Life On The Farm

We’re settling in for the third of three nights in our friends’ motorhome out here on their farm. Our fingers are crossed that Bullwinkle will be in a state of repair tomorrow that we will be allowed to move back in. If not, we’ll check in to a motel, provided we can find one, for the weekend. You see, our wonderful friends need their motorhome tomorrow night. I guess we’ll give it back!

When it comes to waiting, it’s not exactly one of our strengths. So, the last few days of being homeless have been tough.

We didn’t hear anything today, but we stopped back at the factory yesterday afternoon to pick up a few more things we needed from the moose. Although we were only inside for a few minutes (and the temp and humidity, thankfully, were much lower) we were pleased to see the top of the big troublesome slide had been replaced. With no more light streaming inside the roof of our coach, we took that as a sign of some definite progress. Our service tech said they’re squeezing in quite a few of the “little things” on our warranty repair list during lulls in this big job. So, assuming we get back in our coach tomorrow night, it’ll be interesting to see what kind of shape it’s in.

Here at factory service, they work hard to make sure every customer - well, almost everyone - gets to sleep in their coach at night. Coaches roll into service at 7 AM and roll out at 3 PM. It’s a daily Winnie parade! Then, there’s the 3:01 afternoon scramble for a place to park on the Winnebago compound. We’ve only been a part of that once. And, it was such a disaster we ended up escaping to the city park. We’re hoping the flood of post-GNR service customers will be long gone when it’s time for us to find our spot tomorrow afternoon. We shall see.

With our moose in the hospital, we’ve been hanging out on the farm with our wonderful friends. And, as anyone who has spent any time on a farm knows, there’s always something to do. So, we’ve kept ourselves busy. We’ve helped out with little projects here and there. Paul spent a couple of hours this afternoon on a John Deere lawn tractor. (He loved it!) All this activity has helped keep our minds off the moose. Plus, we need to earn our keep around here! It all beats spending day after endless day waiting in the service lobby. Our warm hosts have treated us to so much Iowa hospitality we’re feeling very spoiled. In fact, one of the projects around the farm has been installing a second 50 amp outlet so we have a spot to park with our moose. We may never leave!

Where will we find ourselves sleeping tomorrow night? Stay tuned.

Homeless

Our second day of service at the Winnie factory started innocently enough. We were in the herd of motorhomes instructed to pull in at 7:00 this morning. After we exchanged quick pleasantries with our service tech, he went to work and we headed off to Clear Lake to do a little banking and see something, anything beyond Forest City.

With cats in tow (and they so don’t love riding in the Jeep), our mission was to get our business taken care of before the heat of the day. Today’s forecast was for a high in the 90s and humidity to match. So, we were all pretty uncomfortable from the start. About 30 minutes later we landed in usually quaint Clear Lake. Today, however, it was a party scene in the making as the town was putting the final touches on tonight’s RAGBRAI stop.

The Des Moines Register’s Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa is a mobile party of some 22,000 bicyclists and their friends. It attracts folks from all over the world, and today the world was about to descend on Clear Lake. Little did we know, but soon it would all wreak havoc with our own little world. We took care of business and grabbed a quick breakfast. As we were finishing up our most important meal of the day, we got “the call”. It was our service advisor at Winnebago.

“We’re going to have to keep your coach for two or three days,” he started. “So, you’ll have to be out of it for a few nights.”

Turns out our “little” leak in our great big street side slide did a bunch of damage in the slide ceiling before revealing itself to us. The top of the slide needed to be removed and replaced. Meanwhile, we’d have to find other accommodations. With thousands of bicycling fans in town for the night, Clear Lake was clearly out of the question. So, we headed back to Forest City to see the man and find a bed for the next few nights.

Back at Winnebago, the heat and humidity were rapidly on the rise and tempers were simmering. Tired technicians, customers who want to be anywhere but here, and several dozen Winnies in need of service can be a combustible mix. Back in the day, so we’ve heard, Winnebago would put customers up at a lodge across the street when they had to spend a night or more out of their coaches. But, times are tough. These days, as we discovered (in a way that would be best described as “curt”), customers are on their own. We headed for one of the two motels in town. We asked for a room and were told there were none to be had there, or anywhere. Thanks to this Iowa bike fest, every motel and hotel room within 50 miles is booked.

Hot, humid and homeless in Forest City, Iowa. What did I do?

That’s right. I cried.

