NORTH ALABAMA RV ers

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1 NORTH ALABAMA RV ers A chapter of the Family Motor Coach Association Chartered March 2003 Editor: Bob Erickson mhsurfr@gmail.com Greetings from our President Bob Erickson I would like to do some hiking in the park, if it s not wet. Kathie won t, due to her foot pain. Many folks are unable to hike, unfortunately. I might also visit the Little River Canyon Center again. These are personal plans, so subject to change if a group wants other activities. Kathie will play games at any time, and I am happy to commiserate on any RV problems! We won t have a business meeting (even if we have a quorum!), but will discuss the FMCA Bylaw amendments. Greetings, friends! Spring is here, and the flowers and trees are blooming (achoo)! Daylight Savings Time is occurring, and the temperature is dropping below freezing again. Life is full of variety and uncertainty. Some things we can change, but others we need to accept. As I sent out separately, Kathie and I volunteered to coordinate the April rally at DeSoto State Park. That means we won t cook meals or plan activities. I DO want to do some things: Standard Meet n Greet on Thursday at 4:30 Dinner at the DeSoto Lodge on Friday Pot Luck on Saturday night (I will need to coordinate dishes) I will send out the April 2015 Newsletter separately, so you can review the DeSoto Rally Report. So far, Ericksons (site 48) and Claypools (site 49) have made reservations. If you are coming, let me know! Randal & Pam Caruthers have volunteered for a rally in early May in Huntsville (still TBD, either Monte Sano or Ditto Landing; Monte Sano is nicer, but Caruther s yacht (pontoon boat) is at Ditto). Speaking of Caruthers, who have driven out to Arizona for a month They have a story to tell! Kathie wants me to put it in the newsletter, but I d like Pam to tell the whole story in a separate article next month. Stay tuned! Bob & Kathie Erickson have volunteered to host in September in Hoover AL. See the rally schedule and recommended locations for ideas, and please volunteer to host! If you ve never Page 1 of 12

2 hosted, folks will be glad to assist. Also at the rally, EVERYONE will volunteer to help. Charlie Adcock sent out s to our NARV Executive Board, containing info we need to consider for our National Director to vote on. I have not yet received responses from the membership. I m including all document links below: President's Newsletter This includes Charlie Adcock s assessment of FMCA s current condition, and a presentation justifying opening up FMCA to towables as equal memberships. Proposed Amendments #1-#3 These are self-explanatory, and include justifications. I personally concur with all three. Please reply to me with all questions or votes (yes OR no), and I will tally for Betty and Linda. IF I DON T GET A RESPONSE, I WILL CONSIDER THAT A YES VOTE! Please respond! Also, may I assume that NARV will vote for Betty Duncan for SEA President??? I ll bring Newsletter Archive CDs to any rally. Remember, this CD also includes my Travel Journal from 2016 (Our Western Adventure)! Please pray for those members and friends that are experiencing health problems and/or other issues. I ve talked to Tim Day and Linda Hall about their health recently. Tim s condition is stable, he s not on chemo at the moment. Linda had a skin reaction to her medicine, and her doctor recommended stopping it. She s doing great otherwise. Garry Claypool is pending bypass surgery, but is scheduled to attend the DeSoto Rally. Bob Erickson, President National Director s Report Betty Duncan Hello everyone. The FMCA 95 th International Convention and RV Expo rally in Chandler AZ was a big success. We are on our way home and hope to make it by Friday or Saturday. Jimmy is trying to drive miles a day but his shoulder and arm are hurting him. He has rotator cuff surgery on the 20th. We hope to get home and get unpacked by the weekend before surgery on Monday. I will have a full rally report for the April newsletter. We didn't vote on anything in Chandler but will in July in Indy. I will have these in my next report. It took us 7 days of straight driving from Florida to Chandler. We haven't gotten to sightsee going or heading home. Chuck Borcher said they and Randal and Pam came to the rally for one day on a day pass, but we didn't see them. They kept us busy. We did run into Linda and Ove Jackobsen at coffee and donuts one morning but did not see them again. Page 2 of 12

