On the Road Again!

Yes, we are FINALLY back on the road! We got word late yesterday afternoon that the part arrived at Heartland. By the time we were notified, the parts department had closed for the day.

So, this AM we picked up the part from Heartland, hooked up the trailer and drove to the repair place, some 20 miles away. As promised, they jumped right on the repairs. Kudos to Affinity RV of Goshen, Indiana! They are rock stars!

We left Goshen about 4:30 with everything in the trailer working perfectly. We decided, whatever the time we got away, that we would hit the road, even if we only drove for an hour.

We ended up driving to Joliet, Illinois, which was just over two hours away. Although we got a very late start, we knew that we’d pick up an hour as we transitioned from Eastern to Central time.

We’re headed to Omaha, where we’ll have dinner with our nieces. After that… who knows?

Here’s a shot taken in a park today, where we gave the dogs a good long walk. It was shorts weather when we arrived in Elkhart and, as you can see, late autumn when we left.

Still in Elkhart!

Yes, we are still in Elkhart, still waiting for THE PART to show up. The ETA for the part has gone from 7-10 days from the order date (10/11) to “this week” (last week) to the latest “this week” - which now means THIS week.

My contact at the repair place is at her wit’s end insofar as getting any kind of answer from Heartland. She suggested I reach out to Heartland directly, and I have done so. The latest, as of this afternoon, is still “this week”! I did find out that is in part because the part is coming from a supplier, Lippert Components, Inc (LCI) and “we give LCI a little wiggle room”! I guess!

We’ve really tried to keep ourselves busy. Here’s a list of the activities we’ve engaged ourselves in since we’ve been here…

• Benton Harbor, MI - we drove over here, with the dogs, on what was probably the last 80-degree day here.
• RV Museum - it’s right here in Elkhart, right off the turnpike, and well worth visiting.
• New York Central RR Museum - also right here in Elkhart. I thought it was well worth visiting, but I’ve always been interested in railroads and railroading. One interesting fact that I discovered: when I was a child, my mother twice took her children by train from Lancaster, CA to Niagara Falls, NY. We rode the NYC from Chicago to Buffalo, and would have gone right through Elkhart, which was the route of the NYC main line.
• Linton’s Enchanted Gardens - a large nursery/gift shop/garden in Elkhart
• Amish Acres - an “Amish” restaurant/gift shop/farm, a few miles south of here. Having visited both Holmes county, OH and Lancaster county, PA, we both found this to be way too touristy
• Michigan City - drove over here primarily to go shopping at an outlet mall
• Granger Community Church - we’ve been attending church here every Sunday. Highly recommended.
• Elkhart County Parks - we’ve discovered and regularly use - daily weather permitting - these parks to take the dogs on long walks.
• Notre Dame University - we walked this beautiful campus one day; it’s about 15 miles away
• Movies - we actually went to the movies - something we never do - and saw A Star is Born.
• Southgate Center (farmers market) - something to do; kind of touristy.
• Heartland factory tour - this free tour was interesting to us. We actually saw the specific assembly line where our trailer was built. One depressing fact: the assembly line workers are paid piecemeal, which gives them every incentive to haul ass through production. That explains a lot of the half-assed assembly errors we’ve seen.
• Numerous drives through the countryside. In the last couple of week, especially, as the leaves have been turning. This is gorgeous country; additionally, there are areas to the south of us with a significant Amish population, which always makes for scenic drives.
• Christmas gift projects - both of us, but me especially, have gotten a good start on making Christmas gifts.
• Cathy’s sourdough - she’s been able to perfect the recipe and baking conditions to turn out a superb loaf of sourdough bread.

Here’s a pic showing that we’re deep into autumn here in Elkhart County…

Our Home

While we are (still!) waiting for THE PART to arrive, let me tell you a little more about our home.

Despite the problems we’ve had with getting repairs done in anything remotely resembling a timely manner, we love living in our home. It’s well-designed, if not exactly well-built, and is roomy and comfortable. If you want to see it in detail, here’s a link to what it looks like:

https://heartlandrvs.com/2019/fifth-wheel/big-country/bc-3965-dss/#top

Like any new homeowner, we’ve made some changes and additions, which I’d like to share with you. I’m not going to be talking about the obvious things that all of us do, like adding paper towel holders, stickon lights in closets, etc.

Reinforced Closet Rod

Our bedroom closet runs the whole width of the trailer, and has a rod that the spans the whole width; it’s right at 90” side-to-side. This rod is not a solid piece of wood like what you might have in your closet. Instead, it’s a flimsy plastic tube. It is so flimsy that if you fill up about ⅔ of the closet with clothes and go down the road that way, the rod flexes enough that it simply falls out of its support. More than once.

On top of the general flimsiness, there’s no support anywhere except at the ends. So, I rigged up a post right in the center. It’s simply a piece of 1x3 pine, with a couple of short pieces added to the top and bottom for support. Black cable ties hold it to the curtain rod. It’s not much to look at, but works perfectly.

Pantry Shelving

We have a closet in the hallway that’s about 6’ long. It’s plumbed for an RV washer and drier. Washers and driers in RV’s are expensive, small, and don’t work all that well. We decided we’d rather have that space for storage. So, we simply bought from Home Depot a set of slide-out shelves that attach to shelf standards at the back. The standards are screwed to a piece of ¾” plywood which I attached to the back wall in order to give sufficient support for the weight of the shelving.

You can barely see the plywood and one of the shelf standards against the back wall. Since the closet had an electrical outlet present, this was also the perfect spot to hang our cordless Dyson vacuum, which is the turbo-looking device on the upper right.

