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05-19-2021, 02:47 PM
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#41
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Site Team
Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: Spring Branch, TX
Posts: 7,817
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Stay Flexible! Make Reservations! Both!
Today we left the Upper Peninsula of Mich and planned a 130 mile trip to Mackinaw City, just over the Mackinaw Bridge. As we were driving my wife found that there was a “old growth” forest in a state park 80 miles further down the road. We were rested and the drive was enjoyable so we quickly hatched a plan to blow off two short day drives and spend two nights in the Hartwick Pines SP.
We called the SP and got a FHU Pull-Thru site and cancelled tonight and tomorrow’s reservations at two other campgrounds.
We knew that we may forfeit some money, but hey, if we wanted to save money we wouldn’t be RVing especially on a 6-week 4,300 mile trip. But by shear luck we were able to cancel with a small fee at each place.
So, we have had reservations everywhere but still stayed flexible enough to take a two day detour. Don’t let your so-called “plans” get in the way of having fun in your RV.
Here’s that old growth forest at Hartwick Pines State Park in Grayling Michigan. Trees older than the USA:
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2017 Winnebago Adventurer 37F
2016 Lincoln MKX Toad
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05-23-2021, 08:45 PM
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#42
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Site Team
Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: Spring Branch, TX
Posts: 7,817
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This weekend has taken us to two very crowded campgrounds. On Friday (5/21) we stopped at Sterling State Park in Michigan just 20 mi from Toledo.
The weather was warm ( hot) and it was a weekend at a lake. Every single site was full of families and kids and dogs and friends, too.
On Sat 5/22 we moved on to a KOA SE of Cleveland for an extended stay to visit my sister. The KOA was just as full and populated with families spending the weekend “camping”.
As we’ve traveled around and the weather has warmed we are seeing the masses of new RVers flooding campgrounds on the weekends. No doubt next week’s Memorial Day will be more of the same.
After 5-days here we head to Memphis to the most popular State Park in Tennessee. Not that we really want to be there, or for 4-days, but a Holiday weekend demands a cessation of travel and hunkering down for the duration. We certainly couldn’t be moving from place to place. Even this State Park required a 3-day minimum stay for this weekend.
If you’re camping this Memorial Day weekend be ready for crowds of new RVers with not only their families along but neighbors and friends and every one they know in tow.
Here’s a photo from Friday’s Michigan State Park - trust me it was jammed with people, pets and vehicles:
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2017 Winnebago Adventurer 37F
2016 Lincoln MKX Toad
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05-24-2021, 11:34 AM
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#43
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Site Team
Join Date: Jun 2012
Location: CA
Posts: 1,517
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We try to avoid holiday weekends when traveling, but sometimes you have to power through, like you are doing. Enjoy the holiday and safe travels to you!
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2023 Newmar Bay Star 3014, towing 2014 Honda CRV
2017 Winnebago Adventurer 35P
2013 Itasca Sunstar 26HE
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05-25-2021, 08:50 PM
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#44
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Site Team
Join Date: Jun 2012
Location: CA
Posts: 1,517
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Quote:
Originally Posted by creativepart
NOTE to self: order one of those BT/WiFi thermostats that just came out for our Coleman Mach system.
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Got it installed before our current trip and I have to say I like it a lot. Being able to see the current temp at each zone and control the AC/Heat Pumps/Furnace from my iPhone is really nice and useful if you have a pet. Thanks for the idea!
__________________
2023 Newmar Bay Star 3014, towing 2014 Honda CRV
2017 Winnebago Adventurer 35P
2013 Itasca Sunstar 26HE
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05-26-2021, 06:01 PM
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#45
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Site Team
Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: Spring Branch, TX
Posts: 7,817
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240 miles today to Cincinnati - bad roads, construction, rain and non-stop semi-trucks made for a tiring drive. You know how it is. That’s RVing.
Tonight we’re in a very nice City Parks Dept RV park. Cement pads, full hookups and surrounded by a peaceful lake - it all made up for the hard drive.
__________________
2017 Winnebago Adventurer 37F
2016 Lincoln MKX Toad
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05-29-2021, 08:14 AM
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#46
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Site Team
Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: Spring Branch, TX
Posts: 7,817
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We made it to Memphis for a 3-day stay in Meeman-Shelby Forest State Park. But not without difficulty.
About 100 mi from Memphis we stopped for gas at a Pilot Truck Stop on I-40. It’s was too crowded and we decided to move on to another station. I had room to turn all 50-some feet of RV+toad around and started my turn when I ran out of space at the very end due to a parked delivery truck.
There was nothing to do but jump out and unhook the toad so we could back up.
