We spend our winters in south Texas at Sandpipers Resort. It is an independent resort and they ask for proof of insurance and do require that all vehicles in the park (including permanently parked trailers) have a current license. They don't require you show registration, the plate is good enough. They have never asked for a drivers license. I think that any park is allowed to ask for any information they want, and we are free to find another park if we don't like it. I can't think of any other park we've stayed at that requires that information for stays up to a month long.
We made the loop around the National Park and National Forest in 2012 in a 40 foot motor home. I don't keep a record of campgrounds but found no problem with any we stayed at. We camped near Hoodsport on the SE side of the park. We spent a week there exploring the park, wineries in the area and a wonderful event in Olympic when the Salish tribes held a potlatch near there. More than 100 ceremonial canoes from as far away as Alaska arrived in the Olympic harbor and were welcomed at a drum ceremony. From there we moved to Sequim on the NE. We stayed there for a week and found plenty to see in the area. There is a great bicycle riding trail. We also made a trip to Port Townsend from Sequim, a most interesting port, boat building museum, old seaside town. Our next stop was a campground just west of Port Angeles. Another great bicycle trail in this area. We took the toad on a ferry trip to Vancouver Island (bring your passport) to visit friends there. We also explored the northern part of the park and enjoyed the Blackberry Festival in Joyce, WA. From there we moved on to Forks. There is a decent park in town. There is also a park in the Quileute Tribal land on the seashore in La Push. We attended a drum ceremony in La Push and were made to feel most welcome. Forks is a great place to learn about the forestry and logging industry. They have a logging museum and an excellent guided tour to a mill and a field site where logging is in progress (2012). The tour was conducted by a retired forester who worked with the industry in the area, very informative. Our final stop at the park was in Amanda Park on the southwest side of the park. There are some great hiking trails here, many trees that are recorded as the oldest or largest of their species in the world. One was in the park where we stayed. The entire Olympic National Park and National Forest was a great experience. We hiked so many great trails, saw so much great scenery and met wonderful people. It was on our to-do list for a long time, we really enjoyed it once we got there. By the way, the Olympic Peninsula is a rain forest and we came prepared for rain. We didn't have a single day of rain while we were there! The summers are generally pretty dry. This time of year it is another story. We continued our travels on south on Hwy 101 into Oregon and really enjoyed the journey along the coastal NW. It is a great extension of a trip to the Olympic Peninsula. Use RV Park Reviews which is now Campground Reviews to locate parks in the areas we stayed. Pick the ones you like. You can also find information on parks at Allstays on the computer or use the app on your phone. We prefer the app and use it constantly for campgrounds and other resources including Walmart and other stops as well as locating groceries, repair shops, fuel, etc. Allstays is my primary resource for travel information.
The same goes for the Sam's Club Mastercard. The cash back on fuel is 5%, at any fuel station, not just Sam's Club. By the way, 5% is15 cents per gallon if fuel is $3.00 a gallon. The cash back accumulates until the January statement, which has a check, arrives then you get real cash at Sam's Club. This year, my 2018 rebate check will be almost $500.00. As mentioned above, Gas Buddy is a must for finding that station with the lowest price for fuel in your area. It also allows me to "look ahead" to see if fuel is cheaper or more expensive in the direction I am headed. If cheaper, I'll wait to fuel until I get to the less expensive location. If that is beyond my fuel range, I'll add a minimal amount and then continue to the best price ahead. If the opposite occurs, the prices ahead are more expensive, I'll fill up before I reach the higher prices ahead. I was able to drive through California, from the north on I-5 to the south, leaving on I-8 purchasing only 10 gallons of diesel to get me to Arizona.
