Postcard from New Mexico- 4

Santa Fe

After a month and a half of whining, the news is good this time. It took 6 weeks but the new landing gear arrived from Lippert Components Inc. (they manufacture the chassis for Keystone/Montana) and the legs are installed... took about 3 hours of labor.

And this time the locking pin extends thru both sides of each leg. No weird angles; no forcing the pin thru.

I was able to also have them replace the after-market connector in the bed of the truck. The optional Ford integrated trailer-brake controller had frequently given us a TRAILER NOT CONNECTED message since late March of last year. In hind sight, it was caused by an intermittent ground connection where the after-market plug connects to Ford's factory-installed wiring harness. Besides causing intermittent failure of the trailer running & brake lights, it also caused the trailer brakes to be intermittent. Yikes! Our work-around had been to use the Ford-provided plug next to the receiver hitch which, unfortunately, significantly limited the angle between the trailer and the truck when parking. [ Like the integrated trailer-brake controller, the hitch is part of Ford's optional tow package. ]

Back at Santa Fe Skies, I was surprised that parking was less of a problem this time. In part because it was the 2nd time getting into the same space, but mostly it's that the opening to the site is really wide. I was able to maneuver endlessly till I walked the rig close to the patio. If we aren't real close, the sewer hose ends up going over a slope which causes the hose-support (the 'caterpillar') to fall over about once per week... usually about the time I have to drain the black tank. Now the tank seems to drain properly and the hose stays put.

Best news of all is that we have the last 2 Goodyear G614 RST tires installed. The rig is pretty much good to go at this point since I was able to lube the spring shackles while the wheels were off. I told the manager at Discount Tire that they had seen way too much of us over the last year. First it was the truck tires which took several visits... not least of which was because I had no "key" for the spare tire. Then I found  one of the new tires going flat which turned out to be a loose Schrader valve. We had them repair a tire on the Highlander which went flat after I put that car on the trailer to bring it to Santa Fe. And lastly was the debacle of one-at-a-time tire-replacement for the Montana. I must have been in an out of the store a dozen times.

Even though the truck & Montana are ready to go, we've decided to delay the trip to Maine. We've watched the endless mid-west heat on the weather reports which have us very concerned. The hot spell has gone on so long we chickened out. At this point we think our best bet is to stay in Santa Fe till the middle of September and then head to Benson, AZ for the winter. Then next year (2012) we'll leave Benson about the first of April and head to Santa Fe for annual checkups before leaving for Maine in the middle of May. That schedule will leave plenty of time to return by way of some of the Canadian Maritimes (New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Is.) if we want. Probably have to skip Newfoundland and Labrador this time, but we can see Quebec and SE Ontario. The Maritimes were our easterly destination in 2010 when the house called us back.

Jacking the Montana

I thought I should touch on what I learned from this. When I first had the landing gear failure, I talked to several friends about what I thought had caused the problem. I'd hoped someone could offer a method of avoiding a repeat incident. I think it was Dan Weigman who said he always has the front of his rig supported by his truck when jacking anytime he removes a tire. Plus he jacks the rig only part way via the frame, then he puts another jack under the axle to get the tire clear of the ground. Jacking a fifth wheel this way limits how far the frame has to rise on one side, puts a minimal load on the axle (way less than it sees underway), and keeps all load off the landing gear. So I tried this approach for the last 2 tires and think this just became SOP for tire changes on the dog house.

The only issue is that you need enough blocking. A bottle jack just doesn't have the extension range to lift either the tire or (once the frame is up) the axle. I have 5 dozen 2"x8"x18" scraps plus 2- 2"x6"x6' boards (used for leveling) and it wasn't enough. So before we leave for winter pasture I'll need to add more blocking. And I'll need to replace the plastic "milk crate" (one of those cheap knock-offs from Crates&Barrels) which dies from UV in a matter of months.

Skip this paragraph if you don't want to hear me whine: our Montana (3400RL) has a corrugated plastic cover over the bottom. It keeps out dirt and debris and some of the winter cold so it's much appreciated. What I don't appreciate is that the frame doesn't have defined jacking-points which, if they were there, would be covered by that same corrugated plastic. As a result, I can't really be sure where I'm putting the jack relative to the frame. In fact, at one point I punched a hole in the plastic cover because there was no frame underneath the ram of the bottle jack. So a person has to be careful about where the bottle jacks are placed when jacking the frame. It would have been so easy for Lippert (they built the chassis which Keystone builds upon to create a Montana) to have welded pads under the frame to retain the end of the bottle jack ram. Also, jacking the axle to get the tire clear (200# tops) is a little scarey as the underneath surface of the axle is curved and not appropriate for jacking (the springs are mounted to the top of the axles). I use a block of wood which does little more than add friction, but it would be even scarier without it. End of whine.

Full-timer's Blog

One last thing: RVing friends Becky and Dave are full-timers we met in Sioux Falls, SD last July and we've stayed in touch for over a year now. A couple weeks ago Becky started a blog here so she wouldn't have to e-Mail all their photos to family & friends. Here's a couple photos of Celia reading her blog.

