2021-06-30: Visiting Noah's Ark After Our First Day and Our First Breakdown in the Motorhome

On this date of our AwayWeGo's Geocaching and Traveling Adventures, we begin a new chapter. We took delivery of our RV, a 2000 American Eagle 40' diesel pusher motorhome, and begin our journey with our home on wheels yesterday. Now when we drive to a new jobsite we no longer have to stuff our Jeep with all our belongings. No longer do we have to look for a furnished place to rent for the duration of the project. We'll have everything with us and get to sleep in our own bed every night. So climb aboard the big rig RV, there's plenty of room. Today was our first day of driving from Indiana, to Florida, and then back to Texas for the next project.

Leaving from the north side of Decatur, Indiana yesterday, we headed south on US-27 a few miles to a truck stop to top off the 150 gallon diesel fuel tank. Then a few blocks past that to a Walmart to get some groceries, some basic cookware and utensils to start with, and some new linens and pillows for the queen bed as well as the foldout couch for my wife's granddaughter. The queen bed still had the original comforter and pillows which looked like they were brand new. But they didn't look very comfortable. So they'll stay looking new because we soon put them underneath the bed in the storage compartment.

Now if you have been following along reading about our travels, you'll notice that I usually like traveling the backroads. It's much easier to pickup new geocaching counties in the GeoJeep. But kinda hard pulling into rural cemeteries and outta the way ghost towns in a 40' motorhome. I'm gonna have to practice some serious route planning to accomplish that. But for now I take US-33 south over into Ohio to jump on I-75 south to Florida.

The first few hours driving the RV down the highway went really well. This diesel pusher motorhome drives, rides, and handles so much better than my gas motorhome I had back in 2005-07 when my AwayWeGo Adventures began. (Click here and scroll to the bottom to start from the beginning.)

But when you purchase a 20 year old motorhome and start driving it down the road, there's sure to be some little bugs pop up that didn't show up on a test drive or the dealer inspection. I also see others online buying brand NEW RV's with pages of items that need to get fixed too. 

So driving down I-75 south and approaching Cincinnati, the engine temperature gauge starts jumping from normal to hot and back. I don't get any warning lights saying that it's actually overheating. Plus the gauge is moving too fast. I pulled into a rest area just to check it out and make sure. Don't see any leaks. I Googled and found a Cummins dealer on the north side of Cincinnati just 10 miles further down the road and they could get me in first thing in the morning.

Waking up today we head straight down to Cummins to be there when they open up to drop off the RV. The three of us then piled into the GeoJeep and crossed over into Kentucky to the town of Williamstown. There we visited the massive Ark Encounter theme park and tourist attraction.

The Ark Encounter was opened on July 7, 2016 by the Answers in Genesis organization.  It is a full-sized replica of Noah's Ark built according to dimensions specified in the Bible. This massive structure is 510 feet long, 85 feet wide, and 51 feet high. Approximately 3.3 Million board feet of wood was used in the construction of this project.

The Ark contains 132 bays that are eighteen feet high and arranged into three decks. Visitors enter through the lower deck and move up via a ramp in the center. There were mini cages for various birds, but mostly chickens for food. Another area held large liquid containers for drinking water and oil for lamps.

Just a few photos of various bays representing different animal types gathered upon the Ark. There were no live animals inside the Ark, but there was a petting zoo that you could walk through on the outside.

Located throughout are scenes of Noah's family as they would worship and work at various activities within the Ark.

After touring the Ark and the zoo, I did manage to grab one geocache (GC7NAPC) near the entrance out by Highway 36 for Grant County.

Arriving back at Cummins to pick up the motorhome, it turned out to be a loose wire behind the temperature gauge on the dash. So hooked up the GeoJeep and continued on home to Florida for a couple days before heading to Texas.