Let me introduce our motor home, VGER. VGER is named for the villainous character in the first of the Star Trek movies. VGER has been in our family going on 15 years this summer. It (VGER was an it) was purchased at a Monaco Come Home Rally in Raine, LA. We traded in a 10 year old Monaco we had purchased as a used coach in the spring of 2001. We sold our home and moved into that used coach full time on July 7, 2001. VGER was purchased new, 1235.4 miles on the odometer when we took possession on November 14, 2003. Today it has 177,326.1 miles on the odometer. From November 2003 until October 2010, we lived in VGER full time. Starting in the fall of 2010, we move into a mobile home each fall and move back into VGER each spring. When in VGER, we travel. A long stay is on the order of 3 to 4 weeks. Those stays are when we are visiting our children and grandchildren. Once a year we move into our children's neighborhoods and become neighbors for a period of time. In between time we follow our noses. We've visited 49 states and 12 provinces in Canada. We have begun slowly remodeling VGER. Carpeting, lights, some furniture, plumbing and more. Some of the remodeling has been out of necessity some just to keep the coach looking modern. Our work continued this summer, right up to the time we found our next motor home. While at Gillette, first at the Monaco International pre-rally and finally at the FMCA Convention, we purchased a 2015 Monaco Dynasty. The Windsor is up for sale, look for the ad in the Family RV'ing Magazine (FMCA) January issue. We transferred the license from the Windsor to the Dynasty, VGER lives on. Since the purchase we have put 4500 miles on the Dynasty and are enjoying many of it's features. There is a trade-off when moving from a 40' coach to a 45' coach. The two are not directly comparable as they are of a different age. Right away we realized that the relative frugality of the Windsor was dramatically different from the Dynasty. Fuel mileage dropped from 8.3 with the Windsor to 6.5 with the Dynasty. That was no surprise, I figured it might even be lower. The Dynasty has an Aqua-Hot for hot water and heat. Both run off the fuel tank as does the generator. With the Windsor only the generator shared the fuel tank. With all these uses for the diesel fuel, I have lost the ability to get a true mileage performance figure. Due to the demand for electric, we have an induction cooktop, the Dynasty really needs to be plugged in regularly. The generator will run things but using the generator extensively is an expensive proposition. The water and waste tanks are roughly the same size as the Windsor but the water usage in the Dynasty is going to be greater. The toilets use significantly more water with each flush. The shower has a rain shower head which is a big water user. That means we will have to be hooked up every two or three days. With the Windsor we were able to go close to a week without hook-ups and longer if we really needed to stretch it. When we pulled up to our home at Sandpipers Resort in Edinburg, Texas we faced another challenge. Our parking space is adjacent to our mobile home. The driveway barely accommodated the length of the Windsor with our toad parked behind. I knew that and planned to park the toad cross-way in the driveway, that worked fine. We also had to maneuver a longer coach onto the driveway. The park road is fairly narrow and there is no way to run off on the opposite side. We always had to make three or four passes to jockey the Windsor into the driveway. I didn't even know if we could get the Dynasty into the driveway. As it turned out, we made it, a few more passes than the Windsor. With all the slides open we have about 6 inches between the Dynasty and the roof of the mobile home. Whew! That is close. Surprisingly, the space in the storage bays is less in the Dynasty than the Windsor. Some of our gear made the trip home in the toad rather than in the storage bays. We'll go through some winnowing of our gear before departing next spring. All in all we are quite happy with our new VGER and as we get to know it better I'm certain we'll continue to look back to the Windsor with many happy memories while enjoying the luxury of the Dynasty.
