7/20 If It's Not One Thing, It's Another -- Adventures with Tires and Other Broken Things

I am going to try to catch up with my blog posting tonight.  I have been very busy with just managing broken things in this motorhome and being in places where I have not had good cell or internet service.  At least that is my excuse.  

Problem #1 - Grey Tank Not Draining

To begin, I have to explain that I have had a problem with my grey water tank backing up and not draining correctly.  Grey water is the waste water that results from things like showering, washing hands and brushing teeth in the bathroom sink, and doing dishes in the kitchen.  

The other kind of waste water is black water that comes from your toilet, in other words, it is the nastier kind of sewage.  Actually, it is easier to unclog a black tank problem because my motorhome, along with many motorhomes, comes with a built-in flushing mechanism.  Basically, there is a connection on the outside of my rig.  After I dump my black water tank, I attach a hose to the black tank flush connection, attach the other side of the hose to a connection at the dump station, and turn it on.  Water sprays inside the black tank and washes the gunk and other unmentionable stuff from the sides and bottom of the tank.  

However, there is nothing like that in the grey tank.  My grey waste tank holds 35 gallons, which in the past, allows me to take a short "Navy" shower and do dishes each day for 3-4 days before dumping.  Since I got back from my trip to the UK, I have been able to take only one short shower and maybe rinse a couple of dishes in the kitchen sink, and the water starts to back up in the shower pan.  It is the lowest place, so if the backup continues, it could run onto the floor and make a serious mess.  I have used two bottles of drain opener and am convinced that the problem is not the shower drain or the drains, but is an issue where the water leaves the tank when I dump it into the campground dump station.  

I had one mobile mechanic look it over, and he felt I needed to get someone to flush my tank, but not every RV repair place can do this, and I have not been in places where there are a lot of RV service places, so I have been managing by dumping my dish washing water into the toilet and dumping both tanks once each day.  

Problem #2 - Wobbling Dual Wheels

My most recent and most serious problem was with my dual tires on the passenger side of my motorhome.  As I was driving west on I-76 just past the Colorado line yesterday afternoon, I started to hear and feel vibrations which got really bad. I slowed down, put my flashers on, and made it a mile to a very welcome Welcome Center. Whew! Called CoachNet and discussed the problem. They called around to find a truck repair place, but nearest was 30 miles east.  They also had trouble getting tow service way out here in the middle of nowhere. Only one they could find could not pick me up until 9-10 pm. Luckily, I had the generator running (just been serviced) and my AC on. But this meant I would not arrive at Ogallala until almost midnight and might not have a place to stay in this horrible heat wave.

Anyway, I noticed an older run-down RV park across the road and walked over there. It had maybe three permanent residents, but I called the number on the door and a lady came from town and checked me in. Not a place I would choose to stay, but good news was that power was reliable and full hookup if I needed it. I drove slowly across the street and got hooked up. Good night with AC!  Much better than spending the night at a truck stop or the welcome center!!

The next morning the tow truck driver arrived and pulled off hubcap from the passenger side rear outside dually.  (This consists of two tires that are bolted together to take the huge weight of the rear of my vehicle.)  Note in the photo above that it takes a big tow truck to tow my vehicle!

The shocking news was that of the 8 lug nuts holding my tire on, there were only 2 attached. The other 6 were rolling around in the hub cap!!! They were just sheared off completely.  I had been very, very close to losing the entire two wheels that are bolted together in the rear of my vehicle.  Had they fallen off, there would have been thousands of dollars of damage to stuff like water and sewage tanks, electrical wiring, and who knows what else under my vehicle.  In addition, the side wall of my rig would also have been substantially damaged, probably resulting in my rig being declared un-salvageable.

 

Because this affected the rear tires, the tow truck driver said he would have had to tow me backwards, and because I have one of those Cs with a very long rear overhang, that would be difficult, plus it would put all the weight on the front tires.  Each of the six tires on my vehicle are capable of carrying about 2,500 pounds of weight.  So the single front tires could hold only 5,000 of the 14,800 pounds of weight of my vehicle.  They would no doubt blow out, causing even more damage, so towing was out of the question.  And, it could take days to get a big enough flatbed truck and who knows if they could even pull it up onto one of those!!

So, I asked if someone could repair it here. He made a long phone call to his boss and went back to his shop to return the big tow truck and get a smaller one with his tools and some lug nuts. At this point, I was very happy to have full hookups so I could run AC in the 98 degree heat.  Luckily, this tow company was a family-run business, and they also did work on big and smaller vehicles.  The result was that it took him about an hour-and-a-half to replace all of the bolts and lug nuts, check the other set of duallies for damage, and send me on my way. 

Anyway, I was happy to pay the bill and get back on the road.  Made it an hour later to North Sterling State Park, got a fill of water, and plugged into the power at my site! 

