Pop Goes The….Mattress?

Paul awakes after a night in “the crypt”

I was sound asleep, dreaming of undulating meadows, chirping birds and flowing wine spigots (it was odd, but very soothing). KAPOW! Pssssssssssst! Just as I was about to pour myself a glass and lie back in my Grecian couch (undoubtedly to be fed grapes by the nice muscular young man in the toga), the wine spigot exploded and I was awake.

“Errrr….Honey?” I mumbled in confusion, “either you just did the mother of all farts, or something exploded in the RV”
“Hmmmfhhh” responded Paul, always the quick thinker at 3AM in the morning
“Aaaand..” I managed to add, after the fog cleared in my brain and my eyes adjusted somewhat “you’re sinking”

Rand contemplates “the hole”

This was either the beginning of some kind of weird zombie dream, or our pain-in-the-ass Sleep Number bed had popped. As Paul sunk deeper into the abyss, we both had to admit the latter was the most likely scenario. The blank screen on our pump controller was totally dead (darn, stupid air mattress) and at this point Paul was lying in a manufactured crypt with our life-saving mattress topper as the only thing preventing direct body-on-wood contact.

They DO say a firm surface is better for the back, but this is ridiculous. Given there was not much we could do at 3AM, Paul disappeared back into the hole and we slept on it.

Paul applies his ample brainpower to the installation instructions for the new pump

In the morning things did not look any better. We now had a mountain-and-grand-canyon configuration with a completely dead pump and (possibly) a blown bladder. In a weird twist of conservation of mattress air, my side of the bed had somehow inflated to concrete-strength firmness while Paul’s side had settled into complete flacidity…and both were completely stuck. The only positive point was despite a night in “the box” Paul was still able to move and had not (yet) grown any vampire teeth.

A few hours later and a call to Sleep Number confirmed my fears that the pump had fried. It also revealed that their “20-year guarantee” is actually a “limited” warranty which is a sneaky way of saying that if the bed breaks you still pay for new parts (just at a very “special” price). Yet another of the oh-so-many-reasons I am not a fan of this bed.

Paul operates under the bed

Given our limited options as to how long Paul could survive in “the hole” without transforming into a blood-sucking RV demon, I shelled out the $100 and we had a new pump on its’ way. Two days later and a new pump, we got the good news that air was working, but the bladder had ALSO failed. We’ve applied a temporary gorilla glue/tire patch/duck tape (just for good measure) fix, have shelled out another $55 and are now waiting for that.

So, here we are…cursing our bed, but thankfully in gorgeous surroundings (I have at least 200 pictures waiting to awe and bedazzle you). We’re keeping an eye on Paul’s canines (just in case), but should be back up and running once we get the new bladder. Who ever said RV life was boring?

Getting The Ultimate RV Ride -> Henderson’s Line-Up, Grants Pass, OR

The two MH's eagerly await their morning test drive

I’d heard about Henderson’s ages ago. Actually our very first week in the RV an old-timer in a Monaco told us that if ever we wanted to thoroughly trick-out our ride Henderson’s Line-Up in Grants Pass was the spot to do it. Since then I’ve seen their name on forums and a bunch of other spots. These guys are THE place to check, analyze and upgrade your RV ride whether it be a motorhome, truck or a trailer. In fact they’re the guys that train the other guys on how to do it, and they’d been on our “wish list” for quite some time.

Alex & Ellen in the pit with the tech

Now we’ve gone a bit bulky on our RV repair budget this year so getting a tricked-out ride as compelling and droolingly luscious as that would be, wasn’t exactly in the $$ count. But we WERE curious…..and it turns out Henderson’s provides an excellent little service for the likes of us, the Road Performance Assessment a complete go-through including 15-mile test drive, 4-corner weighing, and 50-point pit analysis of steering, tire wear & alignment, shocks, disc-brakes, drive-train and more for only $150. 

Kenny checks the wheel track on our home

Although we weighed our rig (front/back totals) back when we first got it and have always been careful about maintaining our tires we’d never had 4-corner weigh (weighing each wheel individually) and that little perk together with the full analysis was enough to get us over to Henderson’s for the package. Add-in the bonus that Henderson’s offers a free hook-up (30Amp) for the night and WE WERE THERE!

