TS4 was a trip to forget. Yes, there were some good things about it but they were overwhelmed by the bad things: two complete breakdowns of the truck and extensive repairs to the RV costing over $5,000. A very expensive, very stressful trip.
The trip was done in two segments. The segments themselves were meaningless and existed only to enable Google maps to handle the points in the route (it has a limit of 10 points). But it gives me a good way to do a side-by-side comparison of the plan versus the actual.
Segment 1
TS4-1 Plan
The main event in this segment? No question: the breakdown near Greene NY on NY 206 and the unplanned 8-night stay at Chenango Shores Campground. We should be grateful that we were able to get to a campground at all as it was the only one still open in the region. But we had no cell phone service, no sewer hookup, almost no internet service and were surrounded by very old trailers in various stages of decomposition. And we sank deeper into the mud every day we were there. The few people we met were nice, but that doesn’t fully counterbalance the pure misery of our existence. We rented a car and so were not immobile, but the general miserableness of the situation made it one of the worst weeks in our 6 years of travel.
Due to the unplanned stop in Chenango Shores we had to cancel our planned stays in the Finger Lakes region and the trip to the Flight 93 memorial in Shanksburg PA. Deposits were lost in both places.
TS4-1 Actual
And we almost capsized the rig – the closest we have ever come to a true disaster on the road – due to a brake controller problem that cost more to diagnose than to fix. But coming on top of the engine problems, it had a “straw that broke the camel’s back” feel. I was grateful that the obvious RV damage was relatively light, but I believed that we had ruptured a gray water tank. This compounded our misery as it meant that we could not use the kitchen or half-bath sinks while at Chenango Shores. It also meant that we had to find a way to repair the damage before we continued on to Florida. We were fortunate to find ACE RV Repair in Herndon VA and they did an outstanding job of both repairing the damage (which turned out to have less to do with our near-capsizing event and more to do with old roof damage that I had not noticed). We were able to stay at Jett’s sons’ place in Alexandria which saved us the cost of a hotel, and did not lose any additional days on the schedule due to the alacrity with which ACE worked.
We had to cancel all of the Segment 1 reservations when we got stuck in Chenango Shores and when we tried to rebook Mama Gertie’s near Asheville, they had no room. We found a spot at the Asheville East KOA.
The highlights of Segment 1? The kindness and assistance of Butch and Jackie when we broke down near Greene. The Prince William Forest Campground turned out to be much better than expected. The time in Albany was nice – particularly the day I spent in the graveyards. Finding ACE RV Repair turned out to be a very positive thing. Other than that… mostly bad things. Bad breakdowns, bad restaurants, bad weather.
Segment 2
The second truck breakdown started on the long haul uphill into Asheville at the conclusion of Segment 1 – the engine suddenly started “whooshing,” emitting a loud roar of air being taken in or expelled. I tried to fix it in Asheville but 3 mechanics who looked at it could find nothing wrong and, truth be told, the truck seemed to be operating just fine. But on the first hop of Segment 2 I noticed black exhaust when the engine was stressed and later, near Knoxville, noticed a significant loss of power. We had to quickly, once again, find emergency accommodations for the night and I again had to scramble to find someone to repair my truck at 3pm on a Friday afternoon.
I feel extremely fortunate that I found Tennessee Fleet Service, a little diesel repair shop some 20 miles away. They were able to diagnose and fix the problem in under 2 hours. They really saved the day. The only consequence of that breakdown was the loss of a day near Pigeon Forge. We had tentatively planned to visit Dollywood, but the stresses of the trip and the very cool weather dissuaded us.
The delay in Chenango Shores left us 3 days behind on our itinerary. We needed to eliminate one stop if we were to get to the Escapees rally on Nov 4. So our Nashville stop, planned for early in Segment 2, was also scrapped.
The Escapees rally was a change to our plan we had originally expected to stop in Homosassa Springs to see the manatees again, but when we saw that Escapees Chapter 57 was having a rally that week in Bushnell we joined the chapter and jumped at the chance to participate in the rally. That, along with the very nice visit with friends Roy and Patricia in Tellico Village TN, the Civil War sites in Chattanooga and the pleasant stay at Stone Mountain Campground, turned out to be the highlights of Segment 2.
And there were no further truck breakdowns. I guess I have to count that as a highlight as well.
Unless you want to count the failure of our heat and A/C a breakdown. It will have to be fixed, but seemed minor in comparison to the other ordeals that we survived on this trip.
TS4-2 Plan
TS4-2 Actual
Netflix
Netflix on our TV!
An unexpected boon of our new status as owners at Cypress Trail RV Resort is free internet. I had planned on finding out how to get hard-wired internet access while in residence, but was surprised to be handed a modem when we arrived at the gate. Free hard-wired internet! Woo hoo!
The main reason for wanting a hard-wired internet connection was to gain access to Netflix. Of course we could have signed up at any time, but we were always bumping up against our Verizon data plan limit (yeah, yeah, we have an “unlimited” plan but the fact is that the speed goes to crap after 15GB or about 4 movies). With a hard-wired internet we can, for $11 per month, have access to all that Netflix offers.
So much of yesterday was spent trying to get the internet connection operational, creating a Netflix account and trying to get the TVs configured to access Netflix. All of these were harder than they should have been, but easier than they would have been a few years back.
The most surprising part of configuring the NetGear modem was that I couldn’t do it using my laptop; I had to use my phone. Yes, the world has come to the point where a smart phone is more useful than a laptop computer. The most frustrating part was that, once configured, the modem was able to upload but was unable to download. A modem that can’t download is pretty darn useless. So I did what any intelligent person would do: I rebooted the modem a few times and jiggled some wires. And suddenly, for no good reason, it started downloading.
Signing up for Netflix was easy, but I was surprised that I could create a “profile” for both me and Jett. I was able to tell Netflix what kind of viewing I like (but, darn, “porn” wasn’t an option). I guess they offer stuff based on what I tell them I like and, presumably, on what I actually watch.
But I couldn’t do the same for Jett, even though she had a separate profile. Puzzling.
The hardest part was figuring out how to actually watch Netflix on our televisions. When we replaced our main TV a year ago I recall that I specifically looked for one with WiFi connectivity. I needn’t have bothered because it is much better to connect to Netflix using our Blu-Ray DVD players. The advantage of that is that the remote DVD controls all work for Netflix. Watching a movie on Netflix is exactly like watching a Blu-Ray DVD.
Jett hasn’t used Netflix yet, but she is going to love it.
Who knows, maybe she will love it so much that we will stay in Florida an extra month or two.