OHHHHHHklahoma (4/27/25)

 

As soon as we had an idea of our timetable for the summer, we did two things- we booked an RV park in Massachusetts, a state that has relatively few RV parks, and we scheduled some work to be done on our trailer in Elk City Oklahoma.

Rolling Retreats is a repair/sales shop that specializes in DRV products, which is what our fifth wheel is. Although ours is still in excellent condition, it IS 14 years old and still has the original roof. Paul feels that we are on borrowed time with it, so we are having Rolling Retreats put on a flex armor roof, which should last the life of the RV. We needed to be in a hotel for two nights while they did the work, and we chose one with a kitchenette so we could cook simple meals instead of eating out.

With a couple of days to explore we headed for the hiking trails. There are several state parks and a wildlife refuge in this area. We started with Quartz Mountain State Park because it sounded the most interesting.

It was a good pick. About 30 minutes out of Elk City, the park has a few trails of interest. We chose Baldy Point. The trail started out in the brush, with large boulders, sometimes looking like a cave.

The trail opened up into a hillside and then wandered through a meadow.

The wildflowers are in full bloom here right now, which in and of itself made the hike worth it.

Lace Hedgehog Cactus:

Indian Blanket- which we had never seen before…

This cutie is an Eastern Collared Lizard (I love apps that identify creatures and plants for me!)

Although it was only about 2.5 miles and 350 feet of gain, it felt like more because we kept stopping to admire the flowers and the view.

In the “also ran” department, the following day we did a 3 mile hike in Foss State Park, and from there, drove up to nearby Washita National Wildlife Refuge. After eating our picnic lunch we had a nice chat with the ranger, but that turned out to be the highlight, because we didn’t see any wildlife.

At the end of the day we were able to pick up our Mobile Suites, with it’s brand new roof. At first it looked quite bright and white, but it has since started to blend in perfectly with the side walls.

After one more night in the nearby rv park, we hit the road the next morning, headed for the Arkansas border.

At this point we are not particularly having fun traveling across the plains states. The tornado warnings seem to follow us wherever we go. We have set alarms on our phone and most nights before we go to bed, we plan what we would do if we had a serious warning near us. Even without the tornadoes, the rain seems to be incessant.

We have had no choice but to drive through downpours and wind. We HAVE adjusted our timetable to avoid some of it but mostly we feel like the further east we can get, the easier the weather will be.

And as a side note, I unfortunately forgotten to pack my low profile waterproof boots- so shopping was a necessity.

Somewhere along the way we discovered  that water was getting into the rig. Living out west most of the time, our rig hasn’t been inundated with torrential downpours in a long time, and it apparently doesn’t take much to soak through some insulation.

Over the last week or so Paul has spent more time than he cares to digging in the bedroom closet, looking for the source of the water. The good news is that although it was frustrating and took a while, there was no damage, and he got to buy a new saw to cut through the closet. 

S.O.I.T.C. Rally (04-11-15)

SOITC stands for Suite Owners International Travel Club and is a social club for people who own DRV products, more commonly referred to as Mobile Suites (although there are other lines within the company).  The national Rally was held in Las Vegas this year and its the first time we have attended any national rally. 





In all, there were about 68 DRV 5th wheels at the rally.  We have met quite a few of these people in the past, when we attended some smaller, regional rallies.  It was nice to catch up, and to meet some new people as well.

The rally was a mix of planned events and free time- apparently many people had requested a lot of free time in order to take advantage of the fact that we are in Las Vegas.  One couple drove here from Florida just for the rally!

One of my favorite activities was the morning poker run.  Each morning we walked to a couple of trailers, stood in line, and when it was our turn, drew a card out of a bag.  The idea was to make the best poker hand we could, over the course of the week.  It was a great opportunity to talk to people in a small group setting, and no- we didn’t win.

Our major outing was an evening trip to see the show “Jersey Boys” which is about Frankie Valli. Originally we were told we had to provide our own transportation, but the powers that be re-thought that (we ALL drive huge trucks) and ordered 5 party buses.

The show was just ok but the trip home was a riot.  The music was blaring and the women ( and some men) were pole dancing.

Amongst all the fun, the annual national meeting and elections were held, as well as the regional meetings.
There was also a “Meet DRV” meeting where a company representative was available to answer questions.  DRV was recently purchased by Thor Industries, which has caused some concern for existing and potential owners.

They fed us several times during the week, including ice cream a couple of times- yum!

Most days there were seminars to attend- one was about solar, and another was a discussion panel on the subject of fulltiming.

On Friday there was a craft session where a pre-set up quilting project was available for anyone who wanted to make it.  I haven’t touched a sewing machine in 40 years, so one of the women took pity  and made this mug rug for me. That was nice of her!  Maybe while we are settled in Havasu some winter I will take sewing lessons…..hmm, probably not.