In the 2001 movie, Rat Race, Kathy Bates tries to sell a squirrel to Whoopi Goldberg and her daughter. They defer but ask Kathy Bates for directions. Being a race, they are traveling at breakneck speed down one road after another following the directions. Finally at one point, hurtling down a gravel road with dust billowing behind they pass a sign: "You Should Have Bought a Squirrel." That is followed by a scene of them going over a cliff, landing on a pile of rusted and wrecked cars. It is one of our favorite moments in a favorite movie. It is also a quote we use frequently as we travel, not only on the road but through life. One or the other of us will turn to the other and say, "We should have bought a squirrel." Our travels this spring have brought back that saying frequently. It starts with a problem that I've been trying to get fixed all winter. Repeated visits to repair shops still yields no solution. We have no taillights. The turn signals and brake lights work. The emergency flashers work. We still have no taillights. So we are restricting our travel to daylight only. For the most part, that isn't a problem since I have avoided night travel for the last several years. Given that condition, we departed early on the morning of April 18 to attend the Lone Star Chapter of FMCA rally in Johnson City, TX. Arriving there just after noon, we parked. I went to step out of the coach and found that the electric step hadn't opened fully. After stepping out of the coach carefully, I examined the step to find that a link from the motor to the step was missing. Not broken, it was gone! I carry a separate step for those days when the front of the coach is raised well above the ground. So we used that step for the rally. I used zip ties to fasten the disabled step in the retracted position for travel to our next destination, Austin. Monday I had an appointment to get two new Michelin tires mounted on the coach. I have adopted the practice of replacing the front tires every two years and then moving the used front tires to the rear, both tires replace the oldest pair of rear dual tires. In this case, the coach wasn't in a shop, the work was done outside the shop so I had complete access to the coach and could talk with the workers. An aside, I have yet to find a tire tech who knows how to properly torque a lug nut. As they were mounting the tires on the rims, I inspected the brake rotors and gave the underside of the front of the coach a good looking-over. Peering into the area behind the drivers-side tire I noticed something strange. There was a large object dangling there in the center of the coach. I recognized this as the supplementary air compressor which is part of the HWH air leveling system. It maintains our level position when we are parked and it was still working. The pump and it's mounting plate weighed at least 30 pounds and they were hanging by the air hoses (2) and the electrical supply and control wires. Had this dropped off en-route, who knows what would have been destroyed in the process. After bouncing along under the coach, it would have encountered our GMC Acadia! I considered myself very lucky, fortunate to have found this dangerous condition. I found a large C-clamp in my tools and was able to clamp the remaining mounting plate to the frame. I've added a second clamp to help secure the assembly just to be sure. I have an appointment at the factory service center to get this properly remounted but we will travel at least 1500 miles before that happens. I'm not going to turn over welding on the frame to just anyone. What had happened to the original mounting plate? It had cracked, all the way across a 3/8" steel plate that was about 10" wide. Apparently 170,000 miles of highway travel had vibrated it to the point that it broke! The piece that was welded to the frame is still there and it matches the piece that broke off. Metal fatigue had nearly done us in. I ordered a rebuild kit for the Kwikee Step, new motor, linkage, control center, it was all different since our step was new. I was able to successfully install that at home before we left for the summer on May 5. Our second day out we stopped at an RV park in eastern Louisiana. The next morning, Louise cranked the engine to air up in preparation for bringing our slides in before departure. She turned the key, the engine answered, "Uggg." I stopped my disconnecting process to go inside and jump the engine battery with the house batteries. Successful, I went back outside to finish getting us road ready. Before leaving we decided to run the generator but the house batteries didn't have the umph to crank the generator! So with the engine now running I jumped the house batteries with the engine battery. The generator started. Now with everything running, I got on the computer and then the phone to call a RV shop along our route. With luck, I called Billy Thibodeauxs Premier RV Inc. near Lafayette, Louisiana. Finding the shop was an adventure, if you decide to follow in our footsteps, check their website for the best route to get there. Ashley was very friendly and efficient. By the time we arrived just before noon I was informed that the batteries would be delivered to the shop by 1:30 p.m. and they would install them as soon as they arrived. Believe it or not, we were back on the road by 3:00 p.m., $1900 lighter but with good batteries. Leaving I-10 for I-59, we left the heavy traffic behind and pulled into a truck parking area just before sunset (remember our coach turns to a pumpkin after sunset). Our final adventure for the initial trip occurred in Chattanooga, TN. Passing through town on I-59/I-24 to get to I-75, we were in the center lane of rush hour traffic. Coming down a hill I applied the brakes as traffic came to a stop. The fuel in the fuel tank sloshed to the front and the engine stopped! Yes, I knew we were low on fuel, a station was just up the road on I-75 and we planned to make that stop our night stay at Walmart. I tried to restart the engine, no luck. Whoever was behind us on the right side must have realized our situation because they stopped to allow us to