3 Chandler was the biggest rally since our Southeast rally in Perry in 2011 with over 2600 coaches, 2300 family coaches. I will have exact figures next month. Betty Taken in northern Arizona when leaving. Cold one day then record 94F the next! On the road in New Mexico We were fortunate enough to have two big RV rallies here in the Phoenix area this winter ; one sponsored by Good Sam February 23 26, and FMCA s March I thought it was interesting that the Good Sam Rally was over a weekend while A Tale of Two Rallies Chuck Borcher Page 3 of 12 FMCA s was during the week. Of course, for us snowbirds and there are a LOT of us out here it does not matter a whole lot. Good Sam s was held at the Phoenix NASCAR racetrack, a very nice facility. FMCA s was held at the Rawhide Western Town and Event Center at Wild Horse Pass in Chandler, Arizona, a rather dirty dusty facility close by. One thing to be said about the Event center is they had a very large nice building to house the vendors. Neither event had big name evening entertainment in my opinion. Good Sam offered free day pass tickets which entitled you to do everything during the day. They took out a full page (back inside cover) in our Mesa Regal Resort monthly Messenger, a very nice color publication of 52 pages. They advertised free day

4 pass tickets available in our Activity Office. I understand that the day the Messenger came out there was a real rush of people picking up tickets. Lucky for me that Sue read the ad and mentioned it to me so I got a couple of tickets. When I saw this I wrote Jim Duncan and asked what FMCA was doing. He sent my up the line and I got a call from the FMCA office saying We have over 100 ambassadors signed up to put large posters in their RV resorts, to hand out free day passes, etc. All of these members are located in about a fifty mile radius from Chandler. I wrote back that I had not heard of such a program and asked who in Mesa Regal was given the tickets. They did not know and when I asked later what resorts in the area had ambassadors, again they could not tell me. They offered to send me a packet with the posters and tickets. It included 25 tickets and several posters. I told them I could probably distribute 100 tickets in our resort and several resorts very close by. It turned out I was too late to get an ad in our Messenger. They did send me 100 tickets Priority Mail February 17. I distributed the 25 tickets in the initial package to my neighbors and friends and waited for the 100. After a week or so, it had not arrived, so I called the FMCA person who sent them and he responded that they had been mailed, but the Post Office had no record after they picked them up. I received the tickets March 6 and gave 50 to our Activity Office and took 50 next door to Tower Point. Obviously, with the rally starting the next day, there was no chance to publicize the free tickets, but people stopping in could pick them up. I found that you could download a day pass ticket from the FMCA website so I downloaded one and made 20 copies and distributed them as I waited for the 100 tickets to arrive. The free FMCA day pass entitled you to access to the vendor tent and coach displays only; you could not get into the seminars or the evening entertainment. FMCA did offer a day pass for $50 that did allow one access to everything that day. Charlie Adcock called me (before the tickets arrived) and I mentioned to him that the Good Sam Pass entitled one to full access to the event while FMCA s only allowed one into the vendor tent and coach displays. He pointed out that the on-site camping was full, the seminar rooms were small, and they wanted to be sure the onsite campers got into the seminars they wanted. They actually had to get more parking for onsite camping I was told later. So much for the prelims. The Good Sam rally was a huge disappointment for me and most of the people I talked to. They had two seminar rooms that WERE small; they ran the same seminars every day so they had about 8 different seminars during the entire rally! The one I attended was presented by the ex-editor of their magazines and he covered trends in the industry which did little to educate us about our current rigs. They did have a huge RV display area, BUT they had NO 0 - Winnebago products (and, as you know, I am a big Winnebago fan). The vendor area was another disappointment. The tent was not large by my standards we had more vendors at the GLASS rally in Michigan than they had. Two weeks later I attended the FMCA rally. I was able to find the rally schedule on-line so I picked a day where Sue could attend a Microwave Cooking seminar, Wednesday, and I went back Friday. FMCA had 10 seminar rooms presenting different seminars every day. As an example, there were only two microwave seminars presented and they were not the same. The one I attended was in a very nice sized room; I cannot speak to the other rooms except to say they had a large tent for the area get-togethers. The vendors were well represented as I expected at a FMCA rally, as well as coach manufacturers and chassis builders. LaMesa RV had a nice selection of Winnebagos, though a limited number of class A gas models. It turned out that they did not turn away those of us with day passes from the seminars as I expected. Everyone I talked to who attended the FMCA rally enjoyed it, although one complaint I got was How do you live in all this dust! The FMCA rally covered a lot more ground and, therefore, was much dustier we call it sand. I would like to suggest to any Good Sam club, if you would like to belong to an association that cares about your club and not trying to sell you something, JOIN FMCA. Once we modify our by-laws this summer, you will be welcomed with open arms. PS FMCA if you do not open up to all RVs, you will be in a world of hurt, please let them in. You do not have to let them into your club if you do not want them, but let them into the organization. Page 4 of 12