The two of us sat in the spartan lobby of the Super 8 waiting for inspiration. We needed a place to park ourselves and our two cats for the night. And, Rocky is way too small for us all, especially when the heat index is well over the century mark. Things were looking pretty dark, indeed. Then, we remembered our local Winnie friends. Paul dialed them up and explained our dilemma.

These wonderful people provided the most needed ray of sunshine! When we asked them for ideas of what to do, they insisted that we come out to their farm and make ourselves at home in their rolling home, which sits next to their sticks and bricks just outside of Forest City. When we arrived with cats in tow they gave us great big hugs, assured us that everything will be fine, and turned their coach over to us.

Part of our settling in was getting what we needed out of our moose. We made a run back to the Winnebago factory to pick up some stuff. Imagine having just a few minutes to grab from your home what you needed for yourselves and your pets for a few days of remote living. And, imagine that it feels like a sauna outside and is even hotter in the shop where your house sits with part of the roof missing. And, oh yeah, you have to wear big, plastic protective eyewear that makes sweat pour directly into both of your eyes, blinding you as you sweat like a pig. You’re hot, tired and have already been brought to tears. And, your service advisor is standing there waiting to escort you out of this sweat shop. Get the picture?

What would you take?

Alcohol was at the top of my list. Sure, sure. I know! Clothes and vital documents and such should have been first. But, after the day we’ve had, I was going to make damn sure I had a cocktail! We packed toiletries, cat food and a few other odds and ends into a couple of bags, picked up our dirty laundry and bid adieu to the good people with the power to restore our home. We wish them luck. Our moose is a mess.

Back at the farm, we cooled off and enjoyed a well-deserved happy hour. Our most generous hosts fed us dinner, treated us to a movie, offered us the use of their laundry and sent us out the back door for a good night’s rest in our temporary home.

Sitting here in a place that looks a lot like our house but isn’t, we’re counting our blessings. (The cats, on the other hand, are really confused!) Thanks to the amazing generosity of friends who just three months ago were strangers we met in a campground in Austin, Texas, tonight we are safe, sound and have a place to sleep in rural Iowa. That’s the way this incredible lifestyle works!

And, we’re thankful for one more thing: Our mess of a moose is still under warranty.

The Point

On this do-nothing day between the rally and going in for factory service, we awoke just after 7:00 and enjoyed two cups of coffee as we planned our day, then we heard the roar of diesel engines so we stepped outside and said goodbye to a couple of neighbors, then we went back inside our rolling home to kick back and relax for the morning, so I clicked through a few blogs and quickly discovered that apparently I haven’t been blogging correctly, so I spent the next hour seeing how quickly and easily I could load our two ipods full of music onto our blog so that our visitors would really be blogged, I mean bogged down and then I would be breaking all of the rules of proper blogging, then I took word verification off our comments in order to be a better blogger and an hour later I had to spend 20 minutes deleting seven comments posted to the blog...in Korean...so I put word verification back on then I tried to make the font size on the blog big, bold and beautiful, but then it gave me a migraine because it was so freakin’ big so I took two Advil and laid down for a few minutes in our cool, dark bedroom and I’d tell you more about that but I’m sure it would bore you because I’m no longer sharing the most interesting thing about life in a RV, so then, instead of giving you the minute-by-minute blow-by-blow of my day I was inspired to write this one-sentence, one-paragraph post, which once again apparently breaks all the rules, so at the risk of having no one ever again visit our blog I’m going to post it anyway because THE POINT is this is OUR blog and WE can do WHATEVER we want. The End.

Sizing up GNR

What a week!

After two or three days of heavy rain, this Iowa field we’re parked in is pretty darn soggy. And, it’s Day Two of The Great Winnie Exodus. You know what?

Big, heavy motorhomes and soggy Iowa soil don’t mix!

As we watch wreckers making their rounds this morning, we’re thankful we’re not leaving here until Monday morning. There’s not a drop of rain in the weekend forecast, so this swamp should have plenty of time to dry out. (Actually, most of the coaches leaving this morning are getting out just fine. There are just a few unlucky souls who need a little help from a great big truck.)

Between the entries in this morning’s parade of rolling homes, we’ve reflected on our first Grand National Rally. As “first timers”, we approached this GNR as an educational seminar. Other folks come for the socialization and entertainment, but we came to learn.

We learned so much!

Our chassis is no longer some mysterious hunk of steel sitting under our motorhome. We’ve seen one, bare naked, poked all around and sat down with some of the good folks at Freightliner to learn more. We’re looking forward to heading to Gaffney, SC this fall to attend Camp Freightliner for two more days of learning and reportedly darn good barbeque.