StepAbove Entry Steps

Although these may not look like much compared to standard RV steps, they are worlds apart in terms of stability. Standard RV steps float from the trailer; they don’t touch the ground. These guys rest solidly on the ground. Additionally, they are wider, and have deeper treads.

Morryde Sliding Cargo Tray

I mentioned above how spacious our new home is? The photo below is of what we call our basement, the main outside storage area. It extends the whole width of the trailer, with a large access door on the right (curb) side and a slightly smaller door on the left side. This sliding tray locks in place for travel, but unlocked it can slide out to half its length on either side. It gives easy access to the whole basement.

The photo shows a bunch of plastic (ten-gallon?) storage boxes from Home Depot. The cargo tray will hold ten of them. Right now, we’ve got nine in the basement - and they’re not full.

That’s it for now

Reno Air Show Photos

I finally had time to upload photos from my camera to the computer. I cleaned a few of them up and posted them in a Google Drive folder. There’s a few videos as well.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1707EK02zIx4ecaTrAJ5sAc-N364RYx-m

Stuck in Elkhart

We’re not actually, physically stuck in Elkhart. We can leave whenever we want. Of course, that would be with a trailer that’s not repaired yet.

At the risk of boring you all to tears, here’s a chronology of events since we arrived...

Thursday, 10/4 - pulled into Affinity RV. Within 45 minutes they: pulled the suspect motor, replaced it with an identical one, and verified that the motor appears to be working properly. They evaluated and concluded that the “driveshaft” is faulty. By phone, Jonna contacted “Bob” at Heartland to get the part number. Affinity is tied into Heartland’s system and can order parts directly - if she has the part number.

Friday, 10/5 - No response from Bob.

Monday 10/8 - Jonna contacted Bob by email. He replied, asking for the VIN and additional details.

Tuesday 10/9 - No response from Bob. I asked Jonna if it would make sense for me to start bugging Heartland. She thought it over and said we should give it another 24 hours. She also committed to emailing Bob again, stressing that I am bugging them daily.

Thursday 10/11 - Heartland finally responded with a part number and placed the order in their system. It only took a week!

Monday 10/15 - Jonna had not heard back from Heartland re: timing on the order. She promised to call them when she had a chance.

Tuesday 10/16 - Jonna called us first thing this AM. Heartland tells her the part will take 7-10 days from the date the order was placed. That places receipt of the part somewhere between 10/18 and 10/23. It’s hard for us to understand in this day and age why something that’s apparently this simple takes so long.

We haven’t decided what we’re going to do. While we could leave, we’d have to return when the part arrives. I’m going to call Jonna later today and see if we can simply order the part and pay for it ourselves. In other words, is the delivery speed tied to this being a warranty repair? (I suspect not.)

Meanwhile, we are safe and cozy. The weather’s turned cold; we’re 15-20 degrees below normal for this time of year. That’s kept us mostly inside, which doesn’t help our moods any.

Elkhart, Indiana

Here’s a very quick update...

As I wrote a few days ago, we headed to Elkhart, Indiana for repairs to the trailer. Before I fill you in on the latest, let me talk a minute about Maumee Bay State Park.

We left Cincinnati and spent two nights in Maumee Bay State Park. We’d camped here once, years ago, and wanted to revisit it. Maumee Bay is easily the nicest Ohio state park we have ever seen. Bear in mind, in our 12+ years in Ohio, we camped in something like 15 different state parks. Maumee’s got it all: a beautiful spacious campground, large day use area and swim beach, a gorgeous lodge and a golf course. It’s maybe 10 miles east of Toledo on Lake Erie. If you’re ever in the area, be sure to stop by.

There’s not too much new with the trailer. We arrived in Elkhart on Thursday and, by prior arrangement, drove right to Affinity RV Service, which is actually in Goshen, IN. They asked us to bring the trailer in so they could affirm that it does in fact need a new motor. Heartland won’t send a motor without them looking at it.

As it turns out, that was probably a good thing. In maybe 45 minutes, Bob at Affinity took the old motor out, put in a spare motor from his ship and determined that the problem is not with the motor, it’s with the gearshaft that’s driven by the motor. (Why is it that a private RV repair shop can give such great service? We got service this good from American RV in Orange, CA, too.)

So, Jonna from Affinity contacted Heartland to order this part. Right now, we don’t know when Heartland will deign to send this to Affinity. We should get an update tomorrow.

When the part arrives, Affinity believes they can get the repair done in a half-day or so. We’re hoping for repairs on Tuesday or Wednesday.

We’re booked into the Elkhart Campground, a really nice place, for a week - departing on Thursday, we hope! We’ve had a fairly relaxing time here. We took a factory tour at Heartland and visited the RV Museum. There’s an Amish farm/restaurant complex nearby that we had lunch at yesterday. Today, we drove over to South Bend, maybe 15 miles away, and walked around the Notre Dame campus, which is a beautiful place.

Still haven’t decided where we’re headed next, but we obviously need to do so before soon. I’ll get an update out when we have some news.

NEW HOBBY for CATHY!

When Scott met us in Reno for the Air Races, he brought me a sourdough starter and a seven-page instruction document. He talked me through the process of adding to the starter every 3-4 days and how he makes the bread. Needless to say, I was mildly intimidated by the process! After all, I am now cooking with propane and was unsure of my oven.

The night before I was going to work the dough and bake, I texted Scott a few questions. He told me, “Don’t worry. You don’t want your starter to feel that stress. Plus working the dough by hand is like squeezing a stress ball!”

Well, as you can see above, I’m very proud of my first loaf! It smelled and looked great! It was DELICIOUS and in the end SO MUCH FUN! New hobby for me!!