5 Newsletter Editor s Ramble Bob Erickson separate article on it. I needed to complete the task before the temperature dropped below freezing again, which was a main reason for Newsletter tardiness. After finishing the batteries, I remembered that neither of my bay heaters is working. I fixed one previously, and then the system quit. Something else to fix I put heaters and hot pads in the water bays underneath. A little late again, for various reasons. I m feeling my age! At our rental house; I m cutting and removing 3 more trees (1 done so far), clearing brush from and behind fence, and moving fence. Our renters have a white German shepherd puppy, which needs more fenced area (in 2015, I reduced the fenced area to drop trees outside the fence). On our trip to Florida, I noticed our engine power was reduced on hills and during acceleration. Fuel mileage was way down. We have a few months left on our factory engine warranty, so brought the RV to Southland International (Navistar (International) MaxxForce 10 engine). They diagnosed a failed (don t have details) exhaust manifold, and the turbocharger was clogged with carbon. After 3 weeks, we finally have it back. I can t really tell a difference in power. I will drive it more, and check mileage on the DeSoto rally trip. We re going on a longer trip up North at the end of April. I replaced my HEAVY (120+ lb) batteries when our RV was returned from Southland International. It was complex enough that I decided to do a So, to protect the water, I pressurize with the water pump and turn on the water heater. Now there is a bad leak in the water compartment above the black tank. So I turn off the pump and drain the water heater after isolating it. I will find the leak when it warms up Also, my computer refused to boot (again). It didn t take as long to repair this time, since I knew what to search for (on a different computer!). A BCD File was corrupt. It seems to be a common problem with Windows 10. Here is the best link I found: I m doing my taxes this year using the Free Forms feature at IRS.gov. When Turbotax became too expensive, I moved to TaxAct (also going up). The instructions are poor, and entries are made directly into forms. It IS electronically submitted. There is very little error checking, so I need to know what I m doing. We use the Standard Deduction now, but still have Schedule E for our rental house income and deductions. With under $65k Adjusted Gross Income, FreeFile is available which might be a professional service (provides error checking). Page 5 of 12

6 I have twice left phone messages and s for Hoover Metrodome Campground, with no response. I will continue to try. They are closed until May 31 for renovations. This is the rally Kathie and I have volunteered to host. PET OWNERS! In preparation, work on your pet tricks! Please consider sending input (and errata) for YOUR newsletter. Prayer requests, RV used items for sale, family milestones, family biography, recipes, crafts or any type of motorhome project are requested. Also, if you have RV questions or issues you need help with. And don t forget to tell us where you ve been, with pictures! Bob Replacing RV House Batteries-An Extreme Case Study Bob Erickson The need to change them promptly was driven by impending extreme cold weather. The Huntsville Interstate dealer on Governor s Drive had specialordered them for me, then stored them for 3 weeks while the RV was at the International dealer. The cost was about $1200 for 4. I didn t pay a core charge, so needed to bring the old batteries in to exchange. The weather was cold, misty, and sometimes drizzly. My battery system is different from most-the batteries are larger (120lb+ Interstate L-16HCL with 420 Amp-Hours (AH) each) and I have a watering system to keep the plates covered. It s almost 5 years since we bought the RV, and the last dry (SEA) rally we attended required we run the generator 3 times a day instead of once. The first step is to remove the old batteries. In the olden days I used to draw out the configuration of attachments, but now I just take a picture or 3: Two sets of 6-volt batteries are connected in series, and then the two sets are connected in parallel. The system is 12-volts, and a total of 1680 AH. Page 6 of 12