We’ve had similar learning experiences about everything from our awnings to our zerks. For four full days we sat like sponges in seminars provided by the manufacturers of our engine, transmission, generator, microwave, slide outs, levelers, towing system and satellite dish. We listened to a couple of Winnebago factory techs explain our electrical system and how to take care of everything from the fiberglass to the water tanks. And, a couple of fellow fulltiming couples shared helpful tips on organizing our RV, boondocking and living on the road. We soaked it all in. We stopped by several exhibit booths and got answers to a handful of other questions. We even learned how to change one particularly pesky lightbulb in our moose! (Really, we had to ask a professional!) And, I think we’ve decided to make the switch to Dish Network, but more on that in a future post.

Much of our learning over the last week has come from the owners of some of the 1200 other Winnies we’re sharing these water-logged grounds with. Just yesterday, with the heat and humidity well into the 80s, we had a question about our air conditioner, which wasn’t working quite like every other Winnie around us. I went in search of another ’09 Tour and found it and its owners just a few yards away. Turns out our AC was working exactly as designed, which is different from many others. And, I made a new friend! (And, our AC is just fine.) When every rig around you for a square mile or so is the same make as yours - and the factory is just across the street - you are steps away from the answer to any question.

Though our primary mission was to learn, a week of hanging around with some of the friendliest folks on the planet was icing on the cake. It’s been wonderful to catch up with old friends and make new ones from around the U.S. and Canada. We got to meet several virtual friends from an online Winnebago owners forum. It was great to put faces with the screen names! We never did hook up with Gloria and Don, who are friends of other virtual friends. And, when I went out on a mission to find fellow bloggers Chuck and Anneke, guess who stopped by our place? While I was wandering around the wrong section of the grounds, Paul got to meet them! (Next time I wander, I’m bringing my phone!) What timing! I’m hoping they’ve decided to stick around today. We’ll see.

Speaking of friendly folks, we can’t say enough about the people of Forest City. For two weeks every July the population of this little town nearly doubles. And, by the looks of things, the locals love it. They treat everyone like family. We have felt very welcome here.

There was all kinds of entertainment here this week, but the only gig we caught was the Thursday night show, which was quite enjoyable. We’ve heard rave reviews from many about this year’s entertainment. We’re sorry we missed so much of it, but after sitting in seminars all day, we were beat!

And, of course, there were beautiful motorhomes to see. Winnebago unveils its new models at GNR, and the 2011’s are very pretty. It was great to get a sneak peek. And, no, we’re not buying one!

So, see what we mean? It’s been quite a week! Definitely worth every penny, and then some.

And how many pennies did we pay for this? Well, we couldn’t remember. (We registered long ago!) So, we looked it up.

An intensive week of learning, fun and entertainment, and 11 nights of camping in a place where you feel like family: $185. (What a deal!)

The total value of our first GNR: Priceless.

Thinking About Dish

After two days of Winnie seminars our brains are overflowing! We've learned so much about so many parts of our motorhome. It's great!

Of course, there's plenty of opportunity to spend money at a rally like this. I passed on the chance to buy a variety of nifty silicone bakeware items at the Sharp Microwave class this morning. But, we did pick up a nifty new signal finder to help us point our TV antenna in the best direction to pickup digital signals. We're thinking about replacing our batwing antenna with a thing called "jack", but we're not quite sure about that. And, of course, there are lots of beautiful new motorhomes here available for purchase. But, we're all good in that department.

There's one thing we're thinking about, and we're asking for your help. After over a decade of being DirecTV customers, we're a day or two away from jumping over to Dish Network. To make a long story short, we can get HD satellite programming with our existing dome through Dish Network only. So, if we want HD, that's really the best way for us to go right now. And, with three HD TVs on board, we'll take all of the HD we can get.

Before we jump ship, we'd love to hear from you readers who are current or former Dish customers. Tell us about your experience and let us know if you would recommend 'em. We really appreciate your help.

We look forward to hearing from you. Thanks!

Pre-Rally Fun

We’re really not rally people. Small groups are more our thing. So, we’re not sure how we cooked up the the idea of traveling to northern Iowa in July to park in a big soggy field with 1,500 other motorhomes for a couple of weeks. But, we’re glad we did.

We’re here for the Winnebago-Itasca Travelers Grand National Rally. The official stuff kicks off tonight and really gets rolling tomorrow. This past week has been the un-official pre-rally, and it’s been a lot of fun. When we arrived here Thursday afternoon there were a few hundred Winnies on the grounds, and they’ve been pulling in at a steady clip since.

