We switched R2’s dashboard computer over to the metric system and started to familiarize ourselves with driving in Canada. Apart from the obviously different KPH speed limits (110 KPH is around 70 MPH), we had a surprisingly hard time figuring out what all the symbols meant on the highway information signs! Turns our we’re not the only ones—when I searched the Internet for answers, I found several other articles with similar themes. Take a quick detour and read through this one for a fun look at some Canadian highway signs!

Our base of operations for the week was Sussex, New Brunswick. While not exactly close to anything we wanted to do, it was centrally located enough that we could park R2 there and do a LOT of driving in Red to explore the area. The alternative would have been packing up and moving R2 every couple days which seemed like more of a hassle. We also quickly discovered that while the main Canada highways are generally in excellent condition and great to drive in the rig, most of the secondary roads to the places we wanted to visit were in terrible condition. While driving them in the car we commented on how the road’s patches have patches, and so on. The Sussex KOA was a pretty good place to camp for 6 nights, though we only had 30-amp electrical service at our site (which is going to be a theme during our stay in Canada) so we had to be careful with air conditioner, water heater, and kitchen appliance use.

We made three big excursions from our Sussex home base: 1) the Fundy Trail Parkway; 2) Fundy National Park; and 3) Hopewell Rocks.

Fundy Trail Parkway

The first excursion, at around one hour along winding, bumpy roads, was the Fundy Trail Parkway. This is a non-profit coastal park featuring a 19-mile drive hugging the shore and cliffs of the Bay of Fundy. There are dozens of parking areas along the way, each with trails, overlooks, picnic tables, and attractions like beaches or waterfalls. There’s even a 38-mile trail that runs the length of the park and continues eastward to Fundy National Park, with more than 8,000 feet of elevation gain to deal with! The park is relatively new and the road is still being extended and will connect with Fundy National Park in a couple more years, making the park even more accessible.

A “flowerpot” formation created by erosion from the extreme tides. Also check out the close-up photo below.

Much of the coastal geology in the area is shaped by the massive tides created in the Bay of Fundy. A few factors combine to give the Bay the highest tides in the world… over a 50-foot difference between low and high tide in some areas! You can read more about how the tides work at the Bay of Fundy web site. Visiting anyplace along the bay can be a completely different experience during low tide vs. high tide!

With the park being so far from “civilization”, we were pleasantly surprised to find it nearly deserted during our visit. We stopped at many of the overlooks to take in the beaches, cliffs, and rock formations, and rarely saw another person. Along the way we took a few relatively short hikes to streams, waterfalls, vistas, and across a long pedestrian suspension bridge over the Big Salmon River. Opie isn’t crazy about bridges like that, but he did great and was rewarded on the other side with a fun soak in the cool river water. We bought a picnic lunch (OK, it was a sandwich from Subway) and ate on a bench overlooking Fuller Falls. We stopped by the visitor center to refill our water bottles and Opie was treated by the staff to a dog biscuit which he immediately devoured.

Eventually we made it to the current end of the road (construction of the next segment is ongoing), and took a longer hike to the Walton Glen Gorge Falls Observation Deck that sounded very beautiful in the brochure! Now try to imagine the look on our faces when we finally made it to the end of the hike and were greeted by a fenced in area with a big sign reading: “Future site of Walton Glen Gorge Falls Observation Deck”! With a little creating tip-towing and peering over the fence we caught a glimpse of the gorge, and were able to stick our phones through the fence slats to get a photo, but the falls were mostly obscured from our location. Hopefully we’ll return in a few years and can get a better look!

Glen Gorge

Fundy National Park

Next up was a trip to Fundy National Park to do some real hiking. The drive from Sussex was an easy 30 minutes to the park entrance, then another 15 minutes to our trailhead. The entrance booth was unmanned when we arrived a little after 9am so we pulled into the visitor center to pay the park entry fee and get advice on the trail.

Our goal was to combine two different hikes into one longer loop. The Laverty Falls trail (3 miles out-and-back) and Moosehorn trail (6 mile out-and-back) both start at the same parking area, and both end at Laverty Falls, just following different routes to get there. We decided (after reading advice online) to hike the Moosehorn trail to the falls, then take the Laverty trail back to the parking area, for a total of 4.5 miles.

The first half of the Moosehorn Trail (three photos above) was a steep downhill trek through a pretty forest, eventually turning into switchbacks as we descended toward Broad River. Opie was excited when passed our first of several waterfalls, so he could go cool off (somewhat awkwardly) in the small pools under the falls. Eventually we made it to the river and started the second half of the trail, which follows the river upstream to Laverty Falls.

We love trails that follow rivers! Of course half of that is because Opie is so happy to be wet all the time, but the waterfalls, rocks, scenery, and sounds of rushing water are just wonderful! Much like the Fundy Trail, we found the trail to be almost entirely deserted… our kind of hike! It wasn’t until we made it to Laverty Falls that we started running into people. It seems most visitors just take the shorter Laverty Falls trail directly to the falls and then return the same way, since it’s faster and easier. When we returned via that route we passed dozens of people, and found the trail to be fairly uninteresting, just a way to get to the falls. We’re so glad we took the Moosehorn trail!

Hopewell Rocks

Our final excursion from Sussex was to Hopewell Rocks, which is near the end of the Bay of Fundy and receives some of the highest tides in the bay. The tides have created many interesting rock formations which draw tourists from all over. The tides take around six hours to go from low to high, then another six back to low, for a total of 12 hours for each full cycle. We timed our visit to arrive an hour after low tide so we could still walk the exposed ocean floor and see the full rock formations, but also be able to stick around for a few hours to see how things changed when the tides came back up. The photo at the top of this page is of the rock formations at Hopewell Rocks.

Because the tides are constantly churning up the water and eroding the cliffs, most of the ocean floor/beach is actually a thick, gooey reddish mud. Our sneakers (and Opie’s feet) were pretty gross after walking around, but fortunately there are a couple of shoe-washing stations in the park. If you visit, just be prepared and don’t wear anything too fancy!

Overall we were a bit underwhelmed by Hopewell Rocks. There wasn’t a lot to see that we hadn’t already seen elsewhere, and at 90 minutes each way it was quite a drive. Another contributing factor was that Opie doesn’t really settle down when we go out… he like to be always-in-motion which is why long hikes are so good with him. Hopewell Rocks is a pretty small place and he quickly got bored. This was also the first place in Canada that we ran into actual crowds, probably because of its fame and proximity to the large city of Moncton, so walking him along crowded paths and staircases required our full attention. If we’d left Opie at home we probably would have stayed longer, been more relaxed, and enjoyed our visit more, but even so, Fundy National Park and the Fundy Trail Parkway are much more our style and are places we’d love to re-visit in the future!

Parting Thoughts

Of all the road signs along the highway, this one gave us the most trouble, and we saw it pretty frequently. I’d say you should make some guesses before checking the answer, but I fear it would be futile (though entertaining, so guess away!):

Logo for a new Star Trek reboot?

We had to look it up. It’s the symbol for the Stonehammer Geopark, because “…the Stonehammer logo recognizes some of the many geological features of the park and the connection between people and geology. The central symbol is the trilobite in honour of one of our best-known fossils”. Yep, that was gonna be my next guess.

