Some of you have asked about a blog, so I decided to do  one of our adventures or mis-adventures to Colorado via Louisiana (yes, it’s a little out of the way, but it beats driving thru Kansas).

Since I’m a day or three late in starting out, I’ll rely on my memory (ha) to recap.  The plans were to go to the Northwestern State University Folk  Festival in Natchitoches (which we attend every year, almost) and leave from there to head west.  So, on Thursday, July 17, we leave home after packing clothes…warm clothes, cold clothes, hot clothes…and food of all kinds, quick and not-so-quick.  New tires, oil changed…ready to go.  Yeah.

Left home around 9ish and everything was good to go.  Got around Hot Springs and the sprinkles started, got a little further and the rains came.  Turned on headlights for safety and windshield wipers to see.  All is good.  And then the passenger side wiper went left and got stuck ..on the windshield trim….pouring rain.  Found a place to pull over, got out and pulled it loose and continued on.  Multiply that scenario by about 4-6 times.  We took turns dashing out in the rain and unsticking the wiper…not fun.  Well, on one of Ronnie’s turns, he came back in and said, “you know, I don’t think the headlights are working.”  So…there we were going down I-30 with no headlights, no windshield wipers.  Makes for a stressful situation.  I suspect we had no wipers about 80% of the time.  Geez.

There’s a section of I-49 between Texarkana and Shreveport that is not finished, so while on 71  ( very narrow, rough two-lane) , we found a little truck stop with mudpuddles up to your ankles, but they did have a cover over the pumps which helped a bit while he changed out every fuse he could find that said “light”…no luck.  Obviously, we made it and by the time we arrived in Natchitoches, the rain had let up considerably.  Got parked and breathed.

We had about an hour before we were to meet everybody downtown for dinner, so as I proceeded to get ready…..no hot water.  He had a stunned look on his face and said, “that has nothing to do with the lights not working.”  Go figure.  Checked the water heater…all looked okay…must be element.  We have propane, thank goodness, so we are good with hot water…at least.

Enough trouble and stress for one day, so we leave for dinner at  Mama’s Oyster House in downtown Natchitoches on the Cane River.  About 40 or so people.  It was good…food and fellowship.  So good to see all our Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas friends again.  We love being around them all and have such a good time.

Ronnie had fried catfish; I had fried shrimp.  (I know, but we don’t fry very often)  It was very good.  After we ate, we all ventured over to Shirley’s and Tommy’s house for homemade pie.  She’s known all over as “the  pie lady”.  Not only are the delicious, but they look beautiful…hated to cut them.  Every room in her house was filled with people…such a good time.

Came back to MH around 10:30 ish ready to troubleshoot our problems on Friday. 

There are several very good RV forums which have invaluable information on them and for which we are so grateful.  Found someone’s solution to the exact same problem we had with wipers….reset the arc of the passenger one and it worked….didn’t go so far over as to get stuck…of course that meant a walmart stop for a bigger wrench, but what did I expect.  Less than 24 hours and we were in Walmart.  Meanwhile, R had made a call to Charlie at Spartan (the chassis builder) who was a huge help to us on our exhaust brake (more about that later).  Just as we were leaving to go to WM, he called back, so we made a uturn and went back to MH.  Charlie got the VIN and pulled up the wiring diagram for the specific coach we have and helped troubleshoot the headlights.  He gave R a series of steps to take and then reverse the same thing….and it worked..  So now we have headlights and windshield wipers.  All is good.  We also went up to Coushatta to a farm to get some fresh produce...wish I had a bigger freezer.  Peas and 11 pounds of tomatoes, but the tomatoes are going fast.  So good.  

Went to the festival Friday night much relieved and ready to have fun.  Which we did!  Great bands…we danced til 11 p.m.  Fantastic zydeco band…I think they had fun too.  That drummer was so good.   Came home and crashed!!  Up Saturday morning and back at it by 10:30 a.m.  They have (at Prather Coliseum) a Main Stage with large dance floor and two wings or annexes with very small places to dance.  But we’d go from venue to venue listening/dancing to different bands.  We planned our eating around who’s playing when and where.  Lots of food vendors with everything to eat!!  Gumbo, red beans/rice, ribs, corn dogs, fried chicken/shrimp/gator on a stick…and a favorite---frozen cheesecake on a stick, dipped in chocolate.  Yum. 

It was a great day and we used it up.  Left everybody around 9 ish…they stayed for one more band.  But we came in and went to bed by 11. 

Sunday:  At Sunset RV Park, Sunset, Texas….eagerly waiting on the sunset.  Hot!  And no shade…good thing for satellite, not so good for A/C.  But it’s cooling off pretty good in here.  We overdid the hourly limit today…almost 6 hours and that is at least one hour too long.  We are tired.  Elected to bypass Dallas by using 69, but probably won’t do that again.  Driver said he’d rather fight Dallas freeway traffic than dozens of stoplights. 

A PS on the exhaust brake on the motorhome.  While planning on mountain driving in Colorado and after a trip to Branson and the hills that direction, R had commented that there must be something that he was missing on driving this thing in the hills.  He was constantly having to manually shift it while going  up and down.  So we got on the forums and started searching….seems everybody was talking about exhaust brakes/engine brakes/Pac brakes and  how great they are, etc.  He made 3 trips out to the MH to look for some sort of switch…nothing.

So, I kept looking and searching and googling. Finally ran across a post from a guy  who commented:  If you have a Newmar Ventana and can’t find your engine brake switch, email me.  So I did.  He immediately responded that he had the same problem we did and called Spartan about it.  So that’s how we first talked to Charlie at Spartan.  It seems that, for some unknown reason, Newmar chose to make the exhaust brake an option on that particular model/year.  He told us that ours had a brake and how to get to the wiring and to order the switch from Newmar.  R went out, opened the console that Charlie had said and there was the wiring…labeled Exhaust Brake with a plug end.  Called Newmar and order the $27 switch and R installed it…after commenting to Newmar about a $27 switch being an option rather than a safety feature on a motorhome.  Ridiculous.  We then took it to NLR Cummins to have them check it all out—hadn’t been used in 6 years, so we wanted to make sure it was working properly.  They checked it out, changed the oil and did 42 upgrades to the computer module…after $$$$, we were fixed up.  The brake works great.   So far.  We’ll see how it handles the San Juans in Colorado.  

Tomorrow we should be overnighting in Delhart, Texas....