To a certain extent the week dragged on because we’ve been to Vegas several times and don’t gamble so we had a lot of down time, but overall we had fun and met some great people.

A little of this, a little of that (09-09-13)

That’s about what we’ve been up to.  We finished our visit to the Novi area with some doctor visits.  Nothing but good news, and that’s always nice!


Anyone who has been in my trailer for the last few days may be wondering why we have a sleeping bag on the couch.  Well, we are bringing it to California for our daughter, and as soon as I brought it in and put it down, Dozer decided to make a nest in it.  Once he finds a new “place”, he sleeps there for about a week, and since I am sooo nice, I am leaving it there until he gets tired of it.




 

Once we had the doctor appointments out of the way, we headed across the state to a mini DRV Suites rally. We went to this rally last year and really enjoyed the people, so we made a point to get there again this year.

We had several potluck dinners and breakfasts, and went out to dinner one night at a nearby casino.   The weather was just about perfect for  hanging around outside all weekend long. With a small group, you get a chance to get to know people a little better.  Different combinations of people would be lounging by the fire at any given time, which made for smaller, more intimate conversations.

And of course, part of the fun of these rallies is checking out everyone else’s rig.  One of the potential consequences of that pastime is the creation of envy.  More about that later. 

Last year Paul and I played tennis at the single tennis court this RV park has, and this year we headed over there again, hoping to shed at least a half pound or so after eating for 3 days.  We were confused once we started playing because something about the court just didn’t seem right.  Somehow it felt Way Too Small.  As it turns out, they turned the one tennis court into two pickle ball courts.  A pickle ball court is about 2/3 the size of a tennis court.  After a few minutes of accidently backing up into the fence, we gave it up and headed for the pool and hot tub.

   Once the rally was over, we headed down to Howe Indiana to the DRV factory, where our trailer was made. 

Since we were pretty close anyway, we wanted to take the factory tour and see what’s new. Some of the new things they are doing is putting garbage disposals and dishwashers in the new units. I guess that would be nice, but neither is on my Wish List.











Pretty much everyone who has met Paul knows he loves lights- especially LEDs.  He definitely gave the thumbs up to the new LED recessed lights that are being put in the new units.

But in the back of his mind was something he had seen in someone else’s trailer at the rally, and that’s what we were carrying when we walked out the door of DRV. Because nothing is too good for our trailer- Paul is in the process of installing a brand new electric toilet!   Ok, it’s not that exciting, but it will be (or better be, for the price we paid!)  less frustrating to use and maintain than the one we have. Having the positive feedback from current owners was the tipping point on this purchase.

So, that’s what he is working on today.  We’ll stay in the Howe Indiana area for a couple of days while he gets that installed and we do some other shopping.  After that, we’ll meander towards New Mexico, but we haven’t even discussed the route we’ll take, or what we want to see along the way. All I know is that after all this eating,  I want to do some hiking.

Moving right along… (09-09-12)

Not that I am an expert, but I would have to say that I really thought the “Suites” rally in MI was quite good.  There were 17 Suites 5th wheels in attendance. 

Some people have fancier set ups than others. 

The schedule was loosely planned, leaving plenty of time for simple visiting or other activities.  Paul and I played our version of tennis for the first time in a year.  Our version consists of trying to see how many times in a row we can hit the ball to each other.  Our record volley is 23 times and we didn’t come close the other day.  More practice required.


 
  We had one pot luck dinner, and one group dinner at a restaurant while attending the rally.  We also had breakfast cooked for us on two of the mornings. 

For the most part the weather was great, but the night of the pot luck it was chilly and rainy, so we used one of the barn type buildings. 

  We had several campfires and lots of “tours” of rigs. Its always great to get ideas from other people about what customizations can be done to the rig to make life easier, or more fun.

We lit up several “Chinese Lanterns”- miniature hot air balloons that you light, then let go.  They float way up into the air and we could watch them for a few minutes before they burned out.

 

Once we left the rally, we headed to Indiana to get some warranty work done on the trailer.  There weren’t too many issues but we wanted to get them fixed, since our full warranty is up now. DRV is great to work with and helped us get things fixed up to our (Paul’s) satisfaction. While there, we met up with some of our new friends from the rally, who were also getting their rigs worked on, and we all went out to dinner at Maria’s Mexican Restaurant, which has some of the best Margaritas and Mexican food we’ve had in a long time (or, did the great Margaritas make us think the food was good??) 