 

Not much in this part of northwestern Colorado but grass, cows, corn, and a very few farms.  Traffic was pretty scarce, as well.   

I was too tired and hot to take any photos of the campground, but just imagine a lake in the middle of all of this grass, and a few flies and grasshoppers like this one. 

Tomorrow, I head for Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park, where it will be at least 15-20 degrees cooler!!  Yea!

7/14 Fisherman's Corner COE Campground, E. Moline, IL

Well, I am on my way west!  It feels good to be on the road for a change, and I was happy to arrive at this very nice campground.  

What makes a campground "very nice" in my opinion?  Well, first, it has some scenery, in other words, something to look at, and this campground is on the Mississippi River, so there is always something to look at.   This is the Celebration Belle, a 750 passenger paddle wheel boat that is based in nearby E. Moline, IL.  It offers sightseeing, dinner, and lunch cruises.  No cabins, of course, since these are just day trips, but it sounds like fun anyway.

In this photo, it is going through the locks at the far end of the dam. 

I don't see anyone on the decks, so not sure this is really part of a day cruise.

This gives you a better view of the dam.

There is a thick bed of water plants of some sort, so the river is not very accessible from the campground, but you can walk down the river a bit if you want to launch a kayak.

The second, and probably most important thing for me for a campground is that it has paved roads and paved campsites.  This keeps the dust down in dry weather and keeps the mud away.  A lot of dust from people driving past means that I cannot open windows when the weather is nice.  This one has some trees but enough open spots so I could get satellite TV, which is also important to me. 

Here is my camp site.  Another plus, is that whoever poured the cement for these sites actually made it level so you do not have to put out blocks or use levelers. 

And finally, this was a quiet place with enough real estate between campers.  Met some nice camp volunteers and a camp host, as well. 

7/7 I'm Back!!!!

I got back from my UK trip about a week ago and am unpacked and on my way west!   Right now, I am staying a couple more days in Sterling State Park along Lake Erie in southern Michigan, but will be heading through Indiana, Illinois, Nebraska, Colorado, Arizona, Nevada, and ending up in California by Labor Day weekend!

As usual, I do not drive fast, and I like to stay a couple of days or more in various spots along the way, which in this trip will be Rocky Mountain National Park and the North Rim of Grand Canyon.  I have been to these two places, but it has been several years, so I am looking forward to revisiting those places. 

No Posting for a While--Am Visiting the UK for the Next Few Weeks!

I am in the UK for the next few weeks, so won't be posting about my travels in the US for a few weeks.  Got my motorhome in storage, but if you are interested in my travels to England and Scotland, you can read my blog about that here:

My 2022 Humongous UK Adventure 

5/20 West Branch State Park New Camp Sites

This will be my last post for a few weeks, as I am heading to the UK for a new weeks soon.  If you want to follow me there, check the blog site to the right. 

Anyway, I wanted to post some photos of the newly constructed full-hookup sites at West Branch SP, where I often stay when I am in Ohio visiting family.  The last post described very similar new full-hookup sites at another state park in Ohio, but there are some changes with these at West Branch. 

The biggest change is that they repaved the new sites at this state park and widened them slightly.   Note in the photo below that this site has a foot or so of extra space, which means i can step out of my door onto asphalt instead of mud.  

 

 

This photo below shows the extra asphalt on the wider site that makes getting to your door a LOT easier!!!

 

 

This photo shows one of the new sites without a rig parked on it.  

 

 

The utility pad is one of the nicest I have seen anywhere!!!  Nice to be able to walk behind your rig and hook up without getting your shoes muddy.  And the nice, green cement-filled post will keep campers from running into the water and electric hookups when they back up.  

 

 

Now for the problem areas.  The drainage ditches along the campground make backing into a site a little tricky, and having these exposed pipes so close to the entrance to the campsites makes it even more tricky.  If I miss the driveway and get into on of these "holes,"  I will end up having to call CoachNet to send a wrecker to lift my vehicle up and out. 

 

 

The one on this side is not so bad. 

 

 

There is another problem in this new area.  The streets are very narrow, and while it helps that the roads are one-way, many people park vehicles very close to the roadway, causing other large vehicles driving past, especially on curves, to end up driving on the grass.  This causes ruts in the mud, as shown in the next two photos.  They really needed to make these a couple of feet wider to prevent this mess.  

 

 

Another one of the improvements this state park really needs to make is replacing the dump station.  There are several problems with it: 1) It is down in a little valley with a sharp turn required to get down to it, 2) There is no lighting down there, so it is hard to use in the dark, and 3) The slope makes it hard to accurately determine how much fresh water you have or to fill your fresh water tanks completely.  

This shows the first entrance to the dump area, but unfortunately, it does not accurately show the slope. 