Consider yourself educated!

Hiking with Opie at Jonathan Dickinson State Park, Jupiter FL

We escaped chilly DC in mid-December and settled in at Jonathan Dickinson State Park in south-eastern Florida. This is the winter Florida we think of: full of palm trees, warm sun, beaches. Unfortunately dogs are not permitted on the beaches and all the freshwater sources contain alligators, so Opie did not get many chances to get his swim on. The park has a lot of great areas for walking and miles of biking trails. There’s a newer section for RVs close to the entrance of the park with large paved sites and full hookups. Four miles further inside the park, there’s an older section right next to the Loxahatchee River where the views are nicer but the sites are older and smaller. Some of the walking trails were also located in this area so we had to drive here when Opie got bored of the trails around our campsite. You can also rent canoes, kayaks, and bikes at the camp store by the visitor’s center. It’s a nice campground and since Jupiter is a big tourist town, it’s easy to find places to eat or things to do nearby.

While at JD Park, we did hang out with a couple we met at Red Bay while our coaches were being built, and compared notes on modifications, hacks, and complaints. It was fun talking to another Phaeton 40 IH owner and seeing the experiences they were having. We also met Melinda and Erik (Pookie and the Bear) and spent a day relaxing with them. After our brief flirt with winter in Virginia, it was great to get back into our preferred “follow the sun” RV weather!

Oops!

Next we headed to Mom’s for our traditional winter visit. In Rover, we’ve been able to (just barely) fit into her driveway but R2 is four feet longer, so we knew that wouldn’t be possible. We decided to try parking on her large, empty lot alongside her house during our visit. Unfortunately, while we made it into the lot ok, we miscalculated just how R2’s impressive weight would react with Florida’s soft, sandy soil. When we turned R2’s wheels, they dug right into that soft Florida sand and got stuck good! The more we tried to get out, the more our tires dug into the sand. After some hours of digging and trying to use R2’s jacks to lift us out, we gave up and went for professional help.

Time for extraction…

Prompt Towing did a fantastic job of pulling R2 onto more solid ground. We were heavy enough that while his truck pulled us out, we pulled his big truck sideways along the yard! Thankfully, he was able to get us free and back onto solid ground.

Staying with Mom is always wonderful since Kathie can take over the dining room for her sewing, Opie can swim in her pool every day, and we are all fed non-stop! When it was time to leave, Opie flopped belly-up onto the front lawn and wouldn’t budge. We actually had to half drag, half carry him into R2!

Time to trim the trees at Hillsborough State Park

From Mom’s house, we headed to Hillsborough State Park in Thonotosassa, just north of Tampa. It’s a much older state park with some very narrow roads, cramped sites, and low hanging tree branches. It’s always a little traumatic hearing tree branches scraping our roof, especially since R2 was still so new! Here, the palm trees are edged out by willows and pine trees, giving a more rainforest feel to the campgrounds. We enjoyed the hiking trails through the park although we did see some massive alligators sunning themselves along the shores. Since we walked right by the river, Opie would regularly yank us towards the water but we steadfastly refused to let him in. I’m sure he was very confused! While at the park we met up with our friends Jeff and Sue to do some fun biking near the park and catch up. The last time we crossed paths was in Heber City, UT, and we’re still amazed and delighted how often we cross paths with friends all across the country!

After Hillsborough we headed east to Orlando. We’ve stayed at Bill Frederick Park at Turkey Lake (a city-run park) twice before and loved it. This time we found that while Rover’s 37′ length was manageable, R2’s 41′ made enough of a difference that it was very tricky navigating the campground’s twisty narrow road. When we made it to the site we’d reserved months before, there was another rig already in it! After an hour or two of discussions with the office about their error (the other rig just arrived that weekend and “the computer” put them in our site by mistake), they put us into a spare site for the night and we moved to our reserved site the next day. [Photo, top of page]

Spending the day at Epcot Center

While in Orlando we spent a day visiting Epcot Center which we hadn’t been to in a long time. It was more crowded than we expected (we try to visit off-peak) but was a fun day nonetheless. We spent most of our time walking around the World Showcase, and missed most of Future World. We did try to sample as many different cuisines (if you can call country-themed amusement park food “cuisine”) as possible, until we were stuffed. While Epcot doesn’t have a lot of rides, there are some great displays and showcases and we’ll have to set aside two full days to see it all the next time we visit Epcot.

Time for R2’s first weigh-in since we loaded him up

Next up was a short drive to Silver Springs State Park in Ocala FL. We took a slight detour to visit the Escapees Smart Weigh station in Florida to get R2 weighed for the first time with all our “stuff” in him. It looks like we’re carrying around 3,000 lbs. of cargo, including the water we had in our tanks at the time. With R2’s impressive carrying capacity, that means we still have another almost 3,000 lbs. of capacity left if needed (we’re still arguing over who gets to fill that extra space).

Silver Springs State Park, Ocala FL

We immediately loved Silver Springs State Park… it had a wonderful feel, and being in a mature pine forest meant it smelled fantastic as well. The campground was quite large, with big private sites and lots of space for dog walks, while being close to town for some stores and restaurants, with the “city” of Ocala a little further away. We only reserved a week, but wished we had booked two! We took one afternoon to rent a 2-person kayak and explore the river, spotting alligators, lots and lots of turtles, anhinga (long-necked birds), and other wildlife along the way. It was a fun and relaxing time and we highly recommend it.

Just a couple miles from the park is a public disc golf course, where we finally got to break in our new (cheap) golf discs for the first time. The course was in a bit of flux, possibly due to recent hurricane activity, which meant that some of the holes and tees were poorly marked and we got lost a couple of times looking for the next tee! We laughed off our mistakes and kept playing, getting better and better as the day went on, which was a nice experience. We also found a nice dog park nearby where Opie got to interact with other dogs for a change, and splash around in their kiddie pool to relieve some of his disappointment at not being allowed in the alligator-rich lakes and rivers.

After a short drive to west side of Ocala we settled into Rainbow Springs State Park. After being so impressed by Silver Springs (a definite “10” in our book), we found Rainbow Springs to be a bit of a letdown. The campground was very small, there wasn’t much to do, and town was much further away. The campground didn’t have much character, and we rarely saw other campers out enjoying themselves. There were a couple short trails around the campground that were nice for dog walks. During the summer, tubing down the river is a big draw at the park, despite the signs warning of alligators!

Rainbow Springs State Park

We continued slowly making our way north up I-75, this time stopping at the Stephen Foster Folk Culture Center State Park (now that’s a mouthful) north of Lake City FL. The park is named for the 1800s American songwriter and hosts the world’s largest tubular bell carillon which traditionally sounds throughout the day. Unfortunately, the carillon is currently not functioning and is in need of expensive repairs. We explored the free Stephen Foster museum at the park and learned quite a bit about Foster’s history and impact. There are many trails through the park, but during our visit most of them were closed, perhaps due to hurricane cleanup efforts.

