Life’s Curveballs

If you read my about page you know that I have 9 dogs but what I didn’t mention was that I play a dog sport with most of them called Flyball. I have a link to my Flyball blog in the Blogroll of this site where you will find other links about Flyball.

The Good

My wife and I travel a lot with our dogs to Flyball sporting events all over the southeast and having an RV really helps, for most motels do not look to kindly on 7 or 8 dogs in one room and most of the time we have to lie about how many dogs we have with us. A few years ago while checking into a Fort Lauderdale Florida motel the desk clerk asked if I had pets and I told him that I had 5 dogs with me. The clerk knew that we had dogs because the club holding the Flyball event had arranged ahead of time with the motel but the clerk still told me, with some discuss, “We’re not a kennel you know.”

The really cool thing about having an RV is just being able to stop anywhere for the night. Most Wal-Marts allow RVs to park in their lots for the night and there is even a directory with directions to every Wal-Mart in the country. We have spent the night in many a Wal-Mart parking lot.

The Bad

RV first timers should have an older RV because you may not know what you need or how you will use the RV and spending a bunch of money on a new one and then finding out that it’s not right for you can be expensive. However, having a used older RV also has its drawbacks because of repair bills. So, it’s somewhat of a Catch-22 and you have to weigh the good with the bad.

One other reason the first time RV owner should think about, and another good reason to get a used RV is that you are going to make mistakes. What I mean by that is that you are going to break stuff or run into something. I consider myself to be a good driver but have hit signs with my right outside mirror twice now. The second time it nearly ripped it off and duct tape is a necessity when traveling in an RV. It sound funny now but at the time, I was livid.

Another thing that is funny now but not so funny when it happened is the loss of my RV’s TV antenna. We were attending a Flyball tournament in Huntsville Alabama and we stayed in our RV very close to the Flyball venue. However, where we parked during the night was a good distance and down a hill from the building where the event was being held. It was a much-wooded area where we parked on Friday night before the tournament. Saturday morning was a rush to get everything stowed away so we could drive up the hill to the building and I forgot to roll down the TV antenna. We almost made it to the building but had to pass beneath a rather large tree. My heart just sank when I heard the noise of the antenna being ripped from the roof of my RV and immediately knew what the sound was. I heard the little noise that you heard in your head after something like this, CHI CHING!

The Ugly

Repair bills have to be the ugliest part of RV ownership. While traveling to Chattanooga Tennessee a few months ago and about 100 miles from Chattanooga we stopped at a highway rest area to walk the dogs. It was very hot so I left the RV run so it would be cool for the dogs still in the RV. While returning to the RV to after one round of walks, I noticed some kind of fluid pooling under the engine area of the RV. Saying this was not good is an understatement. On closer inspection, I found that it was transmission fluid and it was being pumped out at an alarming rate. Can you say AAA?

I knew we were about 15 miles from the next exit and a larger town so we quickly loaded up the dogs and proceeded to the exit. I found a transmission repair shop for large vehicles but they were getting ready to close for the day, and it was a Friday afternoon and they were closed for the weekend. The mechanic told me, something that I already knew, not to drive the RV too far. We were stuck but the good thing was that we had an RV and there was an RV park only about 2 miles from the shop. We were very fortunate to have another vehicle with us or we would have really been in hurting status. We spent the weekend at the park and then drove the RV back to the shop on Monday morning.

The funniest thing about this whole episode is when I returned to retrieve the RV later in the week. The transmission repair bill totaled $782. A seal caused the problem but they also needed to replaced the torque converter. The bill was not funny but when I met the mechanic he said, “Did you have a muffler and tailpipe when you came in here?” My mouth was wide open, you could have driven an RV through it, and I said WHAT? He wasn’t joking and he asked me the same question. I said “Hell Yes I had a muffler and tailpipe. “ After some hammering and stammering, the manager agreed to pay the muffler and tailpipe repair bill.

It doesn’t stop here because my RV is in the shop again for an electrical problem that probably won’t be cheap. An electrical circuit board that is not made anymore got fried when I had both A/Cs running and then decide to make diner rolls in my convection oven. That is something that they don’t tell you in the owners manual and is what the circuit board is for to shut down circuits so the system is not over loaded, go figure!

The saga continues.