coast down the hill through the right hand lane to the shoulder. I came to a stop just before an overpass but on level ground. Now on the level, the engine started. I wondered how long that would last but pulled back onto the highway and we continued on. Now I stayed in the right lane. Looking for the Walmart and the accompanying Murphy station, we came up empty. It wasn't where the GPS led us. I had established several years before that Murphy isn't a subsidiary of Walmart and there are stations that are located at separate locations. It turned out the station was there but Walmart wasn't. As we passed it later, I looked and it would have been a difficult in and out for us. Passing the location, we noticed a small station on the opposite side of the street. They had diesel and at the same price as Murphy. We frequently patronize small stations but I do approach them with extreme caution. The canopy has high enough, the in and out route was do-able so we looped through a large parking lot and returned to that station. Louise got out to scout for the diesel pump as I idled on the road in position to pull up to the diesel pump wherever it was. She signaled a location and I pulled in. I put 109 gallons of diesel in a 127 gallon tank. I had to laugh when I retrieved my credit card and got the fuel receipt from the clerk in the Citgo station. We had refueled at the "Save a Ton #2" in Chattanooga! I thought, "That little station saved us a lot more than a ton!" By the way, I think I made the foreign clerk's (owner?) day when he handed me my card and receipt for $291.34. What a big smile. And no, he didn't furnish his house with my credit card. Good people are everywhere! I love it when trust is rewarded. During the winter we had the coach in the shop several times. The Aladdin system monitors our fuel very accurately but this time it was off by more than normally expected. We had run the generator quite a bit, that might account for some of the difference. So maybe I should have bought a squirrel.
TBUTLER commented on Rewillia's blog entry in "Finding The Roads That Await Us"
Nice description of your travels. Great pictures. Lovely coach. I'll be looking forward to your next entry.
I was a graduate assistant for a geology course at the University of Missouri, Rolla, for several summers. One summer we needed some wood blocks for an activity. I purchased a 2x4 but didn't have a saw so took it to the shop that supported the class needs at an engineering school. I asked for blocks which were square, 3 1/2 x 3 1/2 inches. The person I was talking to asked me what tolerance was allowed. In an engineering school, it wouldn't be uncommon to have a requirement for a tolerance of +/- 1/10,000 inch. For my needs, +/- an eighth inch was sufficient but it did make me think about accuracy and tolerance in making measurements. In that light, I offer the following comments... In talking about vehicle weight, don't overlook Brett's comment about fuel tanks. One of the things that makes knowing vehicle weight on a motor home so important and difficult is that the weight is constantly changing. Fuel, diesel or gas, and propane will change as a motor home travels down the road. On an extended road trip, waste tanks will fill and the fresh water tank will slowly empty. Point #4 implies a degree of accuracy that can't be achieved in a vehicle which is constantly changing weight and weight distribution. When you have your vehicle weighed by RVSEF, their form has a place to indicate tank levels and instructions for calculating what the full tanks would add to the weight of the vehicle at the time of weighing. While it would be unusual, you have to inflate your tires for full tanks which will result in slightly over--inflated tires most of the time. The likelihood that your tire inflation is perfectly on-the-dot correct for your current weight is very low and the expectation that it could be kept perfectly correct for your weight is something that would be impossible. +/- what? Thinking about tire inflation, one major consideration has been missed. What is the accuracy of your measuring instrument? Has your tire gauge been certified for accuracy? How old is it? How long has it been since it was tested for accuracy. I have had tire dealerships compare readings from my tire gauge with the main gauge for their shop. I don't know what the requirements for testing their gauges but comparing different tire gauges shows a 10 pound difference between two identical tire gauges is not uncommon. Your average tire gauge is not a precision instrument that you may think it is. The same is to be said for tire pressure monitoring systems. You will find that the sensors show differences from one to the next. Two tires which show exactly the same pressure on my tire gauge show different pressures on the TPMS. Taking a tire pressure reading itself will introduce small errors in the system. Apply the gauge, you hear a brief hiss, release the gauge from the tire valve, another hiss, losing air pressure each time. My TPMS sensors have to be screwed on, more hissing as I quickly screw them on the tire valve. How much pressure is lost? Is that the difference in the readings of the two TPMS sensors? Bleeding the pressure from tires will quickly let you know that a lot of hissing goes on to lower the pressure a pound so I suspect it is a very minor difference. +/- what? When getting a starting air pressure for the beginning of the day, it is important that the tires not be sitting in the sunlight. A tire sitting in sunlight will warm quickly and the pressure will read higher than a tire in the shade even if both were at the same pressure before sunrise. Adjusting the pressure on a tire which has the sun shining on it can result in wildly different pressures between tires on one axle where one tire is in sunlight and the other in shade. This is why I never sleep late on a day when we are driving. Unless you are parked in a very shady location or inside a garage, there is only one way to get an accurate before driving air pressure reading from your tires, get up before the sun hits them. +/- what?