Here's Celia before reading Becky's blog:

Here's Celia after reading Becky's blog:

Clearly reading Becky's blog is good for your state of mind. Looks like it's "Admiral Approved"!

Postcard from New Mexico- 3

Santa Fe, NM

So. Here we are in Santa Fe, all dressed up to go somewhere and no way to get there. I'll explain.

Since we bought this new Montana, I've been reading about what crap-tires Keystone installs on the rig. We've had zero problem, but then we try to keep the weight down and I limit top speed when pulling to 60 mph (the Marathons are rated at 65 mph max). Tire pressure is checked frequently and I have a small compressor stored in the basement to fill the tire if needed. The reality is that Goodyear Marathon tires are at their maximum load rating with our fully loaded 3400RL Montana. So at this point I don't know if we're doing something right or if those that have had blowouts are doing something wrong.

Whichever the case, in light of heading thru the midwest with some of the hottest weather on record, I finally waved the I'm-a-coward flag and ante'd up for a set of Goodyear G614 RST (over $400/tire!). The G614's we bought are LT230/85R-16G which are a tiny bit larger than the LT235/80R-16E Goodyear Marathon tires that came with the rig (7mm or about 0.28" larger radius). That's supposed to mean about 7 fewer revolutions per mile. The new tires are Load Range G instead of E which should give us plenty of reserve load capacity. And the G614 RST has a full steel belt (Goodyear's Unisteel construction) instead of steel+fiber belting of the Marathons.

Everything seemed straightforward until I realized we would have to disconnect and go to Discount Tire for an hour for mounting, balancing and installation. I hated the thought of 3 hours or more of tear-down/reconnect for just 1 hour of work (not to mention parking again which is always a white knuckle event for me!), so I chose to get a proper sized torque wrench- which I needed to get anyway- and take the old tires one-at-a-time to Discount Tire to get the new tires mounted.

Damaged leg with the pad removed.

Tires #1 & #2 went fine till one leg of the landing gear on the opposing (driver's) side dropped about 4". The leg extension slipped when the locking pin either sheared or bent, but at least it didn't collapse completely... there must have been enough pin left to jam the extension. My WAG - technical mnemonic used in aerospace proposals which means Wild Ass Guess - is that jacking the rig via the frame (per the Keystone manual) tips the trailer to so great an angle that the resulting side force contributed to additional load... which may mean it was on the verge of collapsing anyway. In the photo I've removed the articulating foot (pad) from the leg so I could fit a jack stand under the frame and be able to remove the bottle jack I used to lift the weight of the frame off the damaged leg.

Undamaged (I hope!) leg with the pad in place.

More significantly, our spring-loaded lock pins for the leg extension never did protrude thru the both sides as I suspect they're supposed to. There's nothing in the (nearly useless) manual and it wasn't mentioned in the walk-thru. If the pin extended thru both sides of the leg it would mean the load isn't distributed across 2 points of contact but rather the weight rests on just 1 point. This is the passenger- (curb-) side leg which shows what the drivers-side looked like before it collapsed. Notice the slight downward angle of the pin handle which prevents the pin from extending through the far side. The end of the pin is pointing up at a slight angle. If your locking pin looks like this, you need to get it fixed before your rig breaks like ours!

So now we're trying to figure out how to get repaired so I can get the last 2 tires and get on our way to Maine. The nearest Montana dealer is Aloha RV in Albuquerque, but the service manager said his boss told him they won't touch it since we didn't buy our rig from them. And that's a reality of RVs vs. cars/pickups: they don't have to work on your rig unless you bought from them.

TravelTown, the Santa Fe RV dealer where we bought our used 2003 Montana (not a dealer for new Montanas), will work us into their schedule but that means there will be no consideration for an out-of-warranty claim. And TravelTown is busy- this is when they sell a lot of new rigs- so they have to work us into the shop's schedule plus find the source for replacement legs.

The Montana is sick and waiting for repair,but the truck is good to go. There's fresh full-synthetic AMSOIL 5W-40 in the engine and, like the first time we used this type oil, the diesel engine is noticeably quieter as it idles... an odd but interesting side effect of full synthetic motor oil. Plus a new in-line filter in the transmission.

And we had the truck's tires rotated which turns out to be a bigger deal than a car because of the dual rear wheels. Apparently you have to dismount certain of the tires since there are 2 different kinds of wheels: 4 aluminum rims and, counting the spare, 3 steel rims. So with the mixed wheel types you can't arbitrarily put any wheel in just any location. So some wheels can be relocated while others have to have just the tire moved.

At least the brake lining is still OK: 50% worn at about 62,000 miles towing a combined load of nearly 23,000#... very close to the max allowed. Probably a testament to the brakes on the Montana working OK.

Now we're waiting to hear from TravelTown that they're ready to have us come over for repair. We look forward to finally calling Brad, Stephanie and the girls and saying "We're on our way!"

Eye pressure and vision are just fine after the YAG laser procedure. Worked beautifully.

