.

Today, depart Mina at 7:45 a.m., back home by 6:00 pm. All this, with mostly everything working perfectly!

(Okay, the dump tank valves and switches, all just replaced, refused to work initially... no lights, no action, no dumping. Called Monaco tech support [and repair place], both indicated there were manual dump valves on passenger side. Eventually found them, and after engaging the manual valves and then closing them, the electric valves and switches were back on and working! Ahhhh, the mysteries of RVing!).

Anywhoooo, cool, comfortable, and lovely. A very nice (albeit whirlwind) trip... I think it was almost 2800 miles round trip (Tony would know better, but not surprisingly, he's sleeping!).

It's really good when it's good, this journeying around our beautiful country in a comfy coach!

[RonNBama]

Awwww man! This is soooo depressing. You didn't break down, lose power, have anything fall off or anything like that? You sure? Better look on top of the coach. I'll bet that something is missing.

Actually that's a nice trip report and I am officially jealous. Not about the lack of problems, heck even the worst day in my RV is better than a day in the office. Sounds like a good time. Even the V-Rod comment. I mean, if you can't have a nice Suzuki, Kawi or Yammie, you might as well get one of them Hardleys.

Manual Dump Valves! Who would have thought it!

[Mutha]

B & T, thanks for the "Blow-by-Blow" trip log! It sounds like a great trip except for the little winding mountain road. We got on one of those in the Davis Mountains in west Texas - scared the BEEJEBUS out of us, but fortunately we did not pass a SINGLE vehicle, either direction, for the whole 14 mile trip down to the bottom. I really do not know if two large vehicles could pass on that narrow road!

Thanks again for the great narrative!
Best to you all - Glenn.

[bsavage]

You guys make me laugh! I'm afraid to look at the top of the coach, last year we did have an A/C cover fly off somewhere over Texas!! Actually, ronnbama, the "Hardley" was accompanied in the trailer by my Yam 125 vintage trials bike and a Triumph Tiger cub vintage trials bike. We left the BMW, MV, KTM, and Honda road bikes at home. Gotta take the Hardley sometimes... but my favorite is the Beemer.

Brenda

p.s. Love Suzuki's & Kawi's too! Don't have any in the herd at the moment, though. Ride on!

[teofff]

we are so jealous!!!!!

[ronboc]

Hey now, before everyone gets TOO jealous, I bet Brenda/Tony didn't tell us about the bug-splatters they got on the front of their coach.

So don't feel too bad if you're side-lined at a service-location or whatever, there's good in every happening.

[bsavage]

Speaking of bug splats... I do love the big windshield, and one of the reasons I wanted it was for photo-ops without the bar down the center. However... almost all of the pics taken through the windshield focus on the bug splats! Okay, I got a couple of good ones...

Please, don't be jealous! If any of you have followed all of our previous issues with the new coach, you'd be saying something like "Hooray, there's hope!!".

Happy traveling!

[MonacoMama]

LOL...glad it was an uneventful trip overall as far as the coach goes!
Tell Tony we said congrats on the win ...although I am not surprised!

[RonNBama]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by MonacoMama:
LOL...glad it was an uneventful trip overall as far as the coach goes!
Tell Tony we said congrats on the win ...although I am not surprised! </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

WHAT! You won a vintage event and didn't crow about it? C'mon man, you are either too modest, or you got so many trophies that you've lost count. Heck, flap yer wings, throw yer head back and let loose.

Congrats. Takes a lot of skill to do that.

[MonacoMama]

bsavage...<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">But, nevermind, we arrived, weather was great, good friends, good food. Competition on Saturday, and Tony took 1st place (hooray!) in his class. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>bama...<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">WHAT! You won a vintage event and didn't crow about it? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
Bama..you silly boy...don't read these from work...you are too preoccupied when you do! (Don't ask me how I know that..either!)

[RonNBama]

oops...............

[teofff]

While we all know about bug splatter...the ones I found to be a real interesting while driving through central CA, was the butterflys....they splatter in a bright yellow gloop...much prettier than your usual bug splat. Don't ya love the look on the bugs face right before he hits the windshield

[RonNBama]

LOL, yep and you know the last thing that goes through their mind....