Tag Archives: Newmar

NARV North Alabama RV Rally at Gulf Shores

Setup and Camping
Setup and Camping
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For the October NARV’ers club rally, we left Arab Alabama about 7:00 pm Thursday to drive down to Gulf Shores to stay at a brand new resort named Sugar Sands.? We wanted to be safe and take our time getting there and the plan was to go through all the malfunction junctions in Birmingham while it was off peak traffic time. ? We were successful even though there was still plenty of traffic on I-65, I-20, I-59, and all other roads that merge onto I-65.? We drove down to about mile marker 231 near Calera and Montevallo College area.?? We pulled off there because there was a Cracker Barrel and we thought we would have a bite to eat and cup of coffee to keep me awake while driving.? But our plans changed when we saw that Cracker Barrel was adjoined to a Wal Mart parking lot that had a lot of over night boon dockers already setup for the night.

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Children's play area
Children’s play area

We went into the Wal Mart to get a few items, and asked if we could park over night, and they very kindly said we could but asked if we would setup in one of the far corners of their lot so as not to affect shoppers parking.?? SO, When we checked out and returned to our motor home, we proceeded to get in, crank up and pull out to a far corner spot to setup, and I pulled to the edge of a row where I could easily get out.?? Norma immediately asks “are you going to park here”???? I thought was one of those women’s ways of saying ” I don’t want to park here”, so I just shrugged my shoulders and said “yes”.??? She pointed out that I had pulled up to a light post that had a sign big as life that stated “NO OVER NIGHT PARKING !? VIOLATORS WILL BE TOWED”? – so with what the lady in Wal Mart said, I was willing to dare someone to tow me away while we were sleeping.?? We went to bed and rested well for the next day 4 hour drive to Gulf Shores.

Wonderful Times
Wonderful Times

We stopped once more on the second day at a Cracker Barrel, mostly just to stretch and walk around a bit, but found some neat camping do-dads in the store, and used their convenience rooms.?? It ALWAYS pays to watch signs as you are pulling into the parking lot of a Cracker Barrel.? Twice, I have gotten myself into a bind by not paying attention. ? This time I did follow the signs to the RV parking only to find that it was all taken by pick up trucks and small family sized vans. ? This was frustrating because it left me to manoeuvre around the car parking areas with a 42 foot motor coach, and towing a Honda Civic. ( not fun )…. Any way, I made it around to a 2nd side row that was empty and took the whole row to myself.?? This ended up being an advantage since we were able to push the slides out and enjoy a short rest in full space comfort.

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Nice Car
Nice Car

We had already selected the route to get to the campground and arrived at around 4:30 with no incidents of any kind and we are always very thankful for that.?? We got checked in and they escorted us to our lot, and I was amazed at how wide the sites are and brand new facilities.?? I was able to back in on the first go !? no second or third attempts needed.?? There is enough space that we are able to park our car under the awning and the slide outs on the opposite side are not even hanging off the concrete pad.?? Very Nice Campground.

Ladies hard at work
Ladies hard at work

The next item was to get setup, and make sure we were at the clubhouse for this 10 foot long banana split that I kept dreaming about ever since I heard about it in the newsletter.?? The hosts very ingeniously put together a 10 foot long piece of brand new gutter for the boat, and lined it with tin foil.? Then all the ladies and guys were invited to come get an item of their choice to line inside the boat.?? Ladies Work Men WatchChocolate, Vanilla, and Strawberry ice creams, chocolate syrup, caramel syrup, pineapple, cherries, and bananas were added quickly.?? Then a young lady topped it off with whipped cream.?? It was very good, and more than enough to feed the 20+ people there for the welcoming event.

Wide Lots
Wide Lots

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Recent RV Adventure

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First RVing adventure of the season.

Well,
As usual the week started out beautiful, warm, and sunny as I witnessed from my office.? My wife is also off work this week for Spring Break so what better time to get in the RV, hook up the tow car (toad), and head out on another adventure.

Newmar Dutch Star

We wanted to go somewhere we haven’t been for a while.? We spent a couple of days searching, and reading reviews on several places within an hour or two from the house.? The decision we came to was to leave Thursday and stay the weekend at Desoto State Park in Fort Payne Alabama. ? It has beautiful scenery, and is a difficult enough drive for us to test towing the car up mountains and around fairly tight curves and obstacles.

[Photos of RVing at Desoto State Park]

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So, the 100% guaranteed forecast every time we go camping, it turned off rainy, foggy, and cold.?? BUT ALAS, that did not deter us from our long awaited adventure and getting out and enjoying our RV.?? So much for sunshine, and warm weather.? IT IS GOING TO RAIN IF WE GO RVing !!!!

Told you it was foggy !
Told you it was foggy !

We are very blessed to have several friends that decided to join us and we followed each other to the beautiful Desoto State Park.? Traffic was mild as we had hoped it would be since we decided to drive after the 8:00 rush hour was over.? We had no issues driving up the steep mountain other than one of those huge oversized crane’s that have 10 axles was going 15 miles per hour up the mountain to the campground.?? When we arrived we were greeted with hostesses that were exceptionally helpful and friendly.

We were checked in by 10:30 in the morning and were driving to the pull through sites which both of us benefited from.? However once we got everything disconnected from the tow car, and his truck disconnected from his fifth-wheel.? We realized the sites were a little more uphill than they appeared.?? My camper had to sit the front bumper on the ground by evacuating the air from the suspension, while raising the back jacks to the point that the rear tires are just barely off the ground <yikes>.?? But, again, I am happy to be RVing with my wife and friends.

After about an hour of levelling, and hooking up electric, water, sewer, and putting the slides out.?? We also stretched out the awnings for the first time since last season.?? I ALWAYS get my wife to check the faucets while I turn the water on ( read other pages to find out why ).? The kitchen faucet blew completely off the sink due to over pressure and it appears it may have frozen and cracked over the winter.?? Anyway, no big deal, there is a Lowes at Fort Payne and we picked up a repair part and replaced the sink nozzle.

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Our friends also were working out some kinks from their winter storage too.?? They got settled in just to find out they have no hot water.?? So we worked with that for a short while.?? GOOGLE is great for troubleshooting, but in this case everyone who posted their problems, and their fixes were all unique.?? Nothing in common with his problem.? So my fall back strategy is to take things apart one screw at a time until I find the problem.

We checked fuses, circuit breakers, power, tried lighting the gas pilot light with a manual charcoal starting lighter.? All to no avail.?? I started taking things apart to see deeper into the problem, and the only thing I noticed was that their was a normal oxidation from being an outside appliance.? There was normal wear and tear from a gas burning element which left a little rust like residue inside the burner tube.?? We vacuumed that out, and cleaned everything we could find with a steel bristle tooth-brush.? When we put it all back together we asked the ladies to turn it on and see what might happen, and POOF.?? It light right up immediately which I wasn’t really expecting because we didn’t really do anything but scrub off the oxidation and put it back together.

Summary after thought was that cleaning everything and tightening everything back must have grounded wires back to a better surface connection. ? For whatever reason, it works so we took credit for fixing it like we knew what we were doing.? Our wives were happy that their skilled men fixed a critical and life dependency for hot water.

No better day than today to go RVing!?? I love my camping adventures.!!!!

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