Did I mention it was busy and had a McDonalds drive-thru exit right there that we were blocking?
Did I mention it was raining? Hard?
Anyway, this kind of stuff happens with a 37’ motorhome pulling a SUV. Not often but it happens. This is not the bad part by the way.
We immediately set to unhooking the car and immediately see something horribly wrong with the base plate on the toad. Half of it had pulled out of the car’s front end. So, we unhook and get out of the situation and park both vehicles out of the way to consider our options... and our “good fortune” that we did not have our toad come adrift on I-40.
My wife drove the MKX and followed me the last 100 miles.
If I had some meaningful internet here, I don’t, I’d post a photo of the toad’s baseplate. Here’s my best way to describe it... seen the movie “Aliens”? Well the baseplate is coming out of the front of the car the way that Alien comes out of that body in the movie.
We are in about State Park. It’s deep in a Tennessee forest only 13-mi from the city but even with all the boosters and equipment I have I can only get 0.17 mbps of internet. Without the boosters and equipment there is zero internet so it’s been helpful to have that tiny bit.
We’re going into town the the grocery store and I’ll post a photo then.
Oh, we have 10-days and 1100 mi to go. We are still deciding what to do about that.
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2017 Winnebago Adventurer 37F
2016 Lincoln MKX Toad
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05-29-2021, 08:20 AM
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#47
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Veteran RV Owner
Join Date: Apr 2019
Location: Tampa, Florida
Posts: 120
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What manufacturer for the base plate?
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Arthur & Sheila Mullis with "Cam" the Kitty (FMCA # F474120)
Driving 2016 Winnebago Adventurer 37F, Towing 2018 Ford Explorer 4x4 Platinum
FCC License: KO4WSO
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05-29-2021, 08:31 AM
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#48
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Site Team
Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: Spring Branch, TX
Posts: 7,817
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Quote:
Originally Posted by armullis59
What manufacturer for the base plate?
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Blue Ox. Makes the baseplate. We’ve used it for ~6-yrs on two different RVs and have close to 45,000 miles of towing use on it.
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2017 Winnebago Adventurer 37F
2016 Lincoln MKX Toad
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05-29-2021, 11:52 AM
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#49
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Site Team
Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: Spring Branch, TX
Posts: 7,817
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Here’s a photo of the “alien”:
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2017 Winnebago Adventurer 37F
2016 Lincoln MKX Toad
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05-29-2021, 01:16 PM
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#50
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Site Team
Join Date: Jun 2012
Location: CA
Posts: 1,517
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Wow! Maybe it was blessing the truck was there, after all!
__________________
2023 Newmar Bay Star 3014, towing 2014 Honda CRV
2017 Winnebago Adventurer 35P
2013 Itasca Sunstar 26HE
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05-29-2021, 02:24 PM
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#51
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Site Team
Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: Spring Branch, TX
Posts: 7,817
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I hooked up the car in Cleveland on Wednesday. Spent two nights in RV park pull-thrus without unhooking. Certainly I glanced at the towbar multiple times on those two days. When we unhooked in a hurry Friday it took me a moment to realize what I was seeing.
So this happened sometime between 9am Wednesday and noon Friday. I prefer to think it happened during that turn around - but I cannot be 100% sure of that. I also prefer to think that each time I looked over the toad’s set up over those two days that I would have noticed if this had happened before Friday. But I also can’t be positive of that either.
I have not been able to get under to inspect the car and see what happened but it appears to me that the driver’s side baseplate has come unbolted to the car’s frame. It seems that one side has pulled forward but the other side is still attached. I can also see the safety chain that is attached to that side of the baseplate as a backup. It appears to be the thing holding that side of the baseplate to the driver’s side of the car.
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2017 Winnebago Adventurer 37F
2016 Lincoln MKX Toad
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05-29-2021, 02:57 PM
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#52
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Living The Dream
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: Deep In The Heart of Texas
Posts: 367
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The parked delivery truck that was in your way was a blessing!
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Warren and Debbie
2018 Winnebago View 24D
2014 Tiffin Breeze 32BR, 2012 Winnebago Navion 24G, 2006 Winnebago View 23H
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05-29-2021, 02:58 PM
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#53
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Site Team
Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: Spring Branch, TX
Posts: 7,817
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Just to mention that this was discovered on the Friday afternoon of Memorial Day weekend. So there really isn’t a possibility of having it inspected or fixed four 4-days.
__________________
2017 Winnebago Adventurer 37F
2016 Lincoln MKX Toad
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05-30-2021, 01:33 PM
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#54
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Site Team
Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: Spring Branch, TX
Posts: 7,817
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Cutting it short.
