MAY 23 - MAY 27, 2018: Cedar River Campground, Tipton, Iowa

The Cedar River Campground is next to I-80 at Exit 267 about 30 miles west of Davenport, IA. It's a full-service campground with many activities, crowded sites, and is full on this holiday weekend.  We arrived on Wednesday afternoon for a week's stay, and were told to pick any site in a particular area with 50 amps.



The area has trees for shade, and many sites are not level, but since this area was mostly empty, Hank found a nice level one that he could pull into. Interstate 80 is right behind us so the traffic noise is very loud, but inside Little House,  the noise from the A/C s drown out a lot of the road noise. We can see the Cedar River from our campsite.

There are 4 casinos within a 35 mile radius of our location, and on Thursday we visited the Rhythms Casino in Davenport.




The facility appears fairly new with a hotel and the usual amenities including a very good buffet restaurant. A large area of the casino in non-smoking which is always nice. With our player's card bonuses, we received a buffet discount and enjoyed a delicious lunch. Hank got $5 free play because it is his birthday month, and he won a little at the slots and I lost a little.. Our 2018 casino tour has begun!

Thursday afternoon and again on Friday, Selene finished getting the dirty laundry out of the way. Friday we enjoyed seeing the holiday crowd arrive as they manuevered into campsites, setting up their supplies and preparing meals.The campground quickly filled up.  We were very glad we had arrived on Wednesday before the holiday hubbub.

Yesterday, Saturday, we had the pleasure of meeting up with Howard and Linda Payne.


The Paynes are fulltimers, originally from Louisville, KY who have become well-known in RV circles for their educational rallies, RV show seminar talks, and their website( http://www.rv-dreams.com/ that is full of information on RV life and their adventures. We  met them at one of their rallies in Tennessee in 2011 when we first started thinking about becoming fulltimer RVers.  The knowledge we gained at that time confirmed our desire to pursue the lifestyle and we attended another of their rallies after we went fulltime to learn even more. They were traveling east on I-80 yesterday and we arranged to meet at Gramma's Kitchen next to  the world's largest truck stop about 17 miles from us.

 Our lunch was very good and it was great to share time with the Paynes!

After our lunch and good-byes to Linda and Howard, we took a non-interstate drive to downtown Tipton, which is 5 miles from our campground, but ended up being over an hour away from our lunch stop. There aren't too many paved roads around here in rural Iowa once you're off the interstate, so we had slow travel on the many gravel farm roads we had to travel to Tipton (population 3300). After a grocery stop at the local market, we headed back to the campground, this time on paved Hwy. 38.

The weather has suddenly turned to summer here with highs in the low 90's, higher than normal for this area in late May. Thunderstorms rolled through overnight on Friday with heavy rain, but no problems. We'll be here until Wednesday when we're heading further west. If we're lucky, it will be a little cooler for our next travel day.

MAY 18-May 22: 2018 Hamvention and the Next Stop

We enjoyed our stay at the Greene County Fairgrounds from May 17 to May 21, the home of the 2018 Dayton Hamvention.  Many of last year's problems were addressed  and Hamvention was another great success.  Yes, it rained several times, but that didn't seem to dampen the spirits of those attending.  By camping at the fairgrounds, the sights and sounds of the event were always close by for us.

Monday, May 21, we arrived at the D&W Campground in Champaign, Illinois after 5 hours on the road.  This is a small campground with a lake in rural surroundings. We wanted to stay a week, but with the upcoming holiday weekend, we could only get a full hookup site for 2 nights. We have a site overlooking the lake.




  Since it had been over 2 weeks without doing laundry,  we needed a sewer connection in order to get the dirty clothes basket emptied! We also need to get used to being in the Central Time Zone.

Tomorrow, we'll be heading to Tipton, Iowa, northwest of Davenport.  We were lucky to get a 7-day reservation there with full hookups over the holiday weekend.  It will be nice to have that many days to relax without work appointments or events going on.  There is a casino about 35 minutes away that can provide some entertainment if we feel the need to try our luck!

MAY 10 - May 16, 2018: Repairs in the Country & Hamvention Prep

Thursday, May 10, we left the Elkhart County 4H Fairgrounds in Goshen, IN for the 90 minute drive to our appointment at the Linnemeier Repair Service near Ossian, IN, about 15 miles south of Fort Wayne, IN. The shop is in the midst of family farmland and mainly provides service for many types of large equipment - construction and dump trucks, farm vehicles, fire engines, buses, etc. We were referred there for chassis work by a fellow customer at Cruising America RV Service in Celina, Ohio a few weeks ago.  One of the Linnemeir employees, John Taylor,  is a former REV chassis specialist and very experienced in motor home repair among other things.