Here is a link to the Golf Courses in the Rio Grande Valley. Most of these are public courses. There is a map so you can see the distribution of courses throughout the RGV and there is also a link to each of the courses so you can check their rates. If you come to spend the winter, you will find some courses that offer a winter season membership which will reduce your cost considerably. I'm certain there are also other RV parks throughout the RGV that have golf groups that get discounts for playing at a certain course regularly. Regarding golf and the weather in March, you can count on warm (80's daytime) windy (15 to 20 regularly) weather. Most of our spring weather is rain free and largely cloud free as well. The south Texas winds can be a challenge for any golfer. Yesterday we were on the Los Lagos course, an Edinburg city course. We play that course every Monday in a group from our park. The group rate is $32 with a cart, $21 if you walk the 18 hole course. We have also played a number of other parks in the area. Temperatures yesterday were 73 degrees at our 8:00 tee time and were in the mid 80's by the time we completed our round of golf. Winds yesterday were 20 to 25 with gusts to 35. I had to put my hat in the golf bag. It was that or lose it in a lake! Being used to the wind, my game got better as the day got windier! I play for the fun of chasing the ball around the course and for the exercise that results. Our golf courses are also populated with a variety of interesting and beautiful birds seen up close many times. American White Pelicans, Spoonbills, Great Egrets, Snowy Egrets, Great Blue Herons, Black Necked Stilts, Black Bellied Whistling Ducks, Long-billed Curlews and an assortment of ducks can be seen on the courses in the RGV. We do learn to watch out for fire ant mounds. Standing on one of them will definitely ruin your day. Some courses are better about controlling them than others. There actually are RV's headed north right now. That will accelerate as we get closer to Easter. By early April at least 50% of the Winter Texans will be on their way north. I can assure you that almost any park in the RGV has a place for you to stay right now. The area is busy with a population of over 1 million in the the RGV area. South Padre Island will have a booming population around Easter and spring break for Texas schools. Spring break activities (concerts, parties, etc.) are scheduled March 7 to 21 and Easter this year is April 1. I'd plan to be somewhere other than South Padre Island during that period of time. Stay elsewhere in the RGV and visit SPI once the spring break crowd has dispersed.
Another thing to check is the door hinges. Our entry door is anchored to a single swing arm at the top. When wracked by a gusty wind, the hinges will bend. I didn't know why our door was difficult to operate until the door was caught by a very strong gust that visibly bent the upper hinge. The door would barely close. After removing the door and straightening the hinge, the door worked better than it had in years. Now I'm very protective of the door in gusty winds. I went on to replace the original hinge with a new one. You can call Monaco Customer Service at the phone number in your owners manual, 877-466-6226, to get the replacement hinge. Then again, we're talking a 97 HR, maybe Monaco might be able to help or you might have to go to the RV salvage yards to find a replacement.