Btw, a WAG (above) is a slightly lower quality estimate than a SWAG which is a Scientific Wild Ass Guess. The difference between the 2 is that you use a calculator to add the numbers in a SWAG, but a WAG is done in your head. Both a WAG and a SWAG are considered substantially superior to a PIROOMA: Pulled It Right Out Of My Ass. Customers generally were never impressed with any of these 3 as a basis for awarding a contract. Credit for coining the PIROOMA goes to Des Bailie, a master of dead-pan who must be a killer at poker.

Postcard from New Mexico- 2

Santa Fe, NM

Solar array at Santa Fe Skies RV Park from the east end.

We got back to Santa Fe and settled in at Santa Fe Skies RV Park and were dazzled by the new solar array the Brown family installed. While large solar arrays are nothing new, what is amazing is that this is a small private RV park. This isn't something the local utility or the state or county did. Just a small 235 space RV park that is sick of paying the utility company at a growing rate. Since visitors don't pay for electric power, this is a big cost savings to the park.

With the rig hooked up and safe, we reserved a car-trailer and headed back to Arizona to retrieve the Highlander. Now that was an experience.

All went well with picking up the new trailer. We arrived in Tucson well ahead of closing time and were able to drive the 40 miles back to Benson before dark. We stowed the car while it was still light then took the dogs to a motel for their first ever stay. It took about 2 seconds to realize that dog owners get to stay in the same room previously damaged by another dog (or more likely the dog's owner!). But it went well and they didn't bark too much. Breakfast was a Kind Bar and a couple donuts from Suzy's... best donuts in southeastern Arizona! Nothing like a healthy breakfast to start the day.

U-Haul tire repair... thank you U-Haul!

So off we went to Santa Fe. We'd gone perhaps 90 miles- somewhere just before the New Mexico state line- when a car pulled up beside us and the driver frantically pointed at the trailer. We pulled over and... what a bummer. The right-rear trailer tire was flat and, though not yet shredded, was clearly not going to hold air ever again. I stayed on the shoulder and crept along maybe 2.5 miles to the first available exit and called U-Haul. It took a little longer than they said, but in an hour a really nice tire-dude showed up with a new tire and wheel to replace the now completely shredded original. In a few minutes we were again on our way to Santa Fe and had further problem. But I was left with the conviction that, if you're going to pull a U-Haul (or anything else for that matter), you need to stick to Interstates or major highways where you can expect cell service.

We settled into a different site at Santa Fe Skies which looked like it might be easier to back into. I'm the first to admit that I'm terrible at parking the rig so I try to make it as easy as possible regardless the view another site might have. Now that we're in the site I realize that we'll be taking a tour of the back portion of the park in order to leave, but that shouldn't be a big deal.

Our medical appointments started right away with me leading the parade. All went well including my eye-pressure check, plus I got a referral to see someone for a vitrectomy of my right eye. The floaters are getting really bad and, since it was such a miraculous improvement in my left eye, I'm anxious to get it done on the right.

Late April is when the southwest started burning. First came the Wallow fire in eastern Arizona which covered border towns like Reserve & Luna in heavy smoke. Albuquerque and Santa Fe also had dense, choking smoke so Celia brought our HEPA filters from the house to clear the crap out of the Montana. Santa Fe is something over 100 miles away from Wallow, AZ but you'd think it was just over the hill. For the first week we stayed inside and hugged the AC and the filters. [ Wallow was at 540,000 acres the last time I checked in mid-July. ]

las Conchas fire (los Alamos) the evening of 26 June.

About the time the wind shifted and gave us some relief from the smoke from Wallow, a fire started in Pacheco Canyon immediately north of Santa Fe. While we were all worrying about what was going to happen with that fire, another broke out in las Conchas canyon (a tree was knocked down by strong winds and damaged a power line) which threatened los Alamos and the Los Alamos National Labratory. This was (at least) the 2nd fire to threaten the town of los Alamos, the previous being in 2011. While they were building the fire crew for las Conchas, yet another fire broke out in Cochiti canyon, north of Cochiti reservation and south of las Conchas. [ las Conchas has become the largest wild fire in New Mexico history at over 150,500 acres when I updated this mid-July. It was considered 61% contained at that time. ]

las Conchas fire about 3 PM 26 June.

Even though it's now part of the las Conchas fire, we still see smoke from the Cochiti area. Pacheco is 80% contained with 10,500 acres burned. And the cost so far is $9,000,000 for Pacheco and $37,000,000 for las Conchas and growing. Yikes!

This is what las Conchas looked like from Santa Fe Skies a few hours after it started on 26 June 2011.

While we'd like to get on our way to Maine to visit our family, I'm not sure where we can go without either being too hot or in danger of yet another fire. What a summer!

Postcard from New Mexico

Las Cruces, NM

We hunkered down at the KOA in Las Cruces waiting for the wind to ease so we could get to Santa Fe. The KOA has a wonderful view (I've said that before) which at the moment is non-existent: everything is obliterated by dust. Not only are the Organ Pipe Mountains lost from view, so too are the cultivated fields at the bottom of the hill where the park is situated... yikes!