In any case, we had a great time, but getting work done on the trailer is always stressful. First of all, they start work at 6 am, which means getting up at 5:00, eating, and pulling the slides in by 6 am. Then you get to sit around all day, and in my case, worry about the cat, who is sitting on the kitchen table, in his carrier, all day.  When they are done working, we set up for the night, just to do it all over again the next day.  We thought (hahaha) we only had one day’s work to be done, but its been 3 already, and we have one last thing to do- check the alignment on the trailer axles.  Hopefully it’s ok and we can make our run up to Michigan tonight.
    The alignment is done at a different shop, and the trip getting to it was a lovely (that’s sarcasm, Sheldon) adventure.  Indiana doesn’t do detours.  They just close roads.  So we get to an intersection that has a sign that says “road closed”.  Fine.  We take a left, so we can loop back around and find another way there. Nope.  “NO OUTLET”.  Lovely.  We tried 5 roads before we found one that took us around the road construction.  Since the project is long term ( there is no asphalt at all) you would think they could take two minutes to post some detour signs. It wouldn’t be so bad if we weren’t dragging a 38ft trailer behind us.  With the trailer attached, there are many roads we can’t use, either because they aren’t wide enough, can’t handle our weight, or don’t have the trees trimmed high enough to clear the top of our trailer.

Bye Fresno… (05-02-12)

Hello, Utah.  Well, tomorrow we’ll say hi to Utah.  Right now we are in Boron, CA overnight after leaving Fresno this morning.  We plan to leave here very early in the morning because the forecast calls for pretty strong winds.  We didn’t unhook, so we should be able to scoot out of here pretty quickly.

I really fell down on the job of picture taking in the last week or so, so I asked Kirk to send me the pictures that he took last weekend.  This is the best of them. Paul and I went up to Kirk and Karen’s cabin again to make them work on the cabin some more.  Paul and Kirk tore apart one of the bathrooms, moved the sink and were planning on moving the toilet, but they decided they need a corner toilet, which they didn’t have, so they stopped after moving the sink.

In the meantime, Karen and I were painting the living room wall, and a closet.  The projects were fun, partly because it wasn’t our cabin, and partly because we just have a good time with Kirk and Karen, regardless.

The month we spent in Fresno went by very quickly and had a different feel to it than our usual stops.  There wasn’t any sightseeing or hiking- it was more like just day to day living. We spent some days working on projects, or hanging out at the trailer.  Thanks to Suzy, I had a gym membership for the time we were there.  I didn’t go as often as I should have, but at least I went a few times!  We managed to squeeze in quite a bit of socializing between projects, giving us a pretty good idea how it would be if we actually lived near our friends, although we all agreed we are exhausted and couldn’t have kept up that pace.

Our original plan called for us to leave Fresno last week, but one of the major things Paul needed to do in Fresno was install the Straight-line System on the trailer axles.  We have tandem axles on the trailer and the way it works usually is that the front axle is pulled along, and the rear axle is pushed.  (In theory) That can cause irregular tire wear, which we have had an issue with in the past.  DRV, the manufacturer of our trailer, shipped us this Straight-line system for Paul to put on, at no cost to us. Unfortunately, the package was missing a few crucial bushings, which meant we had to wait for them to arrive to finish the upgrade. Once they got here, it only took him a few hours to finish the installation. Once that was done, he rotated the spare tire into the mix, so he can assess whether there is still a tire wear issue or not.

Since we had to stick around anyway, I decided to go ahead and order my new Verizon iphone. It arrived yesterday, so I’ve been busy updating all the contacts etc.  Unfortunately the phone that has most of my contacts is dead and I won’t be able to retrieve everyone’s phone numbers.  I have some of them, but not all. 

I’ve also been doing a fair amount of research.  In the next month we will probably visit 7 national parks and monuments, before landing in Salt Lake City at the beginning of June. I don’t in general like to over-research things, but I also don’t want to arrive at these parks with no idea of what we should see and do.  So, all of my traveling friends, if you have thoughts on Capitol Reef, Zion, Canyonlands, Grand Staircase Escalante, Mesa Verde, Arches, Moab, and Natural Bridges, bring it on!

I think we might have waited just a little too late in the year to visit these parks, based on the weather forecast, so I also did some shopping and got some new hiking boots that will be more appropriate for hot desert weather. My good boots are really backpacking boots- heavy, leather, hot, but very stiff and sturdy. I bought a pair the other day that will be lighter and not waterproof, so they’ll breathe better in the heat.  We are already figuring we’ll have to get up and out early every day, to beat the heat, but if we need to do that, that’s ok too.