Like desertdeals69 we did the trip on our own. You will get hundreds of stories, some good, others not so... We like you had done extensive long trips and been in Canada and all over the US. We always travel on our own, did a tour with Fantasy RV this past spring, Kentucky Derby. Wasn't so much a tour as an event. We were parked the whole time. Travel was in the immediate area on tour buses. Your experience will be different. We traveled at our own pace, sometimes stopping at rest areas overnight, others in parks. This was 2006 and internet was still sketchy but most parks had service, slow but usable. We had mail delivered to locations in Alaska (full timers). Most parks along the way and in Alaska had wash facilities available and we used them frequently. Your coach will get dirty, again and again. Distances in Alaska are great, bicycles give you limited distance and being on a schedule you won't have the flexibility of slow travel. You may or may not find them to meet your needs. Among the trips we took was leaving the coach in Dawson City and driving our toad 500 miles one way (most gravel) to Innuvik, an Inuit village well inside the Arctic Circle in northern Canada. Wouldn't have wanted to miss this but doubt you will have that time allowance or even that particular stop on your tour. Fuel and food are available all along the route though you will want to fill up at most towns along the way as they are widely spaced. Your tour guide should be able to give you guidance regarding these but it isn't a major concern. There is a publication that I would recommend to anyone going on their own, The Milepost. It has tons of information and advice regarding your trip. Much more than I would ever attempt. Your tour I believe will give you some independent time to explore on your own and you may find interesting things in this guide as well as more specific answers to your questions about the coming trip. We took car excursions into Denali NP to the distance allowed (about 20 miles) and had time to do several hikes and stop for a ranger talk. Drove car several times into Wrangell St. Elias NP, once to stay several nights at Kennicott the other to do some remote hiking outside Gulkana, both long trips (70 - 80) miles on gravel roads. We had not one flat tire on coach or toad but some people undoubtedly did, no broken windshield, just dirt, dirt, dirt. And, we occasionally had a closet dumper, hitting the frost heaved road a little too fast will magically lift all your clothes hangers off the clothes rod in the closet. Happens to all, trailers, motor homes, nothing to do but laugh and try to go a little slower next time. We saw quite a few vehicles with visible damage, saw a wrecker haul a pickup with 5th wheel attached out of roadside brush/ditch and drive off. Drive cautiously at all times. Did I mention dirt? If it is raining it is mud, if it is dry it is dust. Dust on road repair areas where you are driving on dirt - they control the dust with calcium chloride which will make... mud. Parking lots at grocery stores may or may not be paved. Pull into fuel pumps, you will be on gravel or dirt. Alaska is a US frontier and you get the total experience in every way possible. Oh, one other thing you may want to consider. There are credit cards that do not charge for currency conversion. We have one that we use for any travel outside the US. Saves us a bunch not having to pay 3% or more to convert from $$ to some other currency. You will get a discount in Canada, their currency is something like 75 cents to our dollar. It wasn't that way in 2006! We crossed into Canada on Memorial Day and returned to the lower 48 on Labor Day. It is the trip of a lifetime. Enjoy.
TPMS = Tire Pressure Monitoring System. Sometimes you get some warning. I had a blowout several years ago, the tire monitor didn't alarm until we were stopped. Great for catching a slow leak, even a fast leak but may not give any warning before a blowout. I put a system on our coach after we had a blowout on the left front tire. Don't want that to happen again but then there is no guarantee. The alarms have been well worth it for the several puncture/leaks that we had. Stopped before significant tire damage, no damage to vehicle. In one case, we were headed off into never-never land, hundreds of miles to next service. The alarm when off right at the road that was our last chance for repair before going into the wilderness. Back on the road in three hours. Without it may have been days and who knows how many hundred dollars more to get the help we would have needed. We have Pressure Pro, there are many other brands, each with their own differences. Search the forum (top right on this page for search box) for TPMS or for tire pressure to get quick access to past discussions and thoughts from others on different brands. As far as valve stems, Monaco at the time of your coach manufacture used flexible valve extensions which attach to the wheel hub, about as convenient as you can get. If your coach still has them, I'd use them. We haven't had any problems with our is 14 years. I am in the process of replacing them this year. I ordered a set from Monaco. Despite the bankruptcy (post 2008) and several sales and reorganizations, you can still call Monaco Customer Service at the phone number in your owners manual, 877-466-6226 to order parts. They will want your coach serial number (not the VIN) and will be able to look up all the parts that were used to build your coach. I had my coach in the shop, had the parts person call, he did use the VIN, got the correct parts to replace a couple of corroded dock lights on our coach, exact replacements! If you need replacement extensions or other items, try them first to get original equipment items.