This dust storm puts me in mind of childhood days in Stockton. They had dust storms too... peat dust. The afternoon wind would howl and the bottom land in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta would become airborne. Gave us something to chew as we struggled head-down into the blast. Not to mention what it did to the interior of a house!

The dogs could give a damn, of course. They were excited about new smells and new people to bark at till they got the required scratches behind the ears. So they're pretty much happy campers.

I had planned on 2 nites in order to let the wind die down, but the forecast for Santa Fe said there was a chance of rain then snow along with headwinds on the way there. So we stayed 3 nites in Las Cruces.

We had cross winds getting here from Benson, AZ. The rig did reasonably well and I didn't have a single surprise lane-change. Our MOR/Ryde pin box and suspension parts are amazing!

Santa Fe, NM

We rolled into Santa Fe Skies RV Park on Monday afternoon and had our choice of sites (we're ahead of the summer crowd I guess). We chose site Y-9 for our stay here.

We used to have a a fence about 10-20 yards behind the rig, then a view across the mesa toward the prison (3 miles away?) and the Ortiz Mountains on the horizon. Now the fence has been moved and the space between the rig and the new fence is filled with a solar array. The park has finished the installation of 810 solar panels, each capable of 238 Watts. At full output he solar array will generate 192 kW. Amazing stuff for a small privately owned RV park (125 spaces?).

There was no time to rest as I had the first of my regular doctor appointments starting at 10:00 the next morning. Along with doctors confirming we're still alive, we'll start getting the house ready to go on the market. So this is going to be a busy stay if we're to get on our way to Maine to see grand kids!

And that is a segue to fuel costs.

Saving $$$

Banks Power Shop

It's amazing what it costs to save money. Last January I had Banks Engineering in Azusa, CA install everything they offer for our 2008 Ford F-350. We skipped the Banks SpeedBrake since the Ford tow/haul mode seems to work OK. Since Banks doesn't remove the diesel particulate filter (the infamous DPF), we can't expect miraculous improvement in fuel economy like friends Dan & Betty got on their 2006 Dodge truck. Still we hoped for some gains to try and offset the rising cost of diesel... $4.36/gal (!) when we filled up in Santa Fe.

Banks showroom at the Power Shop

The bottom line has been a net gain. The last time we made this trip we ended up at 9.4 mpg as calculated by the built-in computer (Ford claims it's more accurate than odometer/fuel pump readings). This time the computer said 10.9 mpg which is a gain of about 16%. By my reckoning that means roughly every 7th tank will be free and is applied as a credit to the $4,500 investment in Banks gear. Each fill-up currently costs on the order of $150, so it's going to take a long while to recap the cost: 30 "free" tanks out of about 210 tanks altogether. At 250 miles/day that means we'll have to go almost 53,000 miles to break even. That's not an unreasonable distance for us since we've already put 32,000 on the truck since October 2009.

In the service bay at Banks

If you're gathering info on what Banks can do for your Ford 6.4 liter Power Stroke pulling over 15,000# (a 5th wheel) and you're not familiar with the region, here's a little geography lesson. The trip from Benson, AZ starts at about 3,600' elevation, goes thru a lot of +/- grade changes till it reaches Albuquerque, NM at about 5,300', then the last 50 miles is mostly up-hill to Santa Fe, NM. We're at 6,800' here at the park. The computed distance is at least 515 miles (Yahoo! maps), but we added about 45 miles running around Las Cruces and another 15 in Santa Fe before filling the tank. This means the truck's built-in computer, which maintains a 400-mile rolling average, had only current-trip data when we stopped with 576 miles on the odometer. We had some gusty crosswinds from Benson to Las Cruces, then relatively still air from Las Cruces to Santa Fe. If I had to venture a guess it would be that we saw about average mileage for this trip... crosswinds & no headwinds and a substantial elevation change.

Postcard from Arizona- 5

Benson, AZ

Mike & Susan

A dance at the Saguaro SKP park club house

Life in the slow lane of southeast Arizona kept us busy with tacos on Monday night, fish fry on Friday nights, dances most Saturday nites and Celia's line dance classes 3 mornings each week. And there was a pet show as part of the park's Spring Fling. The competition was fierce with awards for tallest dog, shortest dog, oldest dog, youngest dog and the dog that came the greatest distance. Annie lost out on the tallest dog award by a hair, but she took losing very well and didn't pout at all. Mike and I, however, think she was cheated. And we're pouting!


We made a trip to Sierra Vista with Mike & Susan plus 4 of their visiting relatives. We went to the Golden Corral for the buffet dinner. I'm not a fan of buffets but the mountain of food for $10 was actually very good. We did nearly get trampled: we learned it's not a good idea to get in the way of hungry Minnesotans when it's feeding time! :)

The fire pit... a recycled washing machine tub!