The (inoperative) tubular bell tower at Stephen Foster Folk Culture Center

While at the park we made a new friend… Buddy! Buddy’s a stray dog who had been living in the campground all winter after being abandoned there in November. By the time we arrived, he was just starting to become trusting of people, and followed us (and other campers walking dogs) around pretty often. Most of the campers were friendly toward Buddy, though a few were clearly uncomfortable and shooed him away. By the time we were ready to leave, he was as friendly and approachable as any house pet… which unfortunately meant the park rangers decided it was time to catch and remove him! While we gave some thought to adding another dog to our home, we knew the time wasn’t right, but fortunately another RVing couple at the campground took Buddy in literally minutes before the rangers were to take him. A happy ending!

Buddy.

After a long haul across Florida’s panhandle, we arrived at Topsail Hill State Park near Destin. Last year we camped for a few days at a different state park in the area, but the two couldn’t be any more different! While Henderson Beach was secluded and quiet, Topsail Hill is a former RV resort that was absorbed by the state park. It’s a giant campground with a pool and other amenities, including full hookups. While sites aren’t as private as other state parks (and the quality of sites varies greatly), our site was excellent and we’re glad we booked two weeks at Topsail Hill. There were plenty of trails through the park for long dog walks, and the large size of the campground meant plenty of room for quick easy walks.

Destin seems to be a magnet for RVers in winter. We ran into some old friends there last year, and made a few new ones. This year there were so many RVers we knew (or met) that we were busy socializing almost every day! If you know us, that’s a strange statement to make, but it was great fun spending time with Indoor Nomads, Nealys on Wheels, RV-A-GoGo, D20 Nomads, Itinerant Life, RollingwithKC, Debbie/Pat, Dawn, and Jenny/Chris. We played lots of table top games, learned a whole bunch of new ones, ate and drank too much, and got to see D20’s hand painted geek/nerd sci-fi/gaming trailer Floki just before they upgraded to a new rig.

Even Opie had a great time here in Destin. Destin received about 36 hours of straight rain while we were there, making for some impressive size puddles on the trails. Since we didn’t let Opie into the alligator waters, he was happy to swim in the puddles instead. Plus Opie had a chance to do morning hikes with other dogs and loved the camraderie.

When our max two-week stay was up, we departed Florida and made our way to Meaher State Park in Alabama for a week of much needed introvert quiet time, as well as time to catch up on chores and hobbies. We found Meaher State Park’s campground to be nice, but very small. Strangely, there wasn’t any more to the state park beyond the campground and a boat launch. That was a problem for our dog walks… when we think state park, we think large spaces with trails to explore, but we walked Opie from one end to the other in about five minutes and then started wondering where else we could walk him. We did find another public park across the street which was somewhat larger, but that park closed at 5pm every day and required crossing four lanes of busy 60 MPH highway on foot. As a place to stop at while traveling I-10, Meaher works out great, but in the future we wouldn’t stay more than a night or two here.

Sunset at Meaher State Park

Our last state park for a little while was Bayou Segnette State Park just south of New Orleans, Louisiana. We visited New Orleans during our first year of RV life, and we stayed at a KOA west of the city (we didn’t know much about state parks yet back then). Bayou Segnette had a very large campground and we found plenty of places to walk Opie, though all were more paved walkways than trails. It was about a 20-minute drive to the French Quarter which wasn’t bad, all things considered. As an alternative, you can drive to a nearby ferry which will cross the Mississippi and drop you close to the French Quarter, but we didn’t try that method. Ben and Lanni (Indoor Nomads) joined us again and we finally got our fill of tabletop gaming, something we haven’t been able to do nearly enough of while on the road.

One of the many spontaneous music groups along the New Orleans streets at night

Since we’d done quite a bit of exploration during our first visit (WWII museum, garden district, bus tour, etc.) this time we wandered the streets, catching the sounds of music from bars, eating pralines and beignets, and enjoying the sights and sounds. It was surprisingly empty and quiet in early March… I guess everyone was still recovering from Mardi Gras!

While in New Orleans we also attempted our first Escape Room. We’ve seen many friends post about them on Facebook and weren’t quite sure what to expect… would it be lame? awesome? somewhere in the middle? We’re thrilled to report it was a lot of fun and the room we did (Escape My Room’s Jazz Parlor) was very well made. The rooms are designed for 4-6 people, and it’s best to go with friends like we did, rather than get matched up with strangers. We examined the clues in our room, put pieces of the puzzle together, and eventually discovered a secret door to an adjoining room where more of the story unfolded and more clues awaited. I won’t go into more detail here as I don’t want to spoil it for anyone else… but we do highly recommend this escape room!

We escaped!

At this point our state park tour was over… for a little while. Next up, a side-trip to Katy TX to catch up with old friends!

In case you missed it, we’re upgrading to a new motorhome! In our last two blog posts we discussed what we’re doing and why, and how our new diesel chassis differs from Rover’s gas chassis. In this post we’ll talk about some of the ways our new house (the box we live in, sitting on top of the chassis) differs.

House

Probably the biggest difference in our new house will be more space inside. While we’re pretty comfortable in Rover, a little more breathing room will go a long way. Our new Phaeton will be four feet longer (41′ 4″ instead of 37′ 6″), but more importantly will have slide-out rooms on both sides, making the inside a couple feet wider. It may not sound like much, but when your house is eight feet wide, an extra two feet makes a big difference! Below are the floor plans for our new 40 IH Phaeton (top) and our current 36 LA Allegro (bottom):

New 40IH and old 36LA floorplans.

While those two slide-outs on the passenger side will cut into our outdoor campsite space, they provide some great indoor space. We also like some of the floor plan changes, such as having our dinette on the passenger side so we can see our campsite (rather than our neighbor’s campsite) while eating, and a more unified living room area in the front (which includes the swiveling front seats).

The extra space, and the ability to carry lots of additional weight, also translates into quite a few extra “luxury” amenities. While none are really necessary, we have to admit we’re looking forward to quite a few of them! We’ll soon have a king size bed (Opie takes up a lot of space), a dishwasher, separate clothes washer and dryer, a big kitchen pantry, a larger wardrobe, a pull-out kitchen counter extension, induction cooktop, and more.

2018 Tiffin Phaeton 40 IH main living area – catalog photo

We’ve learned over the years that in the summer an RV is basically a big solar oven that’s difficult to keep cool (though Yuma in July was probably an unfair test), and in the winter it can be drafty inside, with a very cold floor due to being up off the ground with cold air flowing underneath us. We’ll now have three air conditioners with three heat pumps (vs. two and one in Rover), a diesel-fired AquaHot hydronic heat system that also provides unlimited instant hot water (no more involuntary cold showers), and double-pane flush-mounted windows. Oh, and heated floors! Yep, now we’re really roughing it!

If you know me well, you know I have a thing for home automation. In our old “sticks and bricks” house we could control all our lights, thermostats, and music from a web page or iPhone. This is one area where RV technology has lagged far behind. Our thermostat in Rover is a bit of a dinosaur, and because RV HVAC systems work differently than normal homes, it’s not been possible to replace it with a Nest or similar “smart/programmable” thermostat. That’s why I’m really excited that the 2018 Phaetons have a new in-wall touch screen system that can control practically everything in the coach! Here’s a look at our current thermostat (top) and the Phaeton’s new HVAC controls (bottom):

Now that’s an upgrade!