After much review we’ve decided to cut 400 miles and 4-days from our trip. We were going to go to Lake of the Ozarks and two different campgrounds from here and the travel faster toward home. We’ve canceled those reservations and made a new plan. Call it the Greatest Hits plan.
We’re headed home via three previously visited RV Parks and one new one on the way. We’ll take 4-days to travel 700 miles so it will be an easy trip.
Still a tiny bit of internet here and almost zero phone service too. I’ll post some photos of our place here after our next stop with internet.
PS. To plan the next part of the trip and cancel older reservations we had to drive 22 miles to the nearest Starbucks for internet and phone calls.
__________________
2017 Winnebago Adventurer 37F
2016 Lincoln MKX Toad
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05-30-2021, 04:17 PM
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#55
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Site Team
Join Date: Jun 2012
Location: CA
Posts: 1,517
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Probably for the best. Have a safe and uneventful trip home!
__________________
2023 Newmar Bay Star 3014, towing 2014 Honda CRV
2017 Winnebago Adventurer 35P
2013 Itasca Sunstar 26HE
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05-30-2021, 05:05 PM
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#56
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Site Team
Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: Spring Branch, TX
Posts: 7,817
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Follow camper looked over my baseplate and pointed out that the flat metal piece on the right resting exposed on top of the bumper cover has a sharp ragged end where it broke away from what he guesses was the part bolted to the frame. I think he’s correct it’s an obvious break in a thick heavy plate.
When we take apart the front end I’m thinking we’ll find the other part of that plate still bolted to the frame.
Here’s a picture of the broken plate it looks pretty straight but look close it’s a ragged break in the mounting plate of the baseplate.
__________________
2017 Winnebago Adventurer 37F
2016 Lincoln MKX Toad
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05-31-2021, 12:02 PM
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#57
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Site Team
Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: Spring Branch, TX
Posts: 7,817
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Ah... internet again. How nice.
We were due to leave our State Park north of Memphis tomorrow. But because the I-40 bridge over the Mississippi is out all traffic is routed to the only other bridge on I-55.
During normal weekdays it has been averaging 54 minutes to get across. So, we reasoned that Memorial Day, in the morning would be better. And it was, no hold up at all. We just drove across with heavy traffic but no delays. That is why we left a day early.
It doesn’t hurt that we found a RV park just 65 miles from Memphis with full hook ups and INTERNET! This campground is a no frills “stop over” place. Right off I-40, there is no pool, no bathrooms, no showers. Just about all pull-thru sites. The kind of place RVs need on their way from point A to point B to stop for a night. It was $25 a night but during the pandemic it’s gone up to $35 a night but it’s full every night the owner says.
See the photo below:
Tomorrow we start for home with a 160 mi trip back to Hot Springs, AR.
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2017 Winnebago Adventurer 37F
2016 Lincoln MKX Toad
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05-31-2021, 12:12 PM
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#58
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Site Team
Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: Spring Branch, TX
Posts: 7,817
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Here is our campsite in Meeman-Shelby Forest State Park. When we arrived it was raining and crowded and we had had a bad day so everything was “dumb and ugly” but, as the weather improved so did our estimation of the park.
It’s in a forest so not much sun gets through and the mud takes ages to dry out.
We lead internet-dependent lives so three days with nearly zero I-net was not fun for us.
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2017 Winnebago Adventurer 37F
2016 Lincoln MKX Toad
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06-05-2021, 07:11 AM
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#59
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Site Team
Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: Spring Branch, TX
Posts: 7,817
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HOME.
We got home yesterday after 38-days and 4,109 miles. We cut the trip short by 4-days and a few hundred miles after the Blue Ox baseplate broke on our toad.
It was a great trip but it is good to be home. The last four days were different because all we did was drive each day and my wife wasn’t at my side helping to navigate she was following me (and our dog) in the not-being-towed toad. That really changed the dynamic of those days.
I did learn that without the toad it’s vastly easier to fuel up and that the RV’s mileage improves from an average of 6.3 mpg to 7.0 mpg. But not having a driving partner is much more difficult especially driving through cities - I’m talking about you Dallas/Fort Worth!
Here’s a photos from our last stop... the same RV park in Glen Rose, TX which was our first stop of this trip.
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2017 Winnebago Adventurer 37F
2016 Lincoln MKX Toad
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06-05-2021, 07:16 AM
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#60
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Site Team
Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: Spring Branch, TX
Posts: 7,817
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Thanks for following along with us on this lengthy trip.
I’ve sent photos of the broken baseplate to Blue Ox and received one email asking for info. I’ll be sure to report what transpires on this in the coming weeks.
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2017 Winnebago Adventurer 37F
2016 Lincoln MKX Toad
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