December 31, 2007 by steve.

Happy New Year to Everyone!

The CurbCrushers got in one last camping trip for the year, with a three night jaunt down US-27 to Sebring, Florida and Highlands Hammock State Park. We had a good trip even though the park was quite full on Friday and Saturday. We were between two tent sites that both had multiple families, and because of the placement of fire rings, had a large campfire that seemed to be located right under our bedroom window until about midnight on Friday. This park has a pretty good selection of things to do, there are about a half-dozen trials, a CCC museum, an eight-mile bike trail, and a ranger led tram ride. We had been to Highlands Hammock about three years ago, the first year we had the fifth-wheel.
The hiking trails are fairly short. Most of them are loops off the main loop road that runs through the park. They are advertised as 20 - 30 minute walks, but we finished the trails in about 15 minutes. The Cypress Swamp trail was sort of depressing. The water is very low and the boardwalk goes over a lot of dry land. Three years ago we walked this same trail and spent most of our time walking over water.
On our previous trip we’d taken the tram tour, and we decided to do it again. There is a price, $4.00 for adults and $2.00 for kids. The tour covers the road that you can drive on in the park, and then gets on a dirt access road and runs along the South Canal. The only real wildlife that we saw were gators and some birds.
CurbCrusher did the bike trail on Sunday Morning. It took about 50 minutes riding fairly easy. Most of trail was packed dirt road, but there was probably about a quarter mile of the trip that was very loose sand. I ended up getting off the bike and pushing until the road firmed up again. Another part of the trail is on the park roadway, so that is easy.
The drive down and back was pleasant. US-27 is under construction in Lake Wales, Florida, and that means there are a couple of miles of driving alongside the jersy barriers. Other than that, and the stop and go nature of US-27 it is not a difficult drive and only takes about 2 hours from Orlando.

In thinking about my reviewing of parks, I realized that it mostly turns into a summary of what we did. I am going to try and organize my park reviews better. I’ll still do a summary of the weekend and what we did, but I’m going to add the following section to try and be consistent when talking about parks, and assign a letter grade to each area, and an overall ranking.

Campsites - Campsites are OK at this park. They are hard to figure out though. Each site has two poles at the front, and the poles share the number with the adjacent site. This would appear to make things easy, as you just draw a line back from the pole and figure out where your site is. That would be too simple. For example we were on site 79 and the poles where probably 30 feet apart. If you drew a line perpendicular the road and went back 40 feet that would have been great. But site 80’s fire pit was about 15 feet on the 79 side of the line when you drew a line like that. So maybe the site is pie shaped. Who knows. We saw a number of people arrive and try and figure out where their site was and then have to move when someone in an adjacent site showed up. When this campground is about half-full it is a great place to be, but when it is close to capacity, it can feel crowded. The water and electric hook-ups can either be at the rear of the site on the left where you’d expect them, or on the right side at the rear, or at the front on the right…. you get the idea. Make sure you have extension cords and hoses when you show up here. Overall I’d say that the campsites are average, so it gets a C.

Stuff To Do - There is enough to keep you busy for a weekend at this park. There are a number of trails to walk /hike and a long bike trail. This park was build in the 1930’s by the CCC, so there is a museum dedicated to the CCC and the building of the park. The volunteers in the museum are very eager to talk about the park’s construction and its history. There is a tram tour ($4.00 Adults, $2.00 Kids) that you buy tickets for at the Ranger Station. If the park is crowded and you want to go on the tour, you need to get your tickets early. Finally there is a restaurant , the Hammock Inn, that is located in the park. We didn’t eat there, but the ranger swore it was good. Overall, I’d give the Stuff to Do category a solid A.

Overall - Overall this park gets a solid B. But I imagine the real review question is this: “Would the CurbCrushers go to Highlands Hammock again?” The answer to that question is yes. We’ve even got a trip scheduled for Thanksgiving 2008 when its going to be crowded, but we think we’ve done better with site selection this time. The park is attractive, we met one couple that’s been coming there for the last week of December for 16 years, then the next day met two couples that said they’ve been at Highlands Hammock for the past 27 New Years.

Pictures from the trip are here.

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December 27, 2007 by steve.

Yay!! The motorhome is back sitting in front of the house, ready for a trip. K called back about an hour after we talked this morning, and said that it might be ready by 3 or 3:30. I told him that I wanted to leave on a trip in the morning, so I’d just plan on being over there are 4:00PM to pick it up.

I rolled into Suncoast around 3:45PM. It took about 30 minutes to get the paper work printed out, and the coach brought around front. They seem to have touched up the paint that was at issue, and the other items were all fixed also. They had even gotten the cameras in and installed the new cameras.

Final result is that Suncoast did all the work that we asked of them, and did it under warranty. That is all good, and they get and A for doing the work and appearing to have done it well. There is a “but.” They did lie when discussing the paint issue with me, and they were very wrong on their estimate of the time it would take to get this done. I gave them the unit at 8:00AM on December 10th and they had indicated that we’d have it back by the 14th. Today is the 27th, so they were 2 weeks off on delivery. So they get an F in that department. That all averages out to a grade of a C for the repair session, although one could argue that an Honor Court would fail them because of the lying.

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December 27, 2007 by steve.

So the CurbCrusher warranty saga continues. In the first two chapters (1,2) of this saga, we left the Itasca at Suncoast RV and they had a list of small issues to address. The problem issue being some paint that was coming off on the cargo bay doors on the passenger side. After lying to me about contacting Winnebago, and then finally agreeing to touch up