To follow along on our travels and keep up with my latest blogs, you may do so here of course by clicking the "Follow" button to the right. And there's also my main website at AwayWeGo.US for the complete index of my traveling adventures going back to 2005. But also by using one or more of your favorite of these social media platforms: Facebook, MeWe, Gab, Reddit, Twitter, GETTR, Instagram, and TruthSocial. These all link directly to my profiles. Again, please feel free to comment and / or share.

2021-06-26: Visiting the RV Museum and Hall of Fame in Indiana

So today was one of those "checked an item off the bucket list" kinda day! Since owning my first motorhome way back in 2005, I've always wanted to visit the RV/MH Hall of Fame in Elkhart, Indiana. Now that I'm in the process of purchasing another motorhome I finally get the chance. It was a wonderful journey back through time. So come and step back in time with us as we look at RV's through history.

We continued our road trip journey from yesterday finishing a few stops in Ohio. Two quick geocaches were found in Williams County at the Fountain Grove Cemetery (GC60CNV, GC358WN). There are over 7500 internments but I didn't spend anytime looking around.

From there we drove up to the NW corner of the county. That corner also happens to be the intersection of three states: Ohio, Michigan, and Indiana. We found the virtual geocache at that location (GC2018). Even though the geocaching website has it located in Michigan, in reality it is located in Indiana. There's also a traditional geocache (GC3499B) there but we didn't have any luck finding it.

One more quick geocache (GCM8N1) at a cemetery in LaGrange County. The Riverside Cemetery in the town of Howe, Indiana has over 2300 internments dating back to 1816. The one grave to point out was the one detailed by the geocache hider. Christina Irene Hahn D' Sullivan was more commonly known as "Crissy the Skunk Woman." She was born in 1845 and died in 1925. She had many pets throughout her life. By the time she reached her 70's, she had many skunks as pets living inside her house. For the full story, click on the GC# link at the beginning of this paragraph.

 

And finally we arrived at my bucket list item, and there's a geocache there too (GC33Y84). The RV Hall of Fame and Museum first opened in 1991. The current 100,000 square foot facility opened in 2007. The museum is located right off of I-80/I-90 between Elkhart and Bristol, Indiana. There are about 50 vintage and antique RV's on display dating back to a 1913 Earl Trailer and Model T Ford. It is believed to be the oldest non-tent travel trailer in existence.

I'll highlight a few others in coming photos. The information I'm providing comes from the display boards at each RV.

This one is a 1916 Telescoping Apartment built on a 1915 Model T Ford. Selling for $100, these Telescoping Apartments were built in San Francisco as aftermarket camping accessories for early trucks. To travel, both side-cabinets slide in and the rear section telescopes into the main compartment and is secure for travel. Warm water for the shower is produced by radiator heat from the engine.

This is a 1931 Chevrolet based custom made "Housecar" was one of the enticements offered by Paramount Studios to get Mae West to leave the Vaudeville circuit and begin to make movies for them. It is designed as a chauffer driven lounge and not as a "camper" unit.

It features a small hot plate stove, an icebox, and a small table to enjoy lunch or a spot of tea. It was used for several years to transport Miss West from her home or hotel to the shooting locations. The story indicates she had a rocking chair on the back porch where she could enjoy the breeze when appropriate.

I could see myself owning and driving this one down the road! The Star Streak II is the second of two custom, all aluminum motorhomes built by Paul Jones. Built in 1988 using a 1976 Cadillac Eldorado chassis and a 1976 Oldsmobile Toronado 455 cu. in. engine. It was designed and built specifically to fit in a standard residential garage door. Length is 270 inches, weight 5400 pounds, and height 83 inches.

Made in upstate New York, a 1929 Wiedman Housecar built on a 1928 Stuart Truck chassis. These camper bodies were available either as accessories, shipped directly to a purchaser for installation, or mounted by the factory on a chassis of the buyer's choice. The large panel on the driver side was the platform for a fold-down bed with a canvas cover on the more deluxe models. It is bolted in place on this model.

This is one of two scale model displays of various RV's. They go back to the early days of diecast models and RV toys.