The touchscreen can control the lights (which are now dimmable), fans, water pump, generator, slide-outs, electrical system, and more. Best of all, some clever Tiffin owners have built a small device called CoachProxy to tap into this control system and provide WiFi access, remote access via cell phone, and programmability. I can’t wait to get my hands on it to start automating! Here’s a look at the touch screen showing the Phaeton’s electrical system monitoring and management:

Monitoring and controlling the RV electrical systems.

All this extra technology does come at a cost – increased electrical consumption. Fortunately, the Phaeton’s house battery bank is much heftier than Rover’s: 900 amp-hours (Ah) of AGM batteries, vs. 400 Ah of flooded batteries in Rover. In real-world usage that’s three times the capacity, since we can safely draw the AGM batteries down further than the flooded batteries, which we try to never draw below 50%. We also ordered an upgraded solar pre-wire package from Tiffin so we’ll have nice heavy solar wiring from the roof to the battery compartment for when we decide to add solar panels again.

Of course, one of the most important (and toughest) decisions is always what color to get! Typically each model RV only comes in eight or so different color schemes, where each scheme comprises four different colors arranged in swirls and swoops. When we ordered Rover in 2013 we got a tip that there was a secret “unpublished” color scheme called “NASA” which was monochrome. Since nearly every motorhome we had seen was a combination of brown and gold, we opted for NASA. Fast forward to 2018 and NASA is an official color scheme and we see monochrome motorhomes everywhere now!

Tiffin’s wall of color schemes

For the 2018 Phaeton, there were two color schemes that we liked: Maroon Coral and White Mahogany, which is pictured at the top of this blog post. But while we were visiting the Tiffin paint factory we spotted an Allegro Bus (a higher-end motorhome than the Phaeton) with a beautiful deep blue stripe across it. We haven’t really seen any blue in motorhomes before, with reds, browns, and golds still being in almost every scheme, so it really caught our eye.

The elusive Pacific Blue color on an Allegro Bus.

None of the Phaeton color schemes have any blue in them, but we spent some time at the paint shop office and they helped us design a custom color scheme for our rig (for a fee, of course) using white, silver, blue, and grey. Unfortunately, their printouts really look nothing like the final product (there’s only so much a color laser printer can do), so we expect our new rig to look quite a bit better than the printout from the paint shop, below:

A poor representation of our future paint scheme

To try and get a better feel for it, I took a Phaeton render from the Tiffin web site and tried to “photoshop” our two color changes onto it (below). I think it’s a bit closer to reality, but we won’t know how it will really look until it’s done. We’re taking a bit of a risk, but hoping it works out for the best! Either way, we’ll have a unique color scheme and will never “pass ourselves” going down the highway…

My attempt to mock up the final result in a paint program.

We’re really looking forward to watching our build in September! When we watched Rover’s build in early 2014 we often had no idea what we were looking at or what to pay attention to, being new to RVs and motorhomes. This time around with all our experience living, driving, customizing, and repairing Rover, we think we’ll get a lot more out of the build process. Plus, instead of only having three days in Alabama we’ll be there for three weeks and will see far more of the process, including the chassis, painting, and final inspections and quality checks.

Check back in with us in September for progress on our build. Hopefully by then we’ll also have chosen a name for our new traveling companion!

Note: “Roughing it… smoothly” is Tiffin’s corporate motto.

If you read our last blog post, you know that we’re in the process of upgrading to a new motorhome! While our upcoming Tiffin Phaeton has DNA in common with our current Tiffin Allegro, there’s quite a lot that’s different. These differences fall into two main categories: the engine & chassis (the stuff that moves us around), and the house (the box we live in). In this article we’ll talk about the some of the engine and chassis differences.

Engine and Chassis

There are two conflicting sentiments in the RV community about diesel motorhomes. One says: “You drive your motorhome 10% of the time, and live in it (parked) 90% of the time, so don’t waste money on a diesel engine and chassis that only benefits you 10% of the time.” The other sentiment says: “Don’t test-drive a diesel motorhome unless you’re prepared to buy one.”

When shopping for our first motorhome in late 2013 we avoided any opportunities to drive a diesel pusher. We’d been told over and over that the difference is like night and day, and we’d never be satisfied with a gas rig if we’d driven a diesel. Well, we’ll soon have a chance to put that assertion to the test!

Tiffin PowerGlide Chassis

Rover is built on a Ford F53 chassis with a Ford V10 gas engine in the front. Think of him as a really long and fancy U-Haul truck! He’s never failed to get us over a mountain or across the country, but he doesn’t always do it in comfort. With the big engine roaring right in front of us it can be hard to carry on a conversation while climbing hills. With all his weight resting on springs, the ride can be bouncy and jarring. With a zero-to-sixty time measured in decades (slight exaggeration), it can be stressful merging onto busy highways. His chassis is rated for a maximum of 24,000 lbs. but he weighs almost 21,000 lbs. completely empty, so we can only carry 3,000 lbs. of “stuff” with us. That sounds like plenty until you consider that a full tank of water weighs 650 lbs., a full tank of propane weighs 80 lbs., Opie weighs 80 lbs., and Kathie and I weigh <REDACTED>! We’ve gotten weighed a few times and we’re usually close to our limit. Below we weighed in at 23,500 lbs., and that was with a mostly-empty fresh water tank:

Does my tow car make me look fat?

The Phaeton is a “diesel pusher”: diesel because of the engine type, and pusher because the engine is in the rear, not the front. While most diesel motorhome chassis are made by Freightliner, ours (called a PowerGlide chassis) is custom made by Tiffin for a subset of their motorhomes. This lets them integrate the design of the house and chassis to provide a better overall solution vs. working around a 3rd party chassis design. The PowerGlide chassis provides taller and more spacious basement cargo compartments, an independent front suspension, improved electrical wiring, and more.

The front of a Tiffin PowerGlide chassis.

The Cummins L9 turbodiesel engine in our new rig will provide 1,150 ft-lbs of torque (vs. Rover’s 420 ft-lbs) for better acceleration, easier mountain climbing, and includes a significantly better Allison 3000 transmission. Air brakes and the two-stage compression brake easily keep speeds under control while descending big mountains. The air suspension is reportedly much more comfortable than springs, and with the engine in the back, it’s essentially inaudible from the cockpit. And while the diesel chassis weighs a ton more (6 tons more, actually), it can also carry a lot more weight. Our new cargo carrying capacity will be 6,000 lbs., double Rover’s. Now, whether to fill that extra capacity with 3,000 lbs. of Coke (me), fabric (Kat), or treats (Opie) remains an open question.

Bright red makes it go faster!

There are a lot of other benefits, some big (for us), some small. For example, buying fuel will be much easier now… no more checking Google satellite view for every single gas station to find one that we can fit into! With Rover’s fuel fill on the rear cap, 38′ behind the front of the rig, we’ve found plenty of gas stations that we’d not be able to fit into, or at least wouldn’t be able to get out of once we filled up (since we tow our car, we can’t back up to get out). To pull up to the pump, our nose would be through the store’s window or we’d be blocking the whole parking lot. From now on it’s the big rig diesel truck lanes at Flying J truck stops!