 

 

The fresh water fills are on the outside, past the dump area, and on a fairly steep slope.   The slope makes it tricky to completely fill tanks as the water in them tends to want to find its own level.

 

 

The second entrance to the dump area requires a sharp turn for rigs leaving the campground.  I don't have much of a problem with it with my motorhome, but very long trailers plus tow vehicles do have trouble.  Some cannot make the turn, so the line gets longer for the other entrance.  

It would be a LOT easier and reduce lines at the dump station for the state park to put in a couple of new, water-fill stations somewhere else, such as the large, flat parking lot that is nearby.   

 

 

Below is an example of what many of the camping pads look like at West Branch.  In other words, they are short and no where near level.  I refer to these as "ski ramps" because they are so steep that many RVs cannot possibly get level on them  Most are also electric-only, meaning that you have to hit the dump station area to fill with fresh water before you set up.

 

Clearly, the people who paved these sites several decades ago had never done any RV camping so they did not understand the need to make sites level. (Have you ever gotten out of bed in the middle of the night and lurched downhill?)  Also, at that time, maybe 30-40 years ago, rigs were a lot shorter.  The state park needs to replace many of these sites, making them wider and longer, and certainly more level.  

 

 

5/1 More Comments on Campgrounds that Need Renovation

I am at another state park in Ohio.  This one also recently added about 15 new full-hookup sites, but there are problems with the other 200 campsites that need to be fixed.  

This campground at least has 30 amp electrical hookups in almost all campsites, however, it rained last night and this morning, and when I went out to unplug my electric so I could to head to the dump station, this is what I saw.  It reminds me of standing in a bathtub while plugging in an electric hair dryer, so I just grabbed the cord and used that to pull out the plug so I did not have to stand in the water.  Then I took a photo to show the campground people:

 

 

Unfortunately, the reaction I got from the check-in people was that it was safe because all of the electric wire was buried underground!  When I asked if they could absolutely, 100% guarantee my safety, they suggested I call the camp host and get him to plug it in because he had waders!  Really????   He did plug it in for me, but I don't think it was any safer for him than for me.  A temporary fix would be to add the white rock that Punderson State Park added around electrical boxes last week.  A permanent fix would be to raise boxes or put them in places where they would not create lakes. 

I wrote in my last posting about the problems with very narrow campsites that were no doubt built several decades ago when most people tent-camped and RVs were narrower.  As you can see, I can fit my motorhome on the sites, but just barely.

 

 

There is just no where to walk unless it is on the grass, or mud in many cases. 

Luckily, I have a doormat I can put down to step on.  However, because the asphalt is taller than the ground, the last step is a "doozy."  It would be very easy to trip going down if you did not expect the sudden drop.  There is also a substantial drop from the driver's seat, by the way, but I am used to holding onto things to make sure I do not fall. 

So, I decided to walk over to the new full-hookup sites and take some photos of those.  Unfortunately, while they added a small cement patio and paved around the hookup, the width of these newer sites is the same as the older sites.  In fact, it looks like they did not even repave them. 

At least the site above has no ditches on the side, which is another safety issue.  The new, full hookup site below has ditches on either side of the narrow entrance.  Especially because the asphalt is so high compared to the grass beside it, someone could easily trip in the dark into these, especially since campers nearly always have cars or pickups parked here.  In addition, it would be easy for a long motorhome or trailer and pickup truck to fall into one of these while backing in or out.  Depending on the size and weight of the rig, that could mean having to get a wrecker to lift it up and pull it out.  (In my case, that would take a really big wrecker!)  Not a good start to a vacation!

Notice what happens when a paved camping site is too narrow.  These are recent ruts, some from this morning as campers pulled out.  The whole point of paved campsites is to prevent people from driving on the grass (or mud, as the case may be).  The narrow sites just cause more maintenance and more mud for the next camper.  An extra foot or two on either side would have made a BIG difference. 

There are two, new handicap full-service sites, which are double wide!  Fantastic.  No drop-offs on the sides and no ditches.  Anyone using a walker or wheelchair would have no problems in these sites. 

 

 

Back to my campsite:  Most campers like to sit in chairs or set up a barbecue grill in the side of their campsite.  Because campsites are often wet and narrow, a lot of people will bring along a camping mat.  They come in various sizes, but this one looks like it was maybe 6' x 9' which is the size of the one I used to have.  They do provide a clean and mostly dry surface, but they also kill the grass if left in one place for too long.  That is what no doubt happened here. 

 

 

I know money is tight for some states, and I am glad to see improvements being made, but there is a lot more that needs to be done in many state parks.  

 

Here is an example of a regular (non-handicap) site at Homolovi State Park in Arizona where all the sites were renovated so they look like this one.  Half of the pad is long enough for even very long rigs, and there is room on the side to park cars or pickup trucks.  Beautiful!!  