We wanted to have our air suspension system looked at because of an intermittent problem of not "airing up" for travel on the first attempt.  We also needed our dash air recharged, and our rusting exhaust "turn down" replaced.  John Taylor started with the diagnostic work as soon as we arrived.....a rarity in repair shops...and finished with the a/c recharge job as well as making an adjustment in the air suspension system.  Parts were ordered for the rest of the work, and we settled in the rural setting next to the shop for the weekend with a 30 amp electrical hookup.  After being next to the railroad tracks and 40 to 50 daily freight trains for 11 days in Goshen, the quiet country environment was a welcome relief.

Tuesday, May 15:  Little House went back inside the large shop for the exhaust repair and to have a hydraulic filter replaced. After a quick power wash of the engine area, we were on our way about 2:30 P.M. for the 3 hour drive to the Xenia, Ohio Walmart.  A good portion of our drive was in heavy thunderstorms, including the drive from Dayton to Xenia, and we even experienced some small hail before getting settled in at the Xenia Walmart.  We're in Xenia for the Dayton Hamvention, the largest ham radio event in the world, to be held May 18-20.

Wedneday, May 16: We did some Walmart shopping before driving the 3 miles to the Green County Fairgrounds,, where the hamfest is being put together and our home for the next 5 nights.  The fairgrounds has 100 campsites on grass with water and electric hookups. Upon arrival, we dumped our tanks at the dump station and set up in site 148, the same site we had last year. The next 5 days will be busy ones, and we hope to meet up with many of our ham radio friends.







We're in the grass camping area just above the left corner of the racetrack. The Hamvention flea market is in the racetrack infield, and vendors are located in several buildings and large tents, with food service trucks and seating scattered throughout the areas. Last year's attendance was nearly 30,000 over the 3 day period and this year should be another good one!

April 28 - May 8: Maintenance Session Prep and Activities

We left Celina, OH on Saturday, April 28 for the 3 hour drive to Goshen, IN. The 2018 Ramblin' Pushers Maintenance Session was to be held starting on May 4 and we arrived early as a small part of the "staff". This rally, at the Elkhart County 4-H Fairgrounds, is to further the knowledge of motorhome ownershp through seminars, interaction with others and having repairs done by the appropriate vendors (many located in the area). This was our third year to attend. We were to be joined by 251 coaches  who are all part of the REV family of motor homes. The Session is well-organized and run by over 200 volunteers.    http://www.ramblinpushers.org/

Once the Session officially began, it was a busy time with breakfast every morning, and non-stop seminars all day, as well as other meals, tours and meetings.  We helped 3  first-time attendees get settled in and oriented to the whereabouts of all the activities at this large facility, and began enjoying the activities ourselves.

The weather was very cool and windy upon arrival, and one night there was over 3 inches of rain. Luckily, we missed out on nearby severe weather conditions.  Spring started showing herself after that with warmer days and sunny skies.

The Session ends Wednesday,  May 9, with a catered dinner and final meeting.  We'll leave on Thursday, May 10 for the short drive to Ossain, IN, 10 miles south of Ft. Wayne IN,  for some more repair work.

APRIL 11 - APRIL 27: Little House Service Work

Little House has been stationary for the last couple of weeks. We arrived at the Cruising America RV Service Company in Celina, OH on Wednesday, April 11 with several issues to be addressed. Kevin Mallory, the owner, is a former American Coach engineer and his shop is our preferred repair facility. Unfortunately, he doesn't do chassis or motor work.  While 16 days is a long time to stay for repairs, we had the time to spare in our schedule, and Kevin was able to work on our problems as his busy schedule permitted.



Our problems and repairs included:

Washer/dryer combo unit not drying due to restricted air flow inside the cabinet.  The unit was pulled out of it's cabinet, lint blockage was removed and unit was reinstalled.

Front roof A/c unit has had a tendency to freeze up.  The fan evaporator fan was suspect but inspection did not find any problem so the condenser coils were cleaned in both rooftop units with no other problems found.

For several months now the DC input breaker on our inverter as been occasionally tripping even though there was no heavy load on the inverter.  The input breaker was found to be weak and a new 30 amp breaker was installed.

Recently we have been getting faulty electrical system readouts on our AC PCS (Power Control System).  The PCS is designed to manage the electrical loads by shutting off loads when needed to prevent overloading the incoming power provided by the campground.   Our PCS was showing 70 amps current draw even when we were actually drawing less than 20 amps.  This causes the PCS to start shutting circuits off in an attempt to lessen the load.- doing exactly what  it is designed to do.  The only impact to us was that it caused refrigerator to run on our propane instead of the electricity provided by campgrounds.  The problem was traced to a faulty PCS control board that monitors current on the back of  our breaker box.  The circuit control board was replaced and now all is well..

