So, it's been about 6 or 7 months since taking delivery of our new 2021 Forester LE motorhome sold to us by RV Wholesalers and it's now time to close out the buying experience blog.

Where we left off:

Back in October we had punch list items that we asked RV Wholesalers to submit for us. The terms of purchase were that we would find a RV repair shop to do the work and then submit the repair costs to RV Wholesalers who would, in turn, submit to Forest River. The caveat...

The front TV that Tiffin put in is fixed. The only good seat is the rear dining table bench. What I need is to have a set mounted on an extendable arm that can be angled towards the couch.

I decided to swap out the small 33" front TV with a new 40" Vizio. The area for the TV is 36 wide by 22 tall, and this Vizio is just a bit smaller than that wide. Here's the link to the TV on Amazon.. Picture looks crisp, and I like that it's got built in AppleTV and ApplePlay....

So when I bought our new to us 2007 Damon Tuscany 4076 I noticed the steering wheel was hard to turn at a stop, the instant the wheels started rolling the coach could be turned. I thought that was just normal, I'd never driven a CP coach before. This spring when I brought the coach of a deep winter slumber the coach had lost all power steering. I was almost pulling my arms out of their sockets trying to turn the steering wheel. Three weekends ago I received my TRW power steering pump. Less than...

So, I'm about caught up. Last weekend, I flew out of the village and over to Homer, drove the 70 or so miles up to Best Truck in Kenai to pick up the coach. I had rented covered storage to help keep the coach out of the weather but the past two months it has sat in the weather at Best Truck, not smart on my part. When I called to let them know that I was coming to pick up the coach and would need to have them bring it around front they agreed. A day or so later I got a call from them saying the...

The biggest thing I do not like about my Tuscany is the invisible "shield" on the front of the coach, it has molded as many of the them do and will need to be removed, that'll be a pain but something I plan on taking care of this summer. Secondly is the cost of any work being performed. The big truck shops seem to charge a premium for any work on an RV and I can understand some things require a contortionist to get to but other things are exactly the same as a commercial truck. Fortunately...

About an hour west of Edmonton the trip took a turn for the worse. While driving the high temp light came on and an alarm sounded, I pulled off the highway, turned off the coach and walked to the back of the coach. I didn't smell anything out of the ordinary and there wasn't any smoke. My wife immediately called roadside assistance, fortunately we bought that with the coach. I pulled up the floor to look at the motor and saw a shredded serpentine belt. After a couple of hours a huge tractor with...

So after purchasing our RV and finally getting out of the finance office we were on the road, late in the day mind you. Neither of us had ever driven a 40 foot motorhome, except for the test drive back to the dealership. I would add that it was very intimidating at first, a lot of low speed wobbling down the interstate, I felt like I was going to butt my head against every overpass! We drove from Tampa Florida back to Homer Alaska, by the time we were in somewhere in the midwest driving was pretty...

My wife and I moved from Arizona to Alaska as school teachers. When we left Az back in 2013 we went to Alaska in a 1980 Jeep CJ5 pulling a homebuilt harbor freight trailer with everything we owned.
We made the trip from Alaska to Arizona in that jeep every summer for our first 5 years of living up here. It was rough, we didn't even have a real tent but more of a screened in tent with a rain fly. Our sleeping bag which we had custom made was the biggest item we had in our little trailer....

We are totally new RVers, who are young recently retired, fun, adventurous couple, who live at The Lakes Country Club in Palm Desert and also have a summer ocean front beach condo that we go back and forth between winter and summer. We just bought a 2020 Newmar Dutch Star 4081, with every bell and whistles you could possibly add.

We are planning our first trip from Palm Desert, California to Naples, Florida on April 2, 2021 to play in the U.S. Open Pickleball Championship. We are...

One of the things I was going to get at Wally World was a small space heater for the lithium batteries, because I know they aren't supposed to tolerate cold very well, but since we are here at Flying J, and I don't want to unhook the toad, I just plugged in my 75 watt drop light and put it in the compartment. We went to bed, and the temps got down to 9 degrees. BRRR!!! I set my alarm for 6, to get an early start, and when I was awakened by my iphone, i noticed it was still warm, but dark. No lights...

Sorry this has taken so long to write. On our return, I made several mistakes, one of which could have been bad. When packing up for the return at the KOA in Banning, I reminded myself to get propane. And, as I was disconnecting the water line, I thought "maybe I should check the fresh water tank". Nah, It'll be ok. Got everything packed and dropped the rig off the jacks, hooked up the dolly and loaded the car. Got in the rig and drove out, completely forgetting about the propane. Doh!...

We just got back from a whirlwind trip to California in the MH to visit my parents. Left from Eastern NM on the 5th, late in the PM, and didn't get but to Ruidoso the first night. We boondocked at the Walmart there, and even though the temps got down into the 20's, we were comfy and the Lithium batteries performed great. No issues. Still had about 12.6VDC in them when I got up. One issue we had, however, was that using the microwave, on 2 occasions, the 250VDC breaker would pop, even though the...

RV Basic courses are a MUST have for new RVers.

I didn't know this before I purchased my RV. If I had taken one when I started planning for my retirement 4 years ago I might have made some different decisions. I had towed before so I thought "No problem! Buy a 1/2 ton vehicle (Suburban in my case), get a trailer and hit the road." Right? Isn't that what you think?

BOY is there a lot more to it than that!

I bought in Oct 2017 (my 60th...

After flying up to Lakeview OH, we took possession of the motorhome.

I'm going to tackle the biggest issue of the whole experience right off the bat. The biggest issue was discovering, after getting on site, that our coach was built on an E-350 chassis. When all issues then and now are listed, it was the largest and it's one that RVW & Forest River both indicate that is a right reserved by Forest River to change the design of the RV at their discretion. So, here's the biggest...

My wife and I are in the preparation stage of becoming full-time nomads. We plan on staying mostly in State Parks, National Forest, Corp Of Engineer, and some Bureau of land management spots. We will have solar power and possibly a generator if we find that we need it.

We want to Boondock as much as possible but not really interested in parking out in the wilderness. So actually we would be more “dry camping
” that is to say staying on a level improved spot. I recently discovered...