And Mike organized a campfire to celebrate Susan's birthday. It wasn't too cold initially, but by 8:30 everyone was ready to go stand in front of a heater! The SKP park has a group area for these events which includes a fire ring made of an old washing machine tub. Worked great to cook hot dogs and roast some marshmallows. Celia put together a S'more for me which I mostly ended up wearing so I stuck with just marshmallows.

Broken water filter (new bowl in place)

We've made a couple trips to Santa Fe, NM since we first arrived in AZ. I had to have follow-up visits with the ophthalmologist. Each of those trips involved yet another semi-emergency with the water system. What a money pit the house has become! Day-to-day living on the premises would probably have prevented the problems becoming big as they would have been spotted early. But we like RV-living too much for that silliness, so we pay the piper. For instance I think I whined about the $1,700 water bill last entry. Since I posted that whine we were granted some relief by the water company and we now have a $1,300 credit on our account.

Which is a good thing since, just prior to our most recent visit, we learned there was yet another water leak. Again we don't know how long the leak was there but there it was anyway. We called Chris Blea immediately and he had it resolved the same day. It was a bad solder joint that started to leak for whatever reason. No broken copper pipes this time. At least we would have water when we arrived. Yeah, sure...

We had water alright, but there was no heat. We got to the house at about 11:00 pm on a Sunday and wondered why we didn't hear the boiler fire up when we turned up thermostats. I could make out the sound of what I thought might be water in the boiler turning to steam, so I assumed we had air in the lines associated with the water leak. Time to call Chris again. We were (again!) very thankful for our fireplace insert in the living room. Did a great job taking the chill off as the temps dropped in the evening.

Chris is now working for the golf course during the day so we had to wait till he was off. He bled the system several times but couldn't get rid of the problem. Eventually he found the circulation pump had failed and oh-by-the-way 2 of the several ball valves were leaking and needed replacement. He was back the next day with a new pump and 2 new ball valves. He had everything back in order quick enough. So now the heating system is working again and we'll not have that to deal with that when we return to Santa Fe in early April. But I can't help but wonder what other problem awaits our discovery!

So from the preceding you can anticipate we're getting ready to move the rig. Finally. We'll head back to Santa Fe and get busy getting the house on the market. We have a lot of stuff to find a home for (anybody need want a 60" loom?) and even more to just dump. We'll be keeping the truck busy hauling 'stuff'!

If my eye issues continue on the current track (things look decent at this point) we should be able to head for the northeast in July.

Postcard from Arizona- 4

Benson, AZ

We're still camped in SKP Saguaro Co-op RV park here in Benson. It's proven to be a great home base and we continue to enjoy the many activities the park offers like entertainment & dances. And Celia has been going to the line dance classes 3 days/week (it's been almost 11 years and I still feel burned out, so I've declined to go along).

That's not to say we haven't been outside the park. Tombstone, just off AZ-80, is about 25 miles away, so we've been there several times taking friends or just for lunch. Bisbee is another 25 miles past Tombstone on AZ-80 and we've been there for lunch and to roam the shops in the old town. Sierra Vista, the civilian town outside the US Army's Fort Huachuca (wa-CHU-ka), is about 30 miles away on AZ-90 and is an alternate to shopping in Tucson. You can find restaurants, doctors... whatever. And Sierra Vista has possibly the biggest dog park I've ever seen. The only thing they don't have is a Trader Joe's!

A nice surprise has been that we've found several restaurants in Benson that are pretty darn good. We like  the pasta over at Irene's. And the chicken-fried-chicken at Palatianos' is to die for, plus the carrot cake and red velvet cake at Palatianos' is addictive... you've been warned! The Horseshoe Cafe has been great each time we've eaten there. And the Apple Farm serves an enormous multi-course meal for $9.95. The portion size at all 4 is overwhelming, so we eat half and take home the rest for lunch or dinner the next day.

The food at the SKP park is a winner as well: taco nite at SKP is a must-go event and the fish fry is great as well. It's not that the prices are exceptional, but the food is very good. While the prices aren't rock-bottom, all extra $$$ goes to fund park events, and for the park's Cactus Wrens organization which uses their $$$ to fund their charitable work. One of the big food events is the annual food auction which brought in $4,000 this year.

A nice surprise has been G&F Pizza on 5th Ave. They have several very good but curiously named pizzas on the menu (we had the Zearing Pizza which uses feta... excellent!), plus I saw an Irby Pizza on the menu. I had to ask the source of the name since I went to high school with someone named Irby in Stockton. Our waitress told us that G&F has been around for 38 years and has always had the same name thru 2 or 3 owners. The founders had named some pizzas after businesses in town, hence the Zearing and Irby pizzas.  Plus the current owner, Benson born & raised, remembers how much he enjoyed going to G&F when he was in high school, so he does occasional (?) 50%-off nites for the local high school students. I didn't know anybody did that sort of thing anymore! Way-tuh go G&F!

Something unique to Benson has been the home made soup the restaurants here serve. Apparently locals or maybe the snow birds demand good soup, so there restaurants seem to all have something worth trying. I had the best green chili soup (green chili stew) I've ever had at Irene's, and some soups I've never heard of at the the others. Not a loser in the bunch.