During our stay, we had a 50 amp electrical hookup, and we made a visit to the dump station at the nearby Mercer County Fairgrounds to empty our tanks. The weather has been abnormally cold here for springtime, very windy, and twice we had snow and sleet falling.   Tomorrow, we're pulling up the jacks and heading to Goshen, IN.  We'll be there for almost two weeks preparing for, and attending, an RV rally. Maybe spring will finally come to stay!

MARCH 26 - APRIL 11: Friends, Hamfest, and Travel

After settling in at the NC State Fairgrounds campground on Sunday, March 25, we thought we'd have a few days to just take it easy before the busy weekend ahead.  But the week was full of meetings, both business and with friends. Hank spent half of Thursday at the hamfest site as the venue was set up for the hamfest. Friday we were both busy with preparations topped off by a dinner for the vendors. RARSFEST took place on Saturday so our day was spent helping where we could.



There was space for vendors and space for the "flea market" in the 90,000 square foot Jim Graham Building.





This was followed by a celebratory dinner at Outback with some of the hamfest committee.



Easter Sunday was a quiet, peaceful day for us.

Monday, April 2 we drove to Cummins Coach Care Center in Greensboro, NC to have an engine code read. A yellow "check engine"  light has come on twice over the last several months, but all dashboard engine readouts are normal.  No code was found to be read and we were advised to just continue on our travels.

April 2 - April 4: We had some relaxation time at the Mayberry Campground in Mt. Airy, NC. Our Maryland friends, Debbie and Tom were parked next to us. It was great having the time to get reaquainted with them. We had originally planned on leaving on April 3, but high wind warnings in the Virgina mountains ahead of us made us decide to stay put for another day. Wednesday, we had a black tank valve replaced at Tar Heels Mobile RV Service in nearby Pilot Mountain.



 Thursday, April 5 we headed north through the Virginia and West Virginia mountains to our destination - the Barboursville, WV Walmart.  We met up with more friends, Garry and Nancy, for dinner and conversation.

Friday April 6 was another travel day as we headed to Decatur, IN and the REV Technical Center - home to Fleetwood RVs.  Hank said it was the worst RV driving day he ever had since once again the winds were high, and hitting Little House broadside most of the way. We signed in as drop-ins with no promise of getting service. In contrast to previous visits, the parking lot with electric hookups was only half full. This was to be our home for the next 5 nights.

Sunday was laundry day.  The facility has a great, and free, laundry room for the use of customers, since there are no water or sewer hookups in the camping area.   The weather turned colder with lows around 20 and included snow showers Sunday night into Monday morning.

Monday, we used the dump station on the property to empy black and gray tanks and fill up the water tank.

Today is Wednesday, April 11 and we've had no service. We're leaving this afternoon for Celina, OH, about 30 miles away, for a service appointment.  Once again, Hank will have to battle the winds on our journey, but at least it's only 31 miles!

MARCH 19-MARCH 25: Another Busy Week and A New Baby!

We decided to spend another week at the Moose Lodge in Wake Forest.  After getting in position to stay hooked up to water and sewer, this week will have a few more conveniences.   The weeks's schedule included two night meetings for Hank, a mammogram for Selene, and an appointment for Hank with his cardiologist. Our medical appointments are now finished and all results were good.

Friday evening, March 23 we enjoyed hamburger and onion rings at the Moose Lodge, while we watched the dart players and visited with members.

Saturday morning, we met with a group for breakfast at the Golden Corral in south Raleigh.  A low tire warning found us spending 90 minutes at Duty Tire across the street from GC getting a  faulty valve stem replaced.  Saturday eveing we enjoyed a delicious dinner and visit with Mary Jo and Chuck at their home in Raleigh.

Sunday morning, March 25, we got  Little House ready to move before going to the Lodge for an Easter Bunny Brunch - scrambled eggs, sausage, bacon, grits, biscuit, pancakes, coffee, juice and milk - all for $6.  This was followed by egg hunts for the children, and we had a front row seat in the RV to watch all the festivities.  After the parking lot emptied some, it was time to unplug, pull up the jacks, say thank you and farewell, before we drove 16 miles to the NC State Fairgrounds and the campground near the Hunt Horse Complex.  We'll be here until April 2 to help with setup and activities for the Raleigh Amatuer Radio Hamfest to be held on March 31.

The big news of the week was the arrival of our second great-grandchild, Melody-Bell Martin on Friday, March 23 in Birmingham, AL. She decided to arrive 2 months earlier than predicted weighing 3 lbs. 1 oz., but is doing well  in the  NICU.