Our 4-corner weighing

So, off we went. We spent a peaceful evening in the on-site hook-ups and woke bright and early for the 8AM drive-test. Our tech Kenny was a friendly and informative guy, patient enough to go through all our questions as well as invite us into the pit for the underneath analysis. Our overall grade was a very good one (1′s on almost everything) with good handling, good weighting (we’re within a few hundred pounds on each side), even tire tread wear and absolutely no leaks or seeps underneath. Our RV caravan buddies had a few small issues they needed to fix (one of which was critical and made the entire trip for them worthwhile), but were in good shape otherwise too.

The two rigs ready to enter the pit

After the review we got a bunch of info on potential safety upgrades (the Safe-T-Plus Bar), drive upgrades (Koni shocks being the gold standard together with sway-control bars) and even interesting info on stuff I’d never heard about (mercury balancing for wheels -> what a cool concept!). We declined the work this time around, but given the good feedback I’ve heard from others it’s pretty much ALL on our wish-list for the future. And in case you’re curious as to the cost of completely tricking out our ride to sail the road like a 30,000lb monster-smooth-mercedes? About $5K…not bad at all for a rig our size, and yet another reason to come back to Oregon.

On the test drive with Kenny

Paul discusses upgrade options with the owner

RV Slide Woes & A Total Change in Plans

“When life throws you a curve ball, learn to hit a good slam off it” Anonymous

"The Beast" goes into the shop

There are a bunch of classic quotes centered around the life and curveball theme, but they all got one thing in common.  Sometimes things just don’t work out as planned and so you gotta learn to play the game differently. 

That pretty much summed up what went through my mind after we’d spent 2 full days (that would be 48 hours for those counting) sitting at the RV repair shop only to hear the tech tell us “I’ve tried everything I can think of and I just can’t fix it”.

Bummer!

I can definitely recommend these guys

The thing is, I really believed him. This shop (Humphrey’s RV) in Grand Junction came highly recommended and our experience, apart from the fact that we couldn’t get our problem fixed, had been excellent. The customer service was friendly, the tech and mechanics up-front and honest. They let us stay overnight (with 30Amp) on-site and ended up only charging us for 4 hours of labor (!!) because they felt bad they couldn’t fix the issue. Honestly, I would recommend them wholeheartedly and had nothing (at all) to complain about.

Hanging out at Humphrey's RV

But that still left us with the situation of a broken slide. You know the story of the leak and bend from our “incident” in the mountains, but turns out our slide problem was much more serious than that (and *not* by the way related to the “incident”). Over the past year of RVing the whole slide seems to have somehow gone out of alignment and the back corner was “catching” the side of the RV everytime it came in , bending the RV wall and causing a “pop” on release (yikes!) 

Our free camping spot for the night at Humphrey's

We’d made a note of it about a month ago and thought it could be fixed by a simple alignment. But ohhhhh, nooooo…..the slide was fully aligned, fiddled, checked, taken apart, put together, even had a shimmy put under the back (to raise it 1/4″), but nothing worked. After spending several hours with Monaco on the phone and trying everything they could it looks like we might need a total slide re-build.

OK…not what I had planned…hmmm, what now?

My new "do"...it's been a while

The manufacturer of our coach is in Oregon and looks like that’s the logical next step. That means Idaho is out the window and Oregon in. After feeling rather depressed and decidedly “non-Zen” for an evening, we found some bright spots in the whole ordeal:

• Weather: The weather in Oregon seems fabulous right now. Idaho (at least the southern part which was our plan) is roasting. Ass in the sand and feet in the ocean…oh yeah, I can dig that!
• Hair: The 2 days we spent at the RV shop gave me time to get a haircut of which I was in dire need (my last professional cut being over a year ago). Hairdressers worldwide are rejoicing at my transformation.
• Time: Paul’s got a couple of weeks on his own next month (while I go to Denmark for a family reunion) which will be fruitfully spent getting repairs. Time-wise it’s kinda perfect.
• Money: We have an extended warranty which covers the slide, so it’s not like the financial concern is there.
• Why Not? We’re mobile and fancy free, so why not make the drive?

So all in all we’ve decided run with this curveball and take it where it goes. That means a TOTAL change of driving plans which we’ll be working on over the next 2 days. In any case, Oregon here we come….