If there's a down-side to Benson it's that they have great donuts (or doughnuts if you prefer). Celia claims they beat Krispy Kreme. It's unfortunate cuz we're trying desperately to break our donut habit. If we don't, neither of us are going to fit in the truck anymore.

Btw, the worlds best donuts are homemade by our friends Doug & Pat Bartman from Ontario!

Santa Fe, NM


A couple weeks ago we drove the truck back to Santa Fe. I had another follow-up to see how the pressure in my left eye is doing. Sadly it's not so good and has hit an all-time high of 31. So I now have an additional eye-drop to use once per day plus yet another appointment for the end of March to see if the pressure has started down to a safe range (below 22). That is near the time we've scheduled other medical appointments so we'll take care of all the doctor/dentist things at the same time.

We were pleased to see that the compartment that houses the water heater (rear of the house) hasn't given any more problem. Didn't freeze and there seems to be no more leaks. We filed for some relief on the super-sized water bill (about $1,700) but haven't heard anything so far.

The trip was also a chance to see how the new Banks equipment does on a different power setting. This time I upped the setting to #4. Things were looking really good with even better mileage till we got about 150 miles into the trip back to Benson. At that point the mileage suddenly started falling like the proverbial rock and I was getting a little panicky ("Damn! Is this thing broken already?!"). When I stopped at a rest stop I was greeted with about 25 mph wind in the face. At 65 mph over the ground that gave us a wind speed of about 90 mph. Apparently the #4 setting does pretty well on the straight & level with no wind. When the load goes up, though, the tuner cranks up the power (each higher setting has greater power up thru #6) which means more fuel. So I set it back to #3 and we soldiered on. Still managed to beat our old fuel economy even with the strong wind. So, with strong headwinds (but without the trailer) we're still doing significantly better on fuel consumption. We ought to recap our investment in about 25 years!

While our F350's mileage is improved by about 20%, it's still nowhere near as good as our Toyota Highlander. We use the Highlander for our daily ride which not only saves fuel, it lets us use 87 octane regular which is cheaper. Diesel prices are going over the top hitting $4/gal last Saturday, but regular gas was $3.30/gal. So having the Highlander for everyday driving is a help. Not to mention it's a pretty plush ride compared to the truck!

Benson, AZ


I've found I can do a pretty good job imitating an ostrich. But, like the ostrich, keeping your head buried in the sand leaves a great opportunity to get bit in the ass. And that's what happened with the RV toilet. I'd been ignoring the fact the toilet bowl seemed to shift a little from time-to-time. It didn't leak and the seal was still good, so I followed my old axiom of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!"  Well, I didn't know it but it really was 'broke' and I should have fixed it sooner. On the Saturday nite before the Oscars, Celia noticed a wet area on the floor and it was clear I needed to get my butt in gear.

Turns out the toilet had not been reassembled correctly when some pre-delivery warranty work had been done at Lazy Days, the dealer in Florida where we bought the rig. One of the 2 bolts which hold the porcelain bowl to the plastic base (the plastic base has the ball valve and the seals)  had not been run home in the threads. Instead the bolt threads were pressing against the side of the boss that contains the threaded hole.

After a lot of swearing and gnashing of teeth I managed to get things reassembled (I like to think it was done correctly this time) and there seems to be no more leak. In fairness to the tech who did the repair, the assembly has to be done blind: line things up as best you can and hope the bolt is going into the threads and not to the side of the boss.

And just where exactly is it written that toilets are supposed to crap out (pardon the pun) on a Sunday?! And was it really necessary to have snow in the forecast?

And yes- it did snow. Not more than an inch, but it was snow. And cold. The snow was gone a few hours later so no biggy. It made for a cold nite but we're supposed to get back into the high 70s as the week goes by. Hard to beat southeastern AZ in the winter!

When we take the dogs with us in our Highlander, they really have to struggle. Celia tracked down a seat-extension (my description... don't recall the mfr's) for the back seat. It bridges the space between the front edge of the rear seat and the back of the front seat without blocking the vents for the batteries under the rear seat. We had one before but the dogs are so big they broke it. Unfortunately we pitched it when it broke which was a mistake... if I'd kept it I could have replaced the thin plastic sheet with plywood and all would have been well again. Now the replacement is in place and the dogs are happy.

Which brings up another thing. We'd understood that hybrids needed new batteries every 5 years. Our 2006 Highlander Hybrid is now at least 5 years old and the batteries still seem to be OK. To be safe, though, I asked our mechanic (Steve Inouye, owner & head mechanic of ToyAuto Man in Santa Fe) about it and he said he's never needed to replace a battery pack on any hybrid he services. Apparently batteries last much longer than originally estimated... ??? I believe our battery pack recharges much faster than it used to which makes me believe it has less capacity, but I'm not anxious to spend the $4,000 it would take to find out if the battery pack really needs replacing. I think I'll just stick my head back in the sand!