7 I hit the battery disconnect button by the entry door, and found that the relay had failed in the powered position (would not disconnect). There is a manual switch at the batteries themselves, and that didn t work either. The isolator between the house and coach batteries is not functioning. I need to work on these later Here s a picture of the clamps and watering system installed (without cables) on the new batteries: (2 pictures of auto and manual disconnects) Examining my installation, I could see that I need to remove in the following order: 1. Remove cables 2. Remove watering system (tubes and caps) 3. Remove retaining clamps All positive terminals are on the left side, and negative on the right (make sure, for your RV). I disconnected the negative lead to the RV. It is important to work this way, because otherwise a wrench might short against a grounded surface (e.g. metal enclosure or retaining clamp) while loosening a battery connection. After removing the clamps, the batteries are ready to remove. Since I removed the watering system, the batteries have no caps-and they are filled with ACID! The RV manufacturer disposed of the caps after installing the watering system (SMART!). I cut a 2x4 to protect the rubber door gasket from damage, and clamped it in place: The watering system is simply caps and tubing, so is removed in a single unit: The batteries have rope handles on each side with tubular plastic handles (see the first picture in this article). I successfully removed one battery without spilling, but spilled a LOT on the concrete with the second. I ran into the house to get baking soda to inert the acid. Page 7 of 12

8 Sooo, I picked up the new batteries, and left a credit card as collateral for return of the cores (with caps ). After installing caps (and protecting the new batteries from contamination with milk jug caps), I easily removed the remaining 2 batteries. After 5 years, the floor of the compartment was pretty rusty. Our second RV was 5 years old on purchase, and the sheet metal bracket holding the batteries rusted and collapsed. I replaced the bracket with angle iron. With our third RV, I painted every 3 years on battery replacement. I NEVER needed to paint again after I started lining the floor with plywood (recommended!) So, I inerted any acid with baking soda and water, then scraped and brushed and sanded and vacuumed and washed and dried. I then painted the floor with Rustoleum. After drying overnight, I cut 3/8 inch plywood to line the floor of the compartment. There is a stiffener in the middle, so separate pieces are required: The temperature was in the 30s that night and rainy, so the paint wasn t going to dry. I put a heater on a flagstone under the compartment, and circled under the compartment with plastic bins and stuff. This would block wind and allow the floor of the compartment to heat up. I would have added a second coat of black, if I had had time. It was fairly easy to tilt the batteries and push them in with my knee, WHEN THEY HAD CAPS ON I then attached the brackets, water system, and cables (reverse order of removal). I used the water system to top off the batteries, then I turned on the power. The batteries seem to work fine, thankfully. Page 8 of 12

9 Member Celebrations March Birthdays 7 Elaine Crowden 7 Linda Hammond 8 Jack Craver 13 Trudy Rohr April Birthdays 8 BJ Campe 17 Judy Collier 22 Connie Rogers 27 Randal Caruthers 17 Joy Nelson 18 Linda Hall March Anniversaries 10 Jim & Patsy Coble 11 Wayne & Dianna Smith 13 Bob & Kathie Erickson April Anniversaries 16 Horace & Elaine Crowden 30 Ron & Kaz Patrick Membership Dues Reminder Annual chapter membership fees ($20 couple and $10 single) for calendar year 2016 are due, and they may be paid in the form of cash or a check payable to North Alabama RV ers sent to: Linda Hammond 7555 AL Hwy 168 Boaz, AL Page 9 of 12