When getting fuel, Rover’s nose is 38′ in front of the pump

We expect the diesel rig to get at least 25% better fuel economy, but diesel gas is often 10-15% more expensive, and now we need to buy DEF (Diesel Exhaust Fluid) to neutralize our emissions, so we expect fuel costs to be a wash. Oh, but don’t forget the air horns – actually, that’s the only reason we’re upgrading. All shall hear our air horns and despair!

What could possibly go wrong?

Pretty much the only disadvantage (and it’s a big one) for a diesel chassis is the cost. Apart from the much higher initial purchase price, annual maintenance will be higher as well. We’ve gotten spoiled paying $125 twice a year (i.e. $250/year) for oil and filter changes (7 quarts) and chassis lube. I’ve been told we should plan for $600-$1,000 for our annual diesel engine service, including a 24-quart oil change (gulp!) and various filter replacements. Then every few years the additional required services are even more expensive.

Coming up in our next blog post, a look at our new floor plan and some of the many improvements to the house we’ll be living in for the foreseeable future!

Part 3 – Roughing it… Even More Smoothly

After 3.5 years and 35,000 miles, we’re doing the (almost) unthinkable: buying a new motorhome! Don’t tell Rover, although I think he’s starting to catch on with all the cleaning, photos, and fixes we’ve been working on recently. He’s been a fantastic traveling companion and has been very good to us, but he’s being replaced by a bigger, stronger, fancier model. Don’t worry Rover, we’ve found you a new family to take care of!

Rover a couple weeks ago in Kansas.

When we set out on this adventure in early 2014 (we placed our order for Rover in January of that year) we had never spent more than a few minutes in an RV before. We weren’t sure how long we’d last living and traveling full-time in a 350 sq. ft. box. We’re pretty sure our friends and family were making bets behind our backs! We pressed on, did lots of research, made plans, and ended up with what was probably the perfect RV for our adventures at the time. While everyone “in the know” said you have to buy a diesel rig, Rover had the comforts needed to keep us happy, the more reasonable price tag of a gas-powered rig, and to top it off we got a great deal on our purchase. We argued that if we ended up hating RV life, the risk was minimal… we could sell the RV for a small loss, and admit defeat.

Earlier this year, possibly because we passed our three year “nomadiversary”, Kathie and I found our discussions frequently centering around how much longer we wanted to do this (a long, long time), or if we wanted to settle down in a house (we don’t). We quickly agreed we enjoy this mobile life so much, and decided to “renew” our commitment to roaming, indefinitely!

Rover’s interior, one of many photos taken for our “For Sale” page.

We usually had, in the back of our minds, the thought that if we were still doing this (and loving it) after 5+ years we’d eventually upgrade to a diesel motorhome. We even started some preliminary research at the Tampa RV show in January of this year. When we made our decision to continue indefinitely, we started thinking about the benefits of waiting a few more years for that diesel rig vs. upgrading sooner. We got serious about planning for an upgrade in 2018… and then “why wait?” kicked into overdrive and we decided “there’s no time like the present!” We did lots of money math, researched new rigs, dealerships that provide good discounts, looked into used pricing for selling Rover, and decided we could make this work! We even made a trip to the Tiffin factory in Red Bay Alabama in early August to see the new 2018 rigs in person, look at colors and options, and discuss some customizations with the sales department. With our decision made, we placed our order for a 2018 Tiffin Phaeton 40IH! As before, we’ll be going to the factory to watch our build a few weeks from now, and we will take delivery in October. And through word-of-mouth we already have a buyer lined up for Rover! Check out his “For Sale” page to see what they’re getting!

But why upgrade in the first place? Isn’t Rover enough? In many ways it was a tough call, especially since Rover’s been 100% reliable, has never left us stranded, and has generally needed relatively minor (and expected) repairs like a water pump or roller shade. There’s no one feature of the new coach that made us take the leap, but there are a lot of individual factors that combined into a pretty compelling case! In our next few articles we’ll introduce you to our upcoming rig and walk through some of the upgrades and features we’re looking forward to the most!

Part 2 – Welcome to Diesel Town

Part 3 – Roughing It… Even More Smoothly

Tiffin Phaeton 40IH Catalog Photo

January, February, and March: We spent these winter months mostly in southwestern Arizona. We had several dentist visits in Los Algodones Mexico, we upgraded our inverter, and did quite a bit of free boondocking with our solar panels. We made our second trip to the big Quartzsite boondocking convergence (this time with the Xscapers group), and visited some new areas in the southwest (Borrego Springs, Palm Springs, San Bernardino, Joshua Tree National Park, and Lake Havasu City) to round out our winter.

Lots of solar powered desert boondocking in 2016!

April and May: In spring we started heading to northern Arizona, spending a lot of time in Cottonwood and Sedona and getting back into hiking mode. We visited both the south and north rims of the Grand Canyon, and toured the famous and amazing Antelope Canyon. We ended the month at what turned out to be our favorite national park of the year: Bryce Canyon.

June and July: Next up was the long-dreaded part of our year… returning to Mexico for a dental implant follow-up visit in the middle of summer. We turned our compass 180º and headed south through Zion National Park, Valley of Fire State Park, Las Vegas, and Lake Mead. With two dental visits a month apart, we spent as little time as possible in Yuma (where it was 115º during the day and 80º at night), and waited out the time between appointments in wonderful San Diego.

Coronado Dog Beach

August and September: As soon as we finished with the dentist we headed north to Colorado as quickly as possible, where we stayed and explored for two full months. We found more to see and do near Cortez than we expected, but then headed into the mountains to visit beautiful Ouray with its amazing hikes. Finally, we crossed the rockies (no problem!) and spent a month in Denver and Estes Park, and hiked our first 14er!

Taking a break above the Upper Cascade Falls

October, November, December: We put the pedal to the metal and headed east back to our old stomping grounds in the Washington DC area to visit family and friends. After Thanksgiving dinner was cooked and consumed we headed south to spend Christmas with more family, visiting friends along the way. Pursued by a severe cold front the whole way, we finally made it to warm and sunny Florida.

We hit the road almost three years ago, and until now we’d never spent more than a night or two away from Rover. In Florida we had to spend three weeks without our home while he was in for some repairs! It’s great to finally be back in our home and on the road again.

Autumn in Virginia.

Our 2016 Route

We’ve continued mapping our travels this year, and the “Our Route” page on our blog is starting to get a little crowded! Looking at just our 2016 travels, you can see that we spent half the year leisurely wandering around the southwest. After our two months in Colorado, we made the big journey east and then south all within the last three months of the year.

2016 Travel Map

By the Numbers

We covered a relaxing 7,658 miles in Rover this year, quite a decrease from our “grand tour” last year. Given than we average 6.5 miles per gallon, that also means a big savings on fuel costs and emissions.

Our average cost per night for campgrounds came to $34.68, but that includes 33 nights of free boondocking in the winter and 16 nights staying with Mom while Rover was in for repairs in December. As usual, we tried to stay in state and county parks as much as possible since we enjoy the larger sites and lower costs. We did splurge a few times for some expensive RV Parks in order to be in a particular location.