We scored 50AMP electrical, which is a good thing. Daytime highs have been into the 90s and although the lows have made it to near 70, the humidity has stayed north of 75%. In this mug-fest our AC has been running constantly. And, for that we are thankful! We’re off the grid when it comes to water and sewer, though. So, this is the closest thing to boondocking for us! Once upon a time we had a couple layers of wood blocks under our leveling jacks. But, all that wood has sunk deep into this rich Iowa soil. They may just serve as permanent markers of our stay here!

It’s been a treat to reconnect with friends from our “home” Winnie club. Many rallygoers are parked in rows by their home state. We’re hanging with our friends in the California row. Of course, we’re sporting our Texas plates and flying our University of Kansas flag, so nobody is sure where we’re from. We love to keep them guessing!

We went in search of and found our Winnie friends we met in Austin last winter. It’s so great to see them again. They’re locals, so they’re helping us get oriented. Yep, they’re good folks to know!

We’ve met lots of new folks already. We stopped by and visited with the Kansas crew last night, and we checked in with the Texas clan this morning. Gotta keep all of our states covered! We’re looking forward to meeting members of the WIT 365 club. There are a lot of fulltimers in that group, so it would be great to get to know them, too.

A couple of our readers have asked us to keep an eye out for Don and Gloria Martin. We’d sure like to meet them. If anybody knows where they’re parked, let us know and we’ll go say hi! Meanwhile, we’re checking nametags like a couple of hawks.

Pre-rally week has been all about socializing. The real “learning” starts tomorrow. We never would have imagined we’d be so excited to sit in on seminars about slide-outs, levelers, generators, inverters, transmissions, diesel engines and our chassis. But, we can’t wait.

We’re going to stick around after the rally to have some warranty work done at the Winnebago factory. There’s nothing seriously the matter with our moose, of course. But, there’s no better place to have all the little stuff taken care of that the place where Bullwinkle was built.

The big finale of pre-rally week was Puckerbrush Days, Forest City’s annual Summer celebration. It’s like a small town Fourth of July just a couple of weeks late. The town saves their holiday party for GNR and shares it warmly with a couple thousand Winnie owners. Although we’ve never been to Forest City before, it felt like we were part of the community.

For not being rally people, we’re having a pretty good time! If you happen to be in the neighborhood, please stop in and say hi!

More later from Forest City.

Well Shaded

What do you do with an extra day in Mitchell, South Dakota? You visit the Corn Palace, Great Clips and Walmart. Then, you nap. Oh yeah, and you watch the wind blow!

It's been a breezy, hot and humid day here. So breezy, in fact, that we probably would have decided to sit here another night had we not already decided to do that. We've paid up for our well-shaded site through tomorrow night. Until then, we're seeing the sights, kicking back and adjusting to Summer in the Great Plains. With today's highs into the 90s, our basement air is really humming!

One of today's Walmart purchases is already making life on the road a bit easier. When we were in Island Park, one of our neighbors (and, I'm sorry I can't remember whom) shared a helpful hint about how to keep kitties out of the driver's footwell in a motorhome. They screened this off-limits area with an accordion-fold car windshield shade.

Absolutely brilliant!

If you are of the feline persuasion, footwells are one of the most curious parts of a motorhome. Find your furry way into one and you have instant access to miles of sugary wires to chew on and a cavernous space deep behind that football field-sized dashboard in which to hide. (How do we know? Our boy kitty found his way into the passenger footwell in our first moose!)

Thankfully, the new moose has just one footwell. Kitty Nirvana lies just below our steering wheel. How have we kept our furry creatures out of all of that nifty stuff? We've stuffed two strips of 3-inch memory foam (left over from the bed in the first moose) in between the pedals and around the base of the steering wheel. It's not at all attractive, but it works. But, after more than a year of use, the stuff is getting dirty. And, frankly, I'm tired of stuffing the stuff at every stop.

So, while we were cruising the aisles at Walmart this afternoon, we checked out the auto care area and picked up an accordion-fold sunshade. You know, the silvery kind? We brought it home, cut about four inches off the bottom and unfolded it (silver side in) below the steering wheel. Viola! Instant cat barrier.

Sure, if they really wanted to get behind this silver and styrofoam folding screen, they could. But, out of sight out of mind. And, that's really true with cats! If they can't see it, they are not that interested.

Of course, the niftiest thing about this new addition is that it folds up in a flash, weighs next to nothing and takes up little space. That heavy memory foam is going to find its next home in a campground trash dumpster in Mitchell, SD.

And, we are now the proud owners of one well-shaded footwell!