More Awning Adventures - (Knoxville, TN)

Wednesday

Early this morning, the slide awning on the main slide, the largest of the four slideouts, was installed.  And they removed our A&E electric awning.

Then there was a bit of a lull before they started on the new Carefree electric awnings.

After our workouts, Linda spent the morning preparing lunch for the entire RVs For Less crew.  At 1:00, she served baked lasagna, salad, french bread, and two cobblers.

 

 

 

We really appreciate what RVs For Less does and has done for us, so we wanted to do something nice for them.

After lunch, I worked on financials while more work was done on the electric awning mounted to our slideout.  Unfortunately, by the end of the day, it still wasn't working properly.  They'll work on it again tomorrow.

 

Thursday

I got up early this morning and took the truck in for an alignment at David's Commercial Tires.  It had been pulling a little right, so I took the opportunity to get it aligned.  And while they had it, I asked them to take off the stuck TST tire sensor on my driver's side front tire.

They were finished in about an hour.  I installed the last PressurePro sensor and programmed it.  Now, we're back to having the PressurePro sensors on all our tires, and I'm happy.

The truck handled perfectly on my way back to RVs For Less.  Hopefully, that will last awhile.

Back home, we got in our exercise as the guys continued to work on the awnings.  It took a while to discover the problem, but they eventually got the one awning working.

I have to admit I was freaking out a little bit.  I didn't want the extra patio awning attached to our slideout, but I was overruled.  And the new patio awnings come with built-in LED lights, which I also thought were unnecessary.  Powering those lights requires extra wiring and additional holes in our rig and extra time.

We were hoping everything would be complete and working by day's end.  Unfortunately, that wasn't the case, and I was in "I told you so" mode.  So, we won't be leaving first thing in the morning as we'd hoped.  If all goes well, we may be able to leave in the afternoon.  In a switch of roles, Linda was trying to keep me calm.  :)

It looks like we'll have two long driving days over the weekend.  We were hoping for a little more cushion than that, but it will all work out.

As the evening wore on, Linda made us some salmon for dinner and we had a relaxing evening.

I think we're both looking forward to our upcoming Canadian "vacation".  :)   

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Comments

[Bill and Jodee]

Seems like the only time things get hung up is when you have to be somewhere else :-). Hope they got it wrapped up and your travels are easy this weekend.

[Janice langston]

I see your using Bluebell ice cream! Yum

[Zenonwheels]

Howard & Linda, I've been wanting to drop you a note for awhile to say THANK YOU. I'm a huge fan of your site and have been following you for over two years. Yours was the first full-timer RV website that I found and I attribute your blog with sparking my own RV dream. I just started my new RV journey last month. I retired early and purchased a Ford F350 set up with a new Lance truck camper on top. It's really great. I hope to part time for the next few years while my partner continues to work.

Your RV Dreams website really helped kickstart my own interest, but more importantly, it answered the question "can I really do this?" You've shown me that I can...and now I will. Very exciting! I want to thank both of you for your wonderful entries and for sharing your lives so openly with the rest of us while we figure out if we can do it too.

As a new dually truck owner, your post caught my attention. I'm trying to solve the problem of being a responsible truck owner (check your tire pressure often) with the new complexity of driving a dual rear wheel vehicle. I can't seem to get an air hose, let alone a pressure gauge back to that second wheel.

How did you solve this? I've done a lot of googling and it seems like people fall into two camps: add modifications like extenders or check tire pressure less frequently but take the outer wheel off.

Checking less frequently won't work for me...I'm too committed to the regular checks to be okay with this. What troubles me about the extenders are a bunch of comments I'm finding on the internet suggesting that these can damage the stems and increase the likelihood of tire failure.

Howard - I get the sense you and I think alike on safety issues. I see that you've installed a remote sensor system. What do you do when you need to add or bleed air from the inside rear wheels? Did you encounter any research about the extenders suggesting that they might cause damage to tires? It is all so very confusing...I would really value the wise insights that your experience has to offer.

Thanks you both again for the inspiration to take this first step. I'm now looking forward to many happy (and hopefully flat tire free) years on the road.

Best,

Michael (aka ZenOnWheels)

[Downunda]

That buffet lunch Linda prepared looked fantastic. She's clearly a great cook and you and the installation team are lucky guys!