Drinking water, or city water as they call it, is stored in a 20 gallon tank, waste water from the sink or shower goes into a grey tank, requiring emptying once a week, the toilet goes into a black tank, once a week is good for it also, a small panel on the wall showed the various tank levels, letting you know when to fill or empty.
All the filling and draining is done from an external under floor locker designed for this purpose. All windows have insect screens on them and venetian blinds, there are roof vents and skylights as well, all very bright.
When parked on a sunny site there are pull out blinds on both lounge windows, and on the door side a huge pull out sun awning, everything for comfort, little did I think the day would come when I could not fold up my sunshades because they were frozen solid, I will explain later.
I am now giving a lot of thought to what next, when, where to, do I have the bottle to take this monster away on my own hundreds or thousands of miles.
On a few short trips to get used to the vehicle, I quickly discovered it did not like going up hills, I know it is a big heavy beast, but this was not good. On returning to Temecula I spoke to the local garage, they at once suggested changing the fuel filter, I took it out again, back down the interstate, great going down, like a new vehicle, on the return, back to the same problem, sitting in the slow lane getting slower and slower.
Crawling up the slow lane on a fast multi lane interstate being overtaken by huge 18 wheelers did not fill me with faith, looking ahead to a long journey I had planned, driving up some high passes, driving among the Rockies, being regularly at altitudes of around five and six thousand feet.
Maybe I am expecting too much of the old girl, maybe this is a normal pace for a vehicle of this size, maybe I should have been less ambitious and bought a smaller class of motor home, I hope I have not made a mistake, I love driving it and I love the comfort and space it provides, just please make it go.
While I have been unable to set off I am getting very used to driving it, well used to taking it in and out of built up areas and garages in particular, the size is no longer an issue.I am now getting rather impatient, I have spent a lot of money, it is not working and time is passing, I want to set off on my adventure.
All this time I am living in it, I am able to park outside my son’s house and plug into his mains power, giving me my fridge/freezer, my air conditioning and lighting. I don’t expect the neighbours were overly excited with the monster parked on the street but no one said anything.
All the filling and draining is done from an external under floor locker designed for this purpose. All windows have insect screens on them and venetian blinds, there are roof vents and skylights as well, all very bright.
When parked on a sunny site there are pull out blinds on both lounge windows, and on the door side a huge pull out sun awning, everything for comfort, little did I think the day would come when I could not fold up my sunshades because they were frozen solid, I will explain later.
I am now giving a lot of thought to what next, when, where to, do I have the bottle to take this monster away on my own hundreds or thousands of miles.
On a few short trips to get used to the vehicle, I quickly discovered it did not like going up hills, I know it is a big heavy beast, but this was not good. On returning to Temecula I spoke to the local garage, they at once suggested changing the fuel filter, I took it out again, back down the interstate, great going down, like a new vehicle, on the return, back to the same problem, sitting in the slow lane getting slower and slower.
Crawling up the slow lane on a fast multi lane interstate being overtaken by huge 18 wheelers did not fill me with faith, looking ahead to a long journey I had planned, driving up some high passes, driving among the Rockies, being regularly at altitudes of around five and six thousand feet.
Maybe I am expecting too much of the old girl, maybe this is a normal pace for a vehicle of this size, maybe I should have been less ambitious and bought a smaller class of motor home, I hope I have not made a mistake, I love driving it and I love the comfort and space it provides, just please make it go.
While I have been unable to set off I am getting very used to driving it, well used to taking it in and out of built up areas and garages in particular, the size is no longer an issue.I am now getting rather impatient, I have spent a lot of money, it is not working and time is passing, I want to set off on my adventure.
All this time I am living in it, I am able to park outside my son’s house and plug into his mains power, giving me my fridge/freezer, my air conditioning and lighting. I don’t expect the neighbours were overly excited with the monster parked on the street but no one said anything.
This time the garage decided they would drop the tank and clean it, not an easy job, access is ok, but the sheer size and weight of a 60-gallon tank, similar in size to a coffin. They cleaned it as best they could, sent me off to try it again, still no better, by now I had convinced myself I had bought a pup. The garage now said it would need to be replaced, I called the nearest Ford truck garage, (I had a Ford engine and chassis) and asked if one would be available, after all it was 10 years old, they said they could have one by tomorrow, but the price would be $3000 (£1500)
The short answer to this was a call to a company in LA, who specialise in re-furbishing tanks for vintage cars, a call to them confirmed they could do it, they also stated it would come with a lifetime warranty; all I had to do was get it to them.
Next day, with the tank hanging over the tailgate of my old Dodge, it was off to find this garage in LA, thank goodness for my sat nav, LA is one vast city. A long ten days later, they said it was ready, at a cost of $60, well worth the effort. With the tank re fitted, Off I went once more, down the same stretch of road, I returned with a huge grin on my face, I now had a fit motor home.
Now I have my motor home in good working order, I can see as far as John and Connie, it is now time I moved on, I have been living with them for almost three months, a long time for even a son to put up with his father, I also feel I would like my own space, somewhere to call home, somewhere to clutter up should I wish to.
I had considered buying a lap top, it would be great to be able to e-mail as and when, but as John explained, many of the remote places I plan to go to I will not get a hook up, one more expense I could live without, I will just use my trusty Verizon cell phone.
Before I set off into the blue yonder, I have decided to spend a week at the nearest RV site, it is situated at Lake Skinner, half an hour’s drive from John's house, I want to try and be able to use all the various systems and be self sufficient.
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