Because of our need to stay close to Mexico for our extended dental work, we didn’t cover nearly as many states this year as in the past. Here’s where we spent each night in 2016:

And here’s how that relates to our “grand total” since we hit the road in April of 2014:

We’ve filled in seven more states on our map of visited states. As before, we use green when we’ve camped in at least three different spots in a state, and blue if we’ve only been to one or two locations. We paint a state gray if we’ve driven through it but haven’t spent the night. We use the excellent map generator from https://www.gasfoodnolodging.com/visitedstates/generate/ to make our map. You should give it a try!

States Visited

2017 Plans

Along with finally completing our dental work, 2017 has a number of events that are driving our schedule and route a bit more than usual. For one, we’ve tried to visit Yellowstone National Park in both 2015 and 2016 but were thwarted in various ways, so this year we’re going to make it happen!

We also purchased tickets for Dragon Con, the huge geek convention that takes over Atlanta every Labor Day weekend. We attended in 2013 (pre-RV) and 2014 (our first year in the RV) but missed 2015 and 2016, so we’re feeling the urge to return. That means being in Atlanta by the end of August which does throw a wrench into our usual weather-based route planning.

The path of the 2017 total eclipse.

2017 is also the year of the highly anticipated total solar eclipse that will be visible on August 21st from Oregon to South Carolina—if you’re along the path! And even if you’re along the path, weather plays a major role. If it’s an overcast or cloudy day, the experience could be ruined. Looking at average cloud cover for August along the eclipse path, Wyoming is a pretty good spot to be in. But since we need to be in Atlanta for Dragon Con just a week later, we picked southern Illinois for our spot.

The rest of our journey just involves filling in the blanks between these “anchor” locations. We’ll visit the Moab region on our way from Arizona to Yellowstone, and we want to return to Sedona since we enjoyed it so much last year. After Yellowstone we’ll probably spend more time in Colorado again. And after Dragon Con? Well, we’ll just have to see!

Our travels so far…

Durango’s historic Strater Hotel

We picked up a free self-guided walking tour at the welcome center (also available online) and explored Main Avenue while learning about the history of many of the old buildings in the area. It was a nice change of pace and a relaxing way to spend the morning. We of course spent quite some time visiting the free Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad & Museum which was large and fascinating. They have all sort of exhibits, from original train cars you can walk through, to displays of old padlocks and keys from the era.

Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad & Museum

We didn’t take the train ride to Silverton, mainly because it makes for a very long day and we would have needed to find a place to board Opie for the day. We knew we’d be visiting Silverton soon (by car) so we only missed out on the train ride (which we’ve heard is fantastic). We also did some souvenir shopping in Durango, something we rarely do given how little space we have to carry new “stuff” around!

The Cortez Cultural Center

Four evenings per week the Cortez Cultural Center offers free Native American dance performances, so we stopped by one evening to check it out. The rear of the cultural center is painted in an amazing 3D mural of a pueblo (photo, above). Even in person it’s hard to believe the back of the building is just a flat stucco wall! Unfortunately one half of the two person duo performing that night was out of town at a pow-wow, so there was only one dancer for our event. She was fascinating to watch and listen to, but we left feeling slightly underwhelmed… I’m guessing with half the “team” missing, the performance wasn’t quite what it usually is.

Ramona Roach performing at the Cultural Center

We also happened to be in town during the annual Cortez Balloon Festival, so we decided to get up early and watch the balloon crews do their thing. The weather was iffy, and the first morning (Friday) was canceled. Saturday morning we could see many balloons from our campground a few miles from the city park where they launched from. Sunday we drove to the park and walked around watching many of the crews set up, inflate, and launch.

Balloon crews getting set up.

We’d never seen balloons launch before and had never thought much about the process, so we it was interesting to see the crews in action. First the balloon is spread out on the ground and partially inflated with regular air via a big fan. Once the ballon has some volume, some hot air is added to lift it upright so the crew can finish getting it set up. Finally, more hot air is added to lift off! Here’s a short video we made of some of the balloons at the festival:

One of the nicest surprises of our two-week visit in Cortez was the Cortez Dog Park. It’s adjacent to the KOA we stayed at, so we made the short walk every afternoon (and a few mornings) with Opie to get him some much-needed exercise.

Chainsaw

It turns out the same crowd of local folks meet at the dog park every morning and afternoon, and we quickly got to know everyone and their dogs. On the road we rarely see the same person more than once so it was nice to have a temporary “home base” where we got to settle in for a bit.

Opie was a hit at the dog park, and his big quirk—locking on to a single tennis ball and refusing to play with any other balls—quickly became famous. If another dog managed to get Opie’s ball, Opie was a wreck until we were able to retrieve his ball for him. While the local crowd found Opie’s antics funny, they were always willing to help get his ball back to him.

Chainsaw (photo, above), one of the other dogs in the park, loved being chased around by Kathie. She’d just stare at him for a few seconds and stomp her foot on the ground and he’d take off running! It was great entertainment for all of us at the dog park!

Kiara

Kiara (pictured above) loved to chase Opie around while he chased the ball. Then when the Princess got tired, she would hop onto the picnic table to get her share of petting from everyone there. We made friends with so many of the people and dogs there, it was tough when we had to leave. It would be nice to visit the dog park again in the future. We already miss Chainsaw, Kiera, Boomer, Albus, and all the other dogs from the park!

Cortez and the surrounding areas have so many different types of places to visit. It’s a wonderful place to see history and natural beauty. We really enjoyed our stay here, and are hoping to make our way back again some day!

Enjoy our blog? You can support us by making your Amazon purchases through our Amazon affiliate link–we’ll get a small reward to use towards our fuel and other purchases. Or, check out our list of RV gear we recommend. Thanks for your support!

Exploring the the Escalante Pueblo.

Cortez is a small town that’s centrally located to explore many nearby archaeological sites. We started out easy, with a short drive to the Anasazi Heritage Center. The museum is a great place to get oriented on the ancient Pueblo culture and archaeological excavations. We explored the museum and walked the trail to the nearby Escalante Pueblo sites (photo, above).

The most famous archeological site in the area is Mesa Verde National Park, less than 10 miles from Cortez. Mesa Verde comprises an amazing collection of well-preserved ancient Pueblo cliff dwellings. We took the advice of other bloggers and first went to the Colorado Welcome Center in Cortez to purchase tickets ($4 each) for ranger-guided tours of two of the dwellings. The sites are in two distinct areas, each a 40–60 minute drive from the park entrance, so it takes a bit of time to get around once you’re in the park.

Cliff Palace

Our first tour was of Cliff Palace (photo, above). This small city was built 800 years ago when the Pueblo mysteriously relocated their homes from pit dwellings on top of the mesa to stone structures protected by the cliffs below the mesa. Cliff Palace was home to 100-120 people, though thousands lived throughout the various dwellings in the area.

Getting up close and personal with Cliff Palace

Our ranger-guided tour took our group of 50 or so down into the dwelling, reminding us not to touch, walk, lean, or sit on any of the walls or other parts of the sites. It was amazing to see the impressive stone-work up close, and imagine life here under the cliff 800 years ago. Our guide provided great information about the architecture and history of the ancestral Puebloans.