10 NORTH ALABAMA RV ers 2017 Rally Schedule Members please take note of the rallies still needing hosts. You can sign up by send your selection to Randal & Pam Caruthers at I ve also included some nearby RV shows and nearby Good Sam rallies Note: Please make your reservations at least 60 days in advance of each rally, so the Wagon Masters can obtain a count of the attendees for the Hosts. Also let Bob Erickson know your plans, and I will let the whole club know who is attending (include tentative, please). January Knoxville RV Supershow, Sevierville, TN (247 Miles) Good Sam show only, not a rally Go to for info. Good Sam membership required, $8.00 for adults (per day?) January Florida RV Supershow, Tampa, FL (663 Miles) Go to for info. Camping sold out, local RV parks may be available. $10.00 for adults (2d day free). Happy Traveler RV Park also has no vacancies. January Chattanooga RV Supershow, Chattanooga, TN (112 Miles) Good Sam show only, not a rally Go to for info. Good Sam membership required, $8.00 for adults (per day?) February Southeastern Area Rally, Lakeland, FL (651 Miles, 26 miles from Tampa) Location: Lakeland Lindner Regional Airport. Go to the FMCA website for info and to register. See application illustration on last page. March FMCA 95 th Family Reunion and Motorhome Showcase, Chandler, AZ (1788 Miles) Go to the FMCA website for info and to register March Georgia Good Sam Spring RV Rally, Perry, GA (345 Miles) Go to: ion_spring_2017.pdf for information and registration form. Cost $110 for 3 nights, power available if you apply early. April DeSoto State Park (79 Miles) Location: 7104 DeSoto Parkway NE, Fort Payne, AL 35967Ph Charges $34.65 per night Rally Hosts: TBD Page 10 of 12

11 May Huntsville, ( (11 Miles) Location: Monte Sano or Ditto Landing, AL Ph. 256-XXX-XXXX Charges: $XX.00 per night or less depending on the discounts at that date. Rally Hosts: Pam & Randal Caruthers June Memphis??? ( (200 Miles) Location: Somewhere, Memphis, TN Ph: Charges: $XX.00 per night or less depending on the discounts at that date. Rally Hosts: TBD July Mountain Glen RV Campground, ( (125 Miles) Location: 6182 Brockdell Road, Pikeville, TN. Ph Charges: $31.00 per night or less depending on the discounts at that date. Rally Hosts: TBD July FMCA 96 th International Convention Indiana State Fairgrounds, Indianapolis, IN (400 Miles) Caravan parking July Early parking in the holding area (as identified on date of entry credential beginning July 9. Tram service begins July August TBD (XXX Miles) Location: Rally Hosts: TBD September 7-10 Hoover RV Park (112 Miles) Location: 100 Ben Chapman Dr, Hoover AL Ph Charges: $31.92, incl tax. Plan to visit Barber Motorsports Museum (26 miles, 28 minutes away, $15; we MAY pay extra for a docent-led tour if we have at least 10 attendees). We also plan to conduct a pet cute trick contest. Judges will be members WITHOUT pets! Start your training now! Rally Hosts: Bob & Kathie Erickson September Georgia Good Sam Fall RV Rally, Perry, GA (345 Miles) Go to: for information and registration form (none on website yet). Page 11 of 12

12 October River Plantation, ( (240 Miles) Location: 1004 Parkway, Sevierville, TN. Ph Charges: $40.50 per night or less depending on the discounts at that date. Rally Hosts: TBD December 9 Holiday Celebration, Luncheon, business meeting Location TBD Tentative Campgrounds for Rally Sites Campground Name Phone Number City Miles $/Night Windemere Cove RV Resort Langston, AL 54 $ Rock Island State Park Rock Island, TN 110 $ Talladega Creekside Talladega, AL 106 $ River Country Gadsden, AL 74 Piney Grove Dennis, MS 117 $ Tishomingo State Park Tishomingo, MS 110 $ Page 12 of 12