So that's it for today. Another bucket list item checked off. Tomorrow we explore my father's hometown of Gary, Indiana. And while there we stop by a worldwide celebrity's childhood home a few blocks away from my fathers. Until then...

To follow along on our travels and keep up with my latest blogs, you may do so here of course by clicking the "Follow" button to the right. And there's also my main website at AwayWeGo.US for the complete index of my traveling adventures going back to 2005. But also by using one or more of your favorite of these social media platforms: Facebook, MeWe, Gab, Reddit, Twitter, GETTR, Instagram, and TruthSocial. These all link directly to my profiles. Again, please feel free to comment and / or share.

2021-06-19: The 2000 American Coach Eagle 40EDF Our New To Us RV Home On Wheels

Well the long awaited day has finally arrived. No longer do we have to squeeze everything into our little Jeep when traveling between jobsite to jobsite. No longer having to buy an air mattress here, a TV there, dishes at another rental only to have to leave them behind because there's no room in the Jeep to take it with us. This morning I took a look at, test drove, and agreed to purchase a 2000 American Eagle 40EDF diesel motorhome from Sullivan RV in Decatur, Indiana.

Over the last year or so, I spent many hours on the internet looking at RV's for sale across the country. I narrowed it down to the American Coach brand of diesel pushers. Compared to the majority of my co-workers with big trucks and 5th wheels, I like the motorhome better. Plus I want to keep the Jeep instead of a huge truck. And the biggest RV trailer the Jeep can pull is only 14 feet long! Not much room for full-timing.

If you scroll all the way down to the bottom of my original blogs archived posts from 7-18-2005, you'll see where I purchased my first gas motorhome brand new. It was nearly $90,000 at that time. When I got rid of it three years later it was only worth $35,000. A tremendous loss!

This time around I wanted to be smart about it. Yes it is 21 years old. The original sticker price back in the year 2000 was $279,000. I bought it for $42,000, letting previous owners take the depreciation this time. After looking at many RV's over the past year this one was about in the middle for the 1998-2004 years. I saw pristine coaches going for as high as $65k to trashed ones down in the $15k-$20k range. This one fit perfectly within the budget that had been saved for the last 6 months. And it's paid for in cash! No payments to worry about.

Now we have a full kitchen with gas stove, convection oven/microwave, and refrigerator with ice maker. One of the advantages I like with having a motorhome instead of a pull behind trailer, is the access to fridge while driving. Well while I'm driving Candy can get something from the fridge, pantry, or even cook something. We don't have to pull over somewhere. Especially in bad weather.

There are two sofa's with both folding out into beds. They also have lots of storage underneath.

Having our own bathroom, and like the kitchen, the convenience of being able to use it on travel days versus having to walk into a hot trailer.

No more air mattresses, hard mattresses, or worn out mattresses. We did take that 21 year old comforter and pillow cases and put them in the storage compartment under the bed. Then added a pillow top for the mattress and new linens and comforter.

No more dirty filthy laundromats. While a stackable would be a little better, still having the washer/dryer combo means Candy no longer has to clean the washers before using the washers.

And finally the two comfy captains chairs up front. Not that I want to anymore, but if I needed to drive 600-700 miles a day it would be a very comfortable seat to do so.

This was a consignment sale, so the dealer is now gonna do a deep cleaning, check everything out, and make a few repairs. That's gonna be done through this week. The one thing I would have done differently is gotten an RV inspector to go through it as well. 

But in the meantime, Candy, her grand-daughter, and I are going on a geocaching road trip to Connecticut and back in the GeoJeep. We'll be back next week to take delivery and begin another chapter in our adventures.

To follow along on our travels and keep up with my latest blogs, you may do so here of course by clicking the "Follow" button to the right. And there's also my main website at AwayWeGo.US for the complete index of my traveling adventures going back to 2005. But also by using one or more of your favorite of these social media platforms: Facebook, MeWe, Gab, Reddit, Twitter, GETTR, Instagram, and TruthSocial. These all link directly to my profiles. Again, please feel free to comment and / or share.