Our tour group climbing up to Balcony House

After admiring Cliff Palace we made a short drive to our next tour at Balcony House. Balcony House was a well-protected home with only one way in, through a long narrow tunnel allowing only one person at a time. Fortunately, the National Park Service in the 1930s erected a 30+ foot ladder to make access easier, so that’s how our tour entered the site (photo, above).

Inside part of Balcony House

Once inside we were able to walk through the entire site and see many of its 38 rooms. Balcony House is the best-preserved site at Mesa Verde, with many rooms and their outdoor balconies fully intact. We heard more history and learned more about the architecture from our second tour guide, helping to fill out our understanding of the area.

Through the entry tunnel…

Our exit from Balcony House was the tunnel mentioned earlier… a bit of a tight squeeze for some! After making it through the tunnel we had to scale a steep cliff face to get back on top of the mesa. Fortunately we had a handrail to hold on to!

…and up the cliff face!

The next day, with Opie in need of a good “dog day out”, we found a recommended dog-friendly hike at Canyons of the Ancients National Monument about 30-minutes west of Cortez.

One of the many Canyons of the Ancients trailheads

This national monument covers an enormous area: 171,000 acres. It contains more than 6,000 recorded archeological sites, with an estimated 20,000+ total likely sites.

Small dwelling in a sheltered cave.

We hiked the Sand Canyon trail which passes near the remains of many ancient dwellings. Some were fairly intact, others were merely the outlines of walls that once were part of larger buildings. The geologic features of the hike were reminiscent of Bryce Canyon’s hoodoos, just on a smaller scale.

Geology reminiscent of Bryce Canyon

Although we got a pretty early start, most of the hike was in direct sun and the heat wave was still in full force so we didn’t get to explore as far as we’d hoped. Kathie and I could have handled a longer hike, but Opie in his black fur coat was feeling the heat. He was going through our supply of drinking water much faster than expected, so we turned around before reaching two miles. Better safe than sorry!

Calcite boxwork formations?

At our turn-around point we spotted an interesting looking boulder near the path, and immediately recognized the strange patterns as “boxwork”. We learned about boxwork at Wind Cave National Park during our visit to Custer SD in 2015. In our Custer blog post you can see nearly identical formations! As we explore the U.S. it’s fascinating to see little pieces of a big puzzle slowly coming into focus.

Wall of petroglyphs at Mesa Verde

Next we headed back into Mesa Verde National Park to hike the Petroglyph Point loop trail. About halfway along the 2.5 mile loop we spotted the petroglyphs etched into the cliff wall (photo, above). Our self-guided tour booklet (50 cents at the trailhead) explained the generally accepted translation, showing one clan separating and wandering away from their original clan until finally settling in a new location.

The trail was surprisingly rugged, with quite a bit of climbing steep and narrow rock staircases, squeezing through narrow slots, and occasionally pausing to figure out where to go next. This made it much more enjoyable for us than a typical flat and easy trail. Better yet, the entire first half of the trail (along the cliffside) was shaded in the morning, keeping us cool and happy. The second half of the trail ascended to the top of the mesa and headed straight back to the trailhead, and while it was in full sun, it was also much quicker than the first half so the heat wasn’t a problem.

Spruce Tree House visible from the Petroglyph Point trailhead

Spruce Tree House cliff dwellings were easily visible from the trailhead, giving a feel for just how extensive these dwellings were and how large the society was that lived here.

Hovenweep National Monument Visitor Center

Did I mention that there’s an almost unlimited number of Pueblo archeological sites to visit in this part of the country? Next up was another dog-friendly hike at Hovenweep National Monument. This is a small national monument just across the border in Utah. From Cortez it was about an hour’s drive, mostly along small country farm roads with us rarely seeing another car.

Although there are other archeological sites within Hovenweep, the main attraction is the Little Ruin Trail. This easy 1.5 mile loop visits the remains of many ancient dwellings.

Kathie and Opie in front of the twin towers site

The far side of the twin towers

The self-guided tour booklet available at the visitor center provides some great background on each of the ruins, as well as more history of the area and the people who lived here. Although Hovenweep definitely qualifies as an “out of the way” place to visit, we’re glad we made the drive to check it out!

Hovenweep Castle

We found so much to do in the Cortez area that we decided to break it up into two blog posts, so stay tuned for “Part 2”!

Enjoy our blog? You can support us by making your Amazon purchases through our Amazon affiliate link–we’ll get a small reward to use towards our fuel and other purchases. Or, check out our list of RV gear we recommend. Thanks for your support!

Source of the water leak.

After pulling into our site, we went to hook up our water and saw that the wet bay was flooded with water dripping from one of the PEX connections at a plastic elbow (photo, above). Due to the positioning of the blue pipe, the elbow has been under constant stress and could finally no longer hold a proper seal. We’d need to cut out the bad section and replace it, while relieving the stress.

After searching Lowes and Home Depot and not finding much of a PEX selection to choose from, we bought a pipe cutter, a one-foot PEX “push-to-fit” flexible pipe, and a push-to-fit removal tool.

PEX piping repair supplies.

The PEX pipes are clamped onto the elbow with copper crimp rings that require a special (expensive) tool to remove, so we just used the pipe cutter to removed the bad section entirely:

Bad elbow section removed with pipe cutter.

Attaching the new flexible pipe in place of the elbow was simple. There are quite a few different types of PEX connectors, and the “push-to-fit” we bought just gets pushed over the end of the PEX pipe and the connection is made! Pulling back only tightens it… you need a special removal tool to disconnect the pipe in the future. We wrapped one end with a blue paper towel to check for leaks. After 12 hours with no leaks, we considered the new flexible hose to be a success. The finished product (photo, below) is working perfectly.

New flexible pipe section installed in place of elbow.

A few days later while up on Rover’s roof we noticed that where the fiberglass roof meets the passenger’s side wall, the paint was bubbling, peeling, and in some places badly deteriorated (photo, below). We did quite a bit of research online, and took a look at our photos from when Rover was built, and came up with a repair plan.

Caulk and paint peeling where the RV side wall meets the roof.

The deteriorated paint is along a metal strip (which also acts as a rain gutter) covering where the two sections of fiberglass meet up, and extends the length of the RV. The metal strip was glued on with adhesive, screwed into place, painted and caulk was used on top. The paint began bubbling away from the adhesive and over time the weather caused the paint to dry and crack away from the fiberglass.

Using a screwdriver and knife we scraped off as much of the cracked and bubbled paint as possible (left side of photo, below). Since we had to remove the paint, we couldn’t use clear silicone due to the visible white fiberglass. Instead,we purchased some black Permatex silicone adhesive sealant at a local auto parts store and installed a bead of the new silicone sealant (right side of photo). It looks great and so far seems to be working well. Unfortunately the driver’s side of Rover is showing the same symptoms of bubbling paint (silicone caulk is healthy) but the paint hasn’t dried and cracked yet. We’ll need to keep an eye on it and repeat the same routine once we start seeing problems.

