Day Three

Today is our third day in the service department. We got up early to be ready for repairs at 7:30 a.m., but when we talked to Ken U., he said that the service department was very busy and they might not have time to work on our rig today, but that tomorrow there will be a big push.

We did talk about the bedrail clearance problem, and Ken U. asked us to hitch up so he could look at the situation. He suggested some possibilities, like adding spacers under the rails attaching our hitch to our truck bed, which might raise up possibly 2", but at the cost of making our already tall rig even taller--and lowering the already very low rear.

He showed us a way that the rubber springs on each axle could be raised maybe less than an inch. He pointed out the possibility of adding some to the bottom of the frame, which would be an extremely major job. None of these suggestions seemed likely to really deal with our problems effectively, so we are more convinced than ever that modifying our truck bed is the way to go.

Our trailer was pulled into the service bay after lunch, but we're really not sure what all was done. Ernie did come to us at one point to say that he'd have to order a replacement MCD shade that wouldn't be in until September 25, but he came back a bit later to say that he'd found a shade we could use--yay. Tony sanded and refinished an area on one cabinet door that had some strange white spots on it.

During the day we talked with our fellow New Horizons owners. We chatted with Jerry and Chris, who were waiting for new tires and for some other adjustments on their new Majestic. They are hoping to leave soon for their vacation in the Outer Banks. Jerry is retired, but Chris is still working. They have lots of miles to drive between here and the North Carolina coast. Jerry plans to drive way more miles per day than we would ever consider when towing.

Jerry and Chris also told us lots of stories of their previous RV "adventures," involving things like the frame parts of a previous trailer just falling off as they drove along.

Bob Emerson came by and said that he had a grease gun full of grease he wouldn't be using and offered it to anyone who wanted to inject some grease into the zerk fittings on our Hensley hitches. Several people took him up on the offer, including us. We watched the process closely so that we'll be able to do it in the future. It turns out that our MORryde axles also have zerk fittings and need grease at least annually.

When our rig was pulled back out of the service bay and we went to go in, we found ourselves completely unable to open the door. Kylie and Ernie and Ken U. all came to look at it and work on it. We are now able to get in and out, but they've promised to actually fix it tomorrow.

As I was responding to an email from Bruce and Mary Sue, who said that they planned to arrive at the factory tomorrow, we heard a knock on the door. It was Bruce. They had decided to drive 300 miles today to avoid driving in the forecast rain tomorrow. They are staying at Owl's Nest, a Passport America park nearby. We walked with Bruce over to Willis and Rebecca's Summit and found them just arriving home from a shopping trip in Manhattan. They went to Best Buy there to pick up a 32" flat panel LED TV to replace the old one in their RV.


We waited until after dinner to take our evening walk. We walked 40 minutes this morning, so we had only 20 minutes to go to make our daily hour. It was sprinkling when we started, but the heavier rain encouraged us to quit after 15 minutes. Later when we were watching TV, the signal disappeared as a thunderstorm blew around us, but it came back when things let up a bit. Kansas really needs the rain, so we're glad that some is falling, but we hope we won't be blown away in the process!