 

Not all state parks need to have sites quite this long, but it is very nice when they do.  

 

4/24 - Not Much Going On, So Some Ramblings About Campgrounds

I have not posted lately because I am visiting family and catching up with a lot of doctor's and dentist appointments.  I only get here in Ohio a couple of times each year, and usually only one of those times is with my motorhome.  Anyway, staying in Ohio State Parks has made me think about old and newer state-owned campgrounds, and even those old campgrounds that have been updated.  Here are some of my thoughts:

• First, understand that I much prefer to stay in federal, state, and county campgrounds because the spots are usually farther apart and the locations in much more pleasant areas than nearly all commercial campground.  I am not interested in amenities such as pools and hot tubs or activities like bingo night or potlucks.  Give me natural surroundings and quiet, and I am much happier. 
  
• A big problem is that many state parks, here in Ohio, but also in a lot of other states, desperately need to be updated.  Many were built 40-50 years ago for tents and very small trailers.  This means sites tend to be narrow and electrical systems in danger of failing.  For example, I am currently in a very pleasant state park in Ohio that has only 20 amp electrical hookups with sites so narrow that when you step out of your RV door, you land off the asphalt pad into mud.  Any if you are from a cold-weather state, you know what Spring mud is like!  
• The bad thing with 20 amp electrical hookups is that all trailers and motorhomes manufactured in the last 30-40 years have only 30 amp plugs, so you have to have an adapter to use 20 amp connections.  If you try to run an AC unit and attempt to use a microwave oven at the same time, you will blow a bunch of fuses.  It is a pain to remember to turn off the AC whenever you want to heat something up!  (I made this mistake today.)
  
• In addition, the electrical hookup posts in this place are very low, which means you have to kneel to see under the post lid and plug in.  In my case, I have to use a stool to sit on so I can look under the post lid and see where to plug in. 
  
• Another problem is that whoever paved or graded and laid down gravel in campsites decades ago obviously never tried to park an RV in one.  Some look like ski jumps with a foot or more of difference in height from back to front or vice versa.  They also are not level from side to side.  The front-to-back level is a little easier to deal with in a trailer or a motorhome with automatic levelers, but for those of us who have to use boards or those yellow plastic things under tires, it becomes difficult.  The site I am in now, is not bad front to back, but I have had to put down about 4" of boards under the tires on one side, and my rig is still not level.  Being unlevel makes it harder to determine fresh water or black water levels in your rig.      
  

On a positive note, a few days ago I left a state park that recently added about a dozen brand-new full-hookup sites.  (Full hookup, means you get 30 or 50 amp receptacles, a water hookup faucet, and a sewer connection.)  There are a few older full hookup sites in this state park, but they are very unlevel and have the same narrow camping pads.  I stopped using these because of the problems trying to get level. 

What was REALLY nice about these revamped newer sites is that the new paved area is 2' wider, which means you can step outside or even walk around your rig without landing in mud.  Sites are also much more level, and very importantly, they have a paved area around the hookups, so you can get to them without stepping in mud also!  Yea!  

Just for the record, I do not always have to have paved campsites, although I do like them when they are available.  Some of my favorite places are in the desert where you mostly get sand and gravel.  This is fine because those places do not have the mud that other places in the country have.  And a couple of really terrific campgrounds in Florida have just sand in campsites, but that is OK because the sand drains fast and the sand does not stick to your shoes or track into everything.  

Some people put down those plastic mats so they can put chairs on the ground without dealing with mud or dirt.  The problem is those mats kill grass that state parks try to grow.  One of the recent places I stayed at had put down a lot of grass seed and straw, and that did help control the mud, but even if the grass seed takes and grows, it will not survive the mats and heavy chair and foot traffic.  A longer-term solution would be wider asphalt or rock pads and "patio" areas that have better surfaces. 

Some state parks also have small laundromats.  This is helpful for those of us who travel all the time, and it was especially important during COVID because many of us did not want to go into crowded commercial laundromats.  The machines in this one are adequate, but I was in another state park a couple of weeks ago where the machines were large, new front-loaders.  I love it when these washers and dryers are clean inside and have NOT had things like dog beds or sandy clothing washed in them! 

The good news is that with warmers temps, at least the mud will have turned to just dirt and at least partially solved the problems.  I am looking forward to this and also returning for two weeks to the campsites that were recently redone.

ADDENDUM:  Yesterday, I chatted with one of the park maintenance men.  They said that in November, they would begin replacing all of the campground electric hookup posts with new, taller ones that would provide 30 amp service.  This solves two of the problems I posted about in the bulleted items!  Yea!  Also, this morning, they came around and added large, white gravel around all of the current electrical posts.  This will help with the mud this time of year.  Another Yea! 

They still need to make the asphalt pads wider and repave some to make them reasonably level, but this is a good start.