Paint and caulk stripped off, new sealant installed.

The next problem we ran into was ANTS! We had read several reviews of this campground before reserving, and some had cautioned about ants, but others said it wasn’t a problem. Maybe it depends on the time of year, but in any case we had ants all over our site and eventually they started making their way inside. Yuck! To get a feel for how many ants live in the camp sites, here’s a photo of our water post one morning:

Ants, ants, ants on the water pedestal.

To keep the ants out we purchased food-grade diatomaceous earth and sprinkled it around every part of the RV that touched the ground. The powder stops ants and prevents them from building trails across the line. There were quite a few other RVs that already had white outlines around their tires, jacks, etc. so we joined the club. It was a constant battle (both inside and out) and made us question whether or not we’d return to this otherwise nice campground (drone photo, top of page).

Diatomaceous Earth sprinkled around everything that touches the ground.

After many more trips to the dog beach we left the wonderful San Diego weather and headed back to Yuma to complete Kathie’s dental work. The temperature in Yuma, as expected, was around 115°F during the day and in the high 80’s at night. The weather made it a pretty unpleasant week, especially for Opie, so we won’t dwell on it here! Saying good-bye to Yuma we started day one of our two-day trip to Colorado.

Temperatures dropped quickly once we got close to Flagstaff.

Most of our seven-hour drive north was incredibly hot, but once we were well north of Phoenix and approaching Flagstaff the outside temperatures finally started dropping. The photo above is a screenshot of a weather app showing the current temperatures during our drive. The black line is our route north on I-17. From Camp Verde to Flagstaff (around 50 miles) the temperature dropped from 113° to around 70°! We could finally turn off the air conditioners and open some windows. Flagstaff’s high altitude makes it a pleasant oasis during hot Arizona summers.

Unfortunately, during the drive our kitchen countertop came apart! The back half of the recessed propane cooktop separated from the main countertop:

Before: recessed cooktop separated from main countertop.

We had seen a small gap in the back for a while, but during our drive it separated completely. We noticed it during our lunch stop so we removed the cabinet drawers and propped up the cooktop with a cardboard box for the rest of the drive. Once in Flagstaff we took a closer look and found that the recessed counter was glued to the bottom of the main counter, with nothing else supporting it underneath. Once in Flagstaff we headed right out to Home Depot to get some supplies: a 1×2 board, screws, and some epoxy.

Repair: wood support blocks installed.

We scraped off all the remaining glue, cleaned the area, and used epoxy to re-glue the countertop into place. We also cut some small blocks out of the 1×2 board and screwed them into existing support posts under the cooktop. The cooktop now rests on these new wood blocks (one on each side) in addition to being glued back in place, so hopefully this problem is solved permanently. The final product looks as good as new:

After: countertop glued in place with support blocks.

With our emergency repair complete, we finally relaxed after our long drive, and prepared for the rest of our drive to Colorado the next day.

Every RV’er knows that minor repairs are pretty much a constant, especially when living full-time in the RV and driving to new locations frequently. Every time we drive, it’s as if our house is in a five-hour long earthquake, and some things eventually go wrong. We’re glad that almost every problem we’ve had so far has been relatively minor, and that we’ve been able to fix them ourselves. It’s reassuring to see that our handyman skills are getting better all the time!

Enjoy our blog? You can support us by making your Amazon purchases through our Amazon affiliate link—we’ll get a small reward to use towards our fuel and other purchases. Or, check out our list of RV gear we recommend. Thanks for your support!

The trip from Zion to Yuma was going to take two days so we headed south and decided to stop and spend some time in the Las Vegas area before completing the trip to Yuma. We spent two nights at the Valley of Fire State Park campground (photo, top of page) but it was much too hot to be enjoyable at over 110°F during the day (anyone who says, “But it’s a dry heat” will be beaten severely). The heat also meant Opie’s walks had to be kept very short, even with a pre-walk hose-down. We didn’t do any sightseeing (we’ll have to come back during a cooler time of the year) but we did have a visit from a couple of bighorn sheep! They grazed just a couple hundred feet from Rover and seemed to be handling the heat just fine.

A couple of Bighorn Sheep wandered by.

Since the heat was going to be unavoidable we decided to move thirty minutes away to Lake Mead and the Hoover Dam. Staying at the Lake Mead National Recreation Area RV Park meant we were very close to the lake and could take Opie there to cool off every single day.

Since Lake Mead’s water level is so low it was a mile or so walk from the campground to the lake. We tried it once but halfway there we realized the pavement and air was ridiculously hot for Opie (we hit a high of 117 while there), so the rest of the time we drove to the lake. Since Opie loved hanging out in the water and it was the only way to keep him cool, we brought some chairs and sunblock and tried to relax by the lake as much as possible.

Lake Mead was Opie’s only activity during our stay.

Since there’s no shade trees at the RV Park we picked a site that faced northeast so that Rover’s giant windshield would be out of the sun all day long. When Rover’s pointed into the sun the temperature in the front rises quickly due to the windshield. Facing northeast also meant we could also use our big awning on the passenger side to block the sun from hitting the RV for most of the day. Unlike a regular home, when it’s that hot outside, the AC can only cool Rover down to 80-85 degrees, so there’s a lot of things we have to think about when it’s crazy hot outside!

Walking the strip in Las Vegas.

Although we didn’t do much from a tourist perspective during our stay, we did get out one morning to re-visit Las Vegas since it had been a very long time since our last visit. We knew it was going to be another hot day so we got an early start and popped into an air conditioned casino once in a while to escape the heat.

We were a little surprised at how much the Las Vegas skyline has changed since our last visit! There were so many new buildings and casinos, and the trend seems to (mostly) be away from gimmicky buildings like the Luxor and Excalibur (not that there’s anything wrong with gimmicks) and towards more conservatively classy buildings that look like traditional hotels or office buildings.

The Las Vegas skyline has changed a lot since our last visit!

Having killed all the time we could, we packed up for the final drive to Yuma. While we knew it would be 110°F again we did have one ace up our sleeve. While in Yuma during the winter we scoped out an RV Park (River’s Edge) that’s right on the Colorado River and has tall shade trees lining all the sites. We got a site facing east, tucked Rover in under the trees, and had shade for much of the day. Both of our air conditioners still ran continuously from 8am-8pm but the trees meant it was a little cooler inside than it would have otherwise been. Even the overnight lows were in the 80’s! Opie of course went for his dip in the Colorado every afternoon.

We took care of Kathie’s dental followups, walking into Mexico as before, but this time without the crowds. Los Algodones was still active but many of the street vendor stalls were vacant, and we had no line whatsoever re-entering the US customs station. It was finally time to leave Arizona, and not a moment too soon. A heat wave was heading toward the southwest and Yuma was forecasting highs of 120°F. We hit the road for the 180 mile drive west to San Diego, watching Rover’s dashboard thermometer slowly drop as we climbed over the mountains, up and then down 4,000 feet. By the time we arrived at Mission Bay RV Resort in San Diego the dashboard was reading an amazingly comfortable 75°F! We’ll be spending a month in San Diego enjoying the weather before heading back to Yuma in July for one last set of appointments.