Tombstone, AZ

Btw, we watched the latest Tombstone movie the other nite. It's the one with Kurt Russell & Val Kilmer. It was released in 1993, so it's not that new anymore. The movie had a lot more meaning now that we've been to the town of Tombstone several times. The movie wasn't filmed in Tombstone. Instead they created a set in Mescal, AZ (just a few miles from Benson on Mescal Rd) and tried to replicate the original store fronts, colors, signage, whatever. They even built a replica of Tombstone's boot hill cemetery ("Here lies Les Mor, 4 slugs from a .44. No Les, no More."). The actors were all required to read the newspaper report of the inquest after the gun fight at the OK Corral (it was actually in a lot behind the corral) so they understood their character's part in the fight. The film is by no means a documentary, but they did try to get the characters right before embellishing with the usual Hollywood glitz. For instance, Doc Holiday's girl friend is still Kate, but the beautiful actress that plays the part doesn't conjure the right image of someone that would later name her saloon Big Nose Kate's. The saloon is still there and serves a decent lunch. And it's worth a trip to the men's room where you'll find the urinal trough filled with ice with a sign above: "This ice is rarely used to make our drinks."

And before you ask why they put ice in the urinal, it's because as the ice melts it 'flushes' the urinal.

You can tell spring is getting close cuz friends Betty & Dan, who bought a new Montana 3400RL this past December, have left Tucson and are working their way slowly back toward the Canadian border. Come the first of May they plan to make the jump across the border and head back home to Alaska. Bon voyage, guys! See you next year.

Postcard from Arizona- 3

Main road looking across the dry camp area

Benson, AZ

We're still hanging out at the SKP Saguaro Co-op RV Park in Benson, AZ. We were enjoying the stay so much that we even got on their hot list for getting a lease. We enjoy the park a lot because of the people and the activities available during the season (winter). But there's a lot to be said economically for making this home base. Renting a site on a monthly basis is about $11/day and a lease (currently under $8,900 plus the cost of improvements) is a lifetime lease... no additional rent though there are maintenance fees and occasional assessments like road repairs or whatever. So we got on the Hot List and, after signing an annual rental agreement, moved to site #306 on the southern edge of the park where we will probably not have to move while we're visiting this park.

Santa Fe, NM

We made a trip to Santa Fe for me to see the ophthalmologist. Santa Fe is also the location of what has become the money pit... our as yet unsold house. The day before leaving we got a call from the person watching our house. Seems we had water pouring out the back of the house. Oh joy.

Replacement bowl installed

Onyx was able to shut off the water and saw that the water filter we installed ahead of the on-demand water heater had burst. That could only have happened if we lost power to the electric space heater or if the heater (brand new before we left) had died. So our return was both timely and necessary.

While the repair of the water leak was a simple $39 fix, the cost of the water will be about $1,700. The leak amounted to nearly 100,000 gallons. I received a call from the Santa Fe City office that handles water billing and among other things was told there's an appeal process available that will probably get us some relief, but we're still going to have a very large bill.

News from the eye doctor was not so hot either as the pressure was up again... now at 27. I have to go back in 30 days (yet another trip to Santa Fe) to see if this was just a transient or if a change in medication is necessary. Bummer. In hind sight it was a good that we had already decided to not head for Clewiston, FL as we had been planning for the last year... it would have been even more disappointing to find out at the last minute we couldn't go.

Dealing with diesel fuel cost

[ This part's for me. I want to be able to remember in a couple years why I spent a lot of $$$ at Banks Engineering! ]

Another troubling development (you'd have to be dead from the neck up to not think fuel costs were going to rise) is the painful cost of diesel fuel. I did some digging on the internet looking for alternatives and, with a friend Dan Weigman doing the same thing for his 6.7L Cummins-powered Dodge, we shared what we learned.

It quickly became clear that the evil culprit is the diesel particulate filter- the DPF. There are options for improving fuel economy on the current crop of diesel engines- like replacement air intake & filter, larger exhaust piping, more efficient inter-cooler, and re-mapping the fuel injection will all offer some measure of economy. Until you remove the DPF, however, large gains in fuel economy are going to be unlikely.

As I understand the DPF that we have on our 2008 Ford (it has a 6.4L International engine), the process works by collecting unburned fuel (diesel particulate) on the exposed surfaces of the DPF, i.e. the DPF collects soot that would otherwise be dumped out the exhaust pipe. The thing about this soot is that (compared to a gas) it's a solid and it's heavy. Being heavier than air, it will eventually drop to the ground or collect on trees or whatever.

The capacity of the DPF isn't endless, so something has to be done to clean the filter and that happens by periodically raising the exhaust gas temperature (EGT) in order to burn the soot. That high temperature is close to 1,300 deg F which causes the soot to turn into ash which apparently is carried out the exhaust instead of the soot. So, take your pick: either soot or ash plus CO & CO2).