I’ve also been calling and bugging Yellowstone National Park every few days.  When we booked our reservation there for this summer, we made two separate 11 day reservations, with a 3 day gap between them.  Our thought was that we would try to get there in mid June, but if it was too cold or snowy, we’d cancel and just use the early July reservation.  Now we’ve decided we might as well use both reservations, so we can relax and enjoy the park.  But, we still have a 3 day gap.  So, I call every few days to see if there are any cancelations. The people on the phone are awesome, and apologetic. They encourage me to keep calling- there’s bound to be a cancelation!  Of course, we’re so big, there aren’t many spaces that will fit us, but we’ll keep checking.

So, tomorrow it’s on to Zion National Park. One of the hikes we tried to do there last time, but couldn’t, was The Narrows. Hiking the Narrows is essentially hiking for miles in a river. In order to do the hike, the water flow has to be below a certain level.  Last year it definitely wasn’t.  This year we’ll have to see!

S.O.I.T.C. (Grove, OK 10-20-11)

  Suite Owners International Travel Club- that’s the club for people who own the same brand  of 5th wheel (DRV, which makes Mobile Suites and Elite Suites)  that Paul and I have.  We scooted out of Arkansas to attend a rally here in Grove, OK, which was only 80 miles away from where we were.    For the last few days we’ve been mingling with other owners, hearing their stories, and sharing ours.  The first 2 hours we were here were a whirlwind.  We have one of the newest rigs, so quite a few  people showed up at the door in the first few hours to check it out. 
  
      There have been several organized activities in the last several days, plus some time for us to explore on our own.  Friday the weather improved to the point that we decided to go on the organized two hour boat trip around Grand Lake on the  Cherokee Queen.  It was a beautiful day to be on the lake, but it wasn’t a very exciting trip.

                                                                                                                                                                                                    Saturday we checked out a place called Har-Ber Village.  Its a pretty unique collection of almost anything you can think of.  It’s set up like a village, with walking paths that weave in and around the exhibits.   Each building contains a collection of antiques of some kind, including dolls, toys, china, medical equipment, and tools.      

                                                                                                             

  

One of the exhibits was what MUST be the world’s most extensive display of barbed wire.  Who knew that there were over 900 Styles of barbed wire fencing?

I sure am glad that we have modern technology when it comes to curling and drying hair!

                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

I really liked the animal exhibit.  the information about this bear explains that he is a Kodiak Bear, found on Kodiak Island in Alaska.  He weighed in at 1600 lbs and is over 8 feet tall.  He was shot with a .357 magnum rifle. It took 5 shots to kill him, and typically with this type of animal, a hunter will wait at least 2 hours before approaching the carcass, because if there is any life left in the bear, he will attack and try to kill the hunter.

The last night of the rally we had a pot luck dinner and over 50 prizes were given away. Paul and I won a $25 gift card to IHOP, and some Christmas decorations.

There were 25 rigs here at the rally, plus representatives from a DRV dealership, and a Vice President of DRV. I guess the trip here was worthwhile for the dealer, since one of the two rigs he brought to show was sold to one of the couples at the rally.

DRV factory (10-11-11)

                                                                 Two weeks prior to our appointment at DRV, we emailed them a list of issues with the trailer, so they would have an idea of what would be required when we got there. We also requested that Scott work on our trailer, if possible.  He did the work the last time we were there and we were very impressed with his abilities, attitude and knowledge.  He worked hard to make sure we were satisfied with his work.  Sure enough, when we got there, Scott was waiting for us, with our list in his hand.  One of the things I like about DRV is that they let you hang out in your trailer all day while they work on it, as long as you don’t get in the way.  For us, that means that I sit around all day and Paul follows Scott around, helping him, making suggestions, and asking for scraps of wood etc. for future projects.
One of the problems with the trailer was an area that had apparently been fixed by the factory before we got the trailer, but the gel coat was missing on the fiberglass exterior, which meant that it would age and yellow at a different rate from the rest of the trailer.  Our brilliant idea was to add a new paint “swoosh” in a dark color (DRV calls them “eyebrows”), instead of trying to fix the gel coat.  So, now we can say our trailer has a custom paint job!

 

 

One of the other things we needed them to do was to find our speaker wires for our outdoor speakers.  It took Scott a while, but he did find them, so now we have our outdoor speakers!   

All in all, it didn’t take them as long as we thought to get all the fixes done.  It was a little frustrating that we had so many issues, but now we feel pretty good about the trailer.  I had to laugh at one point, as Paul told Scott that one of the creative solutions he had for a problem was fine with us, since we’re “easy going”.  Scott looked at me, and I looked at him and I give him credit that he didn’t laugh out loud.  I will say that Paul IS easy going in some ways although anyone who knows him knows how meticulous he is as well.

Anyway, we have left the factory and have made it as far as Missouri.  We are headed to Arkansas to spend a few days with some fellow fulltimers.