As Carl says, find the original tire size on the wall behind the driver's seat. That is a fixed requirement for your tires. Next, answer - for yourself - how many miles you will drive your coach each year. Being new to this, you may not have a real good idea, just think about your plans for travel. Are you taking off across country and doing that year after year, or is this for weekends and the occasional week of vacation. If your driving plans involve occasional short trips you will want a different quality of tire than someone who is traveling 10,000+ miles a year as we do. Either way, you won't wear the tread off those tires in the 7 years that will be the age limit for the tires. There are many foreign brands of tires on the market with strange names, some are good, some perhaps not so. I've had Goodyear and now Michelin. I like the Michelin better but they are the most expensive and may not be justified for your travel plans. I have run the standard truck tires on our motor home, the Michelin tires we now have are a standard truck tire. The Goodyear G670's that Wayne mentions are built specifically for motor homes. I've had those, also good tires. With high mileage you may see some uneven wear but for limited use you should never notice a problem. That is basically all you need to know to select your tires. You will want the front tires balanced (for smoother ride) and aligned (for better steering). You can also have the rear tires balanced. I've done it both ways and now have the rear tires balanced. Since you are new to the coach, I would have an alignment done. Once you experience driving with a properly aligned coach, you will be in a good position to judge when the next alignment might be done. I always align new tires when I put them on just to make certain that I get the best life from the tires. Poor alignment can cause uneven tire wear and if bad enough can make the tires unserviceable in short order. You will have to request these services as an extra expense, most tire dealers will tell you that truckers don't have their tires balanced. You want your coach to ride more like a car than a truck. Weighing your coach is necessary to determine the proper inflation for your tires. Your tires will be capable of carrying a greater load than will be on the tires. Inflating them to the maximum allowed may result in a stiff ride which can be uncomfortable. You can get tire loading charts from the tire manufacturer's web site or perhaps from the dealer where you purchase your tires. Inflate your tires to support the weight you get from your weighing. Add 10% to the tire pressure again to ensure safety. Slightly over-inflated tires will be safe. Under-inflated tires will fail, sometimes catastrophically. Because these are large tires, small differences in temperature can make real differences in tire pressure so it is good practice to check the tires each time you travel in the coach. Yes, that does mean when you are in a campground for a weekend and start to leave to return home you should check the pressure of each tire to ensure it is properly inflated. Before you weigh your coach, you should load it with fuel, propane, water and all the things you plan to take with you on a trip. It is important to know what weight the loaded coach will be carrying. If the weights show considerable variation from one side of an axle to the other side, try to adjust the loading to get them closer to the same. It will not be necessary to get an exact same weight, 10% or less difference would be ideal. While we are at it, go back to the information on the wall behind the driver's seat in the coach. It lists several weights for your coach. You want the total weight for your fully loaded coach to be less than the GVWR (Gross Vehicle Weight Rating). GVWR does not include anything you are towing. That would be the GCWR (Gross Combined Weight Rating). The chart also lists limits for each axle separately so check your weigh ticket to be certain neither of your axles is carrying more than its limit. If that is the case it will be necessary to shift some of the things you are carrying or to leave more stuff at home. Then, start with the weight of each of the tire locations. We refer to that as corner weights. Because motor homes can be loaded very unevenly, you need to know what weight each front tire is carrying. The same is true for each pair of rear tires. The weight and inflation chart will show the weight dual tires carry differently but it is the weight for each tire (half the weight of that end of the axle on each tire). For each axle you will use identical tire pressure for all tires on that axle. All tires must be able to hold the weight on heaviest end of the axle they are on. If you are unable to find a location where you can get corner weights, go to the local truck stop and get axle weights, divide by 2 and add 10% to get a reasonable estimate of your required tire pressure. Welcome to motor homes. Don't let all this overwhelm you, take it one step at a time. Buy your tires, have them mounted, weigh the coach, adjust tire pressure to match the weight of the coach. Go out and have a good trip!
Campus RV in Independence, MO is where we frequently stay. It is a small park with concrete pads and full hookups at a reasonable price. Sites are all back in, no pull through sites. The obligatory railroad is not far away if you like to sleep to the sound of the occasional train! It is kept clean and the management has always been friendly. You can walk around the downtown area just as Harry S Truman did years ago! The Truman presidential library isn't far away. FMCA discount. Definitely get reservations, city parks can be busy for any number of festivals and other events, holidays, weekends, etc.