The way they raise EGT to clean the filter is to inject raw diesel into the exhaust ahead of the DPF. When these super-high temperature gases hit the soot, the soot (incompletely burned fuel in the form of carbon) is turned into the ash I mentioned (I don't know the chemical composition of the ash) plus CO + CO2. If I have this right, it means cleaning the DPF is increasing the amount of greenhouse gases over the amount otherwise in the exhaust as well as increasing fuel consumption in order to reduce particulate-carbon fallout. Other nasties like sulfuric acid have already been greatly reduced with the new low-sulfur diesel fuel diesel engines must use.

In any case, the cleaning process uses a lot of fuel. In our case, every time cleaning occurs, mileage drops by 0.1-0.2 mpg. And cleaning happens every 75-150 miles. The result is that previously more-efficient diesel engines offered today have been made to be less efficient than some gas engines when the truck is driven solo (not towing or not carrying a load). The modern diesel engine still produces huge amounts of torque under heavy load, so there's really no reason to think about using a gas engine for towing/pushing a large RV. Put the fuel economies of the good ol' days are gone.

The fixes available on the street amount to a pick-and-choose combination of 1 or more of 4 approaches:

1. improve engine breathing (air filter, bigger exhaust)
2. improve turbo-charger efficiency thru additional cooling of the compressed air to the intake
3. improve fuel mapping of the mfrs engine management firmware (this mostly increases torque)
4. get rid of the DPF and change the engine management firmware to stop cleaning the filter

The 4th option will probably cause a problem with the manufacturer if you're still under warranty as we are. And, if vehicle inspections become a reality for small diesel trucks, the owner might have to pay a $1,700 fine for having modified the DOT/EPA (?) approved exhaust system plus have to restore the original design. It's unclear what happens if you do any or all the other 3 changes (breathing, inter-cooling and fuel mapping), but we decided that was the route we would try.

I ended up choosing Banks Engineering as the supplier for exhaust system, air intake & filter, turbo inter-cooler, and fuel injection module. It's not going to be a spectacular improvement since we still have the DPF, but we need to do something if we are to continue traveling with the dog house.

Show room at Banks Power House.

So, with neighbor & friend Mike Phelps as co-pilot, we drove to Azusa, CA to have Banks' Big Hoss kit installed. Banks is a pretty large operation (something like 700 people working in 7 buildings) with a division dedicated to installation and repair (Banks Powerhouse). Check-in was at 6:00 AM and the shop closes at 3:00 PM, so we were there when they opened. Apparently we would have been out of there by 11:00-11:30 AM but for one small problem. Oue truck has a factory installed option of a roll-over ball gooseneck hitch. It's made by B&W in Kansas and is a perfect match for our B&W Companion (5th wheel) hitch. Since it was a factory option, Banks had to get their Tube Shop involved (they manufacture the exhaust systems and the headers). banks hadn't previously had a truck available to them to be able to make the necessary measurements, so our truck became a Beta test site. Almost 2 hours later we saw someone walking across the street with about 4' of bent 4" exhaust tubing over his shoulder. Another 2 hours and the truck pulled out for a test ride.

On the hoist at Banks Power Shop in Azusa, CA

We got a walk-thru on pushing buttons on the Banks iQ controller. The iQ is basically a PDA with a built-in GPS which monitors & controls the 6-Gun tuner, keeps track of data during operation and testing, computes fuel usage, and, with the right option + maps, will navigate. 

10-minutes later we were on our way to dinner and ready to watch the State of the Union Address. Next morning we headed back to Benson and watched the mileage computer like a hungry hawk looking for lunch. The #1 setting is Stock and sure enough it had about the same uninspiring mileage as before. #2 was the Economy mode and it was anything but economical.

The Customer Support Mgr. that did the run-thru had said to try all the modes because each truck is different and sometimes other modes work better. So up the setting went to #3 which is the first of the high power modes. As soon as I reset the mileage computer the display jumped to 27 mpg. The euphoria was over in an instant when I realized we were on a slight down-grade. Still, the mileage seemed to hang at around 20-25 mpg as we headed out of town.

After an especially steep grade (sign at the start of the grade: "TURN OFF AC TO PREVENT OVERHEATING") I reset the mileage computer and left it untouched the rest of the way to Benson. That was about 400 miles of very gradual uphill driving from 500' at the top of the pass to 4,200' at the Benson turnoff. We were showing 18.2 mpg as we got to the park and shut off the engine. A similar trip with the stock setup had ended at 15.2 mpg, a net mileage improvement of 20%. I think we can live with that till the day comes we are pushed into getting a DPF-Delete kit.

Btw, Mike told me that he learned that letting EGT drop to under 400 deg F before shutting off the engine was supposed to be a good safety practice. That's easy enough to add to routine-driving practice. Also, turning on the head lights (turns on the amber clearance lights) is supposed to drop the chance of an accident by 17%. Yet another cost-free improvement. Nice to have someone with a CDL riding shotgun!

A word of caution to the weary traveler... some sections of I-10 were miserable as we got close to LA. It appears that the concrete wasn't set up correctly which leaves the surface with a near-washboard face. The suspension of our F-350 is pretty stiff which was enough to make many miles of the trip a trial!

That's it for now. More later