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....
It was not nearly as bad as we both thought it would be. The motorhome performed very well. Held a steady 35-40 up the mountain and that wonderful exhaust brake held it at about the same coming down. Driver said we'd never made it w/o it. Only had to step on service brakes 3 or 4 times. 
It was just driving. Monarch Pass was not the only pass we had to go through...maybe the longest but not necessarily the steepest. 
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