A New Adventure, February 6, 2015

 

Abe on the lot in Portland

       Welcome to our new blog!  Our exploration adventures continue, but we’ve moved from a 42’ Nordic Tug to a 37’ Tiffin Allegro Bus.  Why? You ask.  Well, for the complete, robust answer, we refer you to our last blog on “Adventures on Cosmo Place”.  The short answer is that we had serious boat problems last summer and were just “over” the whole cruising experience.  We bought our bus at the end of November and Cosmo Place sold the end of December…life is good!

         We spent December and January on the bus, whose name is “Abe”, in Anacortes, WA at Fidalgo Bay RV Park.  The transition from Cosmo Place to Abe was a challenge.  Where to store stuff, how do the systems work, how to tow the Chevy pick-up…the list went on and on.  On top of all that, Cosmo Place needed to be emptied.  Although comparable in size, the bus has less storage than the boat and we were challenged to make it all work.  Our storage unit was the processing sight and we left quite a lot of boat stuff in storage.  We need to have a big garage sale when we return to Anacortes!

         You might think that staying in Anacortes in the winter was a crazy idea, but we didn’t think so!  Anacortes is a delightful town, we’re sold on the our church there…Anacortes Lutheran Church, and there’s always something to do.  We’ve acquired lots of friends who keep us entertained…or whom we entertain!  More than once this winter we’ve said to each other, “How did we ever go to work?  We’re so busy now and love being retired!”

         Monday, February 2, we were ready to leave.  We hooked up the pick up to the tow apparatus behind Abe and checked the lights…no brake lights and no turn signals on the pickup!  Rats!  Jerry went through everything twice but it was all hooked up correctly.  Certainly we were a little frustrated and decided to depart anyway and seek help.  RVer friends had recommended an independent RV service in Sedro-Woolley (about 20 miles east of us).  A quick phone call reassured us that this place could help us out.  The tech quickly determined that the tow package was installed incorrectly:  two wires were crossed and we were missing a relay. 

         By 11 AM we were on the road again and headed south on I-5, looking at blue sky out there ahead of us.  We made it a big 20 miles south of Mount Vernon, WA, when our windshield wipers quit!  If we were in Arizona this would not have been a big deal, but no wipers in Washington is an emergency!  Luckily we were close to Smokey Point rest area and pulled off to figure out what was wrong.

         Jerry called Rick at B Young RV (where we bought Abe) with no luck and then called the Tiffin Service Department in Red Bay, Alabama, but no success there, either.  Out of frustration, he called Bob Tiffin, the founder of Tiffin, the company who built our coach.  Bob (yes, I feel comfortable addressing him with such familiarity) is still very much involved and his phone number was in our documentation.

Abe in Mount Vernon Poulsbo RV service department

         Much to our surprise, Bob soon called us back.  Jerry explained the wiper problem and lack of maintenance support and a few of our many frustrations with Abe.  Within 10 minutes after the conversation with Bob, things started to happen!  We were put in touch with the NW Tiffin representative and he asked that we return to Mount Vernon Poulsbo RV (MVPRV) for help.  Ironically, this RV dealership was one of those we had visited in our quest for an RV in November!

         The tech at MVPRV confirmed that the wiper motor had “bit the dust” and a new one needed to be ordered.  Okay let me say here that Abe was not yet a year old and had less than 5,000 miles on him.  Rats!  Given all the other problems we had found on Abe, this seemed ominous.

         One of the magic people at MVPRV was Monique, the customer care director, who did a lot of calling to find a new wiper motor.  Unfortunately she was unsuccessful Monday afternoon and said she would Tiffin in Red Bay, Alabama, on Tuesday morning.  She was hopeful that she could order our needed motor ASAP on Tuesday, it would arrive on Wednesday morning and we could be on our way by noon on Wednesday.  Music to our ears!

         We were able to stay at the MVPRV lot on Monday night, hooked up to 30 AMP power (in a happy life we would have 50 AMP power).  The down side of this plan was that we were only a football field away from the southbound lanes of I-5.  Noisy?  Yes, but we were happy to be safely tucked in.  At the end of the day on Monday, we figured we had driven about 100 miles and actually made it about 15 miles east of Anacortes!

         Tuesday morning brought some new opportunities.  Jerry, in his conversation with Bob Tiffin, mentioned that we had had many problems with Abe.  Most of these problems were due to poor cabinetry skills during installation.  While we waited on the motor to appear, cabinetry repairs were made and now the drawers will stay shut as we drive down the road.

         Of course the UPS truck came and went on Wednesday morning…no wiper motor.  It finally showed up about 3:30 Wednesday afternoon, was quickly installed, and voila! we had wipers again.  Of course it was too late to depart so we stayed in the lot at Mount Vernon Poulsbo RV one more night.

Jerry is getting good at hooking up the pickup to Abe!

         0900 Thursday morning, February 5, we were hitched up and on the road and will spend 2 nights at in Peach Beach RV Park on US-97 at the Columbia River.  Great place!  Friday we will do some exploring in the area and maybe even do some wine tasting.  Let the fun times begin...again!