Macon
April 20, 2018, We're on our way. A teary goodbye to our family. Wishes that we could have spent a little more time with each of them. We pass the "Leaving Florida" sign and realize that now there is no going back to our old life. We took the plunge and now we're in it for everything that comes along.
Six exciting hours later we arrive in Macon, Georgia and find the RV campground that we have booked for the night. It is a Good Sams park, but it isn't nearly as nice as we expected. The sites are very unlevel. Even after deploying our leveling jacks, we are sitting at a 30-degree grade. There are no other sites available and all of them look nearly as bad as ours.
It rains all night. Since the door is already under stress from the extreme torque of the front jack and the extreme downhill grade that the coach is sitting on, we have a leak. We clean up the mess and put the fan on the wet door frame to prevent damage.
We leave early, deciding to go out of our way to fill up the RV propane tank. Our small stay-awhile tank is still full, but the big coach tank is what we use to fuel the generator. On the way to Tractor Supply, Allen signals he is pulling into a gas station. I know this means trouble because our gas and diesel tanks are full.
We get out of the vehicles and he tells me there are loud noises coming from the steering mechanism. I peak under the coach to find red hydraulic fluid flowing down the driveway. Not a good thing. Allen sits with the coach and I go to Walmart which is thankfully right next door and pick up some hydraulic fluid; quite a lot of hydraulic fluid, actually!
We start calling local repair shops and as usual, no one wants to fix anything on an RV and no one repairs steering on a diesel chassis. Frantically, I look under semi-truck repairs and find a shop that specializes in "Big Rig Steering Issues" and they have a four and a half star review on google. I call, they will repair it and state that they probably have all they need on their shelves; however, they can't get to the repair for over a week.
We are happy we found a shop, we are not happy with the wait, but we have no choice. We start calling RV parks and find one that is close and reasonable. It is a Shriner's park, which is a good thing to me since my dad was a Master Mason. We fill up the hydraulic reservoir and limp to the park for our wait.
We eventually talk ourselves into making the most of our forced downtime and start looking for places to visit. I've posted pictures below from Ocmulgee State Park and Amerson Water Park. I hope you enjoy. We did!
The shop got to the repair within a week and they did a wonderful job. The shop that we paid to do the job about five months ago, I am very disappointed in. They did not rebuild the steering box like they told us they did, they replaced one seal.
The shop in Macon, JMSI Steering Repair, replaced the remaining two seals and the internal gear. They also checked the steering arms and assured us we should have no more trouble for a long time.
Six exciting hours later we arrive in Macon, Georgia and find the RV campground that we have booked for the night. It is a Good Sams park, but it isn't nearly as nice as we expected. The sites are very unlevel. Even after deploying our leveling jacks, we are sitting at a 30-degree grade. There are no other sites available and all of them look nearly as bad as ours.
It rains all night. Since the door is already under stress from the extreme torque of the front jack and the extreme downhill grade that the coach is sitting on, we have a leak. We clean up the mess and put the fan on the wet door frame to prevent damage.
We leave early, deciding to go out of our way to fill up the RV propane tank. Our small stay-awhile tank is still full, but the big coach tank is what we use to fuel the generator. On the way to Tractor Supply, Allen signals he is pulling into a gas station. I know this means trouble because our gas and diesel tanks are full.
We get out of the vehicles and he tells me there are loud noises coming from the steering mechanism. I peak under the coach to find red hydraulic fluid flowing down the driveway. Not a good thing. Allen sits with the coach and I go to Walmart which is thankfully right next door and pick up some hydraulic fluid; quite a lot of hydraulic fluid, actually!
We start calling local repair shops and as usual, no one wants to fix anything on an RV and no one repairs steering on a diesel chassis. Frantically, I look under semi-truck repairs and find a shop that specializes in "Big Rig Steering Issues" and they have a four and a half star review on google. I call, they will repair it and state that they probably have all they need on their shelves; however, they can't get to the repair for over a week.
We are happy we found a shop, we are not happy with the wait, but we have no choice. We start calling RV parks and find one that is close and reasonable. It is a Shriner's park, which is a good thing to me since my dad was a Master Mason. We fill up the hydraulic reservoir and limp to the park for our wait.
We eventually talk ourselves into making the most of our forced downtime and start looking for places to visit. I've posted pictures below from Ocmulgee State Park and Amerson Water Park. I hope you enjoy. We did!
The shop got to the repair within a week and they did a wonderful job. The shop that we paid to do the job about five months ago, I am very disappointed in. They did not rebuild the steering box like they told us they did, they replaced one seal.
The shop in Macon, JMSI Steering Repair, replaced the remaining two seals and the internal gear. They also checked the steering arms and assured us we should have no more trouble for a long time.
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