We are out of Tampa

 

…..but we’re still not out of Florida, although we are very close to the Florida-Georgia border.

We left Tampa Thursday and our first stop was the 75 Chrome shop a few miles north of Tampa on I-75.  It’s a good easy place to get propane.   Flying J/Pilot have made some changes in some of their locations, making propane very difficult to get with a large rig.  We don’t get propane often and I was a little surprised at the $105 bill.  It took 24 gallons.  I’m not sure if that was expensive, but it was easy, so we didn’t care.

After we got the propane we drove the rest of the 70 miles to the Cummins Service Center in Ocala, Florida.  This was definitely not a PDD day.   Not all Cummins centers have rv sites, but this one does,  which is why we chose them.

We got there mid afternoon, checked in and made arrangements to spend the night in one of their complementary  water/electric sites.   We chose a grassy site in the field.  We were the only ones staying in our rig last night.  I’m sure that wouldn’t be the case in the winter months.

We had heard good things about this particular Cummins location, and after having the work done, we agree.  If you need any service done on your diesel engines, we recommend them.

Our appointment was for Friday at 8am.  We figured it was best to get there the day before, spend the night on their lot and be ready for them to start by 8am. 

We always have an issue with the cats, when we need service.  We can’t leave them inside without the air conditioning running, and they couldn’t work on the generator with it running. At Lazy Days, they have electric service in all the service bays, but that wasn’t the case at Cummins, so we ended up having to crate the kitties and bring them into the lounge area with us.

They made us feel welcome and it wasn’t really too bad since they started on time and had at least two guys working on our coach.

We got an oil change ($290),  lube, and the generator belt replaced. That seemed a little high for the oil change but what are you going to do.  Thanks to Paul Dahl for pointing out that these Onan generators have a hidden belt that needs replacing.  Nowhere in our manuals did we find anything about that.  If it weren’t for Paul, we would have likely had a failure very soon.  The tech said our belt was brittle and on the verge or breaking.  It would probably have caused internal damage as well, so thanks again Paul!  Our generator is on a slide out, so it’s fairly easy to work on.

 

They also did a oil analysis.  Or at least they took the oil and sent it into a company that tests the oil.  Supposedly, these tests can sometimes alert you to potential problems in your engine. That cost $35.  I had read about it for years and we have been meaning to draw some oil to have tested, but you need a small clean oil sample (like a urine test).  That’s not easy to do at a campground.

We had our radiator hoses inspected along with a suspect hose of unknown origin.   Everything looked okay, so we escaped with less than a $500 bill.  

We really wanted to get up to Elko, Georgia tonight, but after very little sleep last night and getting up very early this morning, we were kind of tired, so we had another short driving day of about 125 miles.  No PDD again!

Tomorrow will be about the same, because there are not decent rv parks closer to Blairsville.  We expect to be in the mountains on Sunday.

It’s seems like it’s been a loooong trip already, but at least we finally got these service things done.

We’re in Jennings Outdoor Resort in Jennings, Fl.   We have a long pull through site.  The site is very narrow with a light pole on the front and an electric box right at the rear of the side.  It will be a little tight pulling out but it’s okay for the night.  We got here right before the storms started, so we were glad of that.

Another long 125 mile day tomorrow!  This will be our second night on the road and we’ve only gone about 200 miles!

 

I almost forgot to tell you about my hero Baxter. Many of you know, I am deathly afraid of frogs.    Last night, we were watching Tv and Mr. Baxter (the cat)  started staring up at the curtains like he does when he sees a bug.  I assumed a bug must have flown in so I didn’t panic.  Al got up to get the bug and realized it was a frog!  He was stuck to the curtains and of course Baxter went over to check it out as well.  Al had a heck of a time keeping Baxter away from the frog long enough to catch it, with absolutely no help from me.

Thankfully, he got it, and took it for a long walk to the far side of the parking lot.

Baxter and Al are my hero!   We don’t know how it got in but possibly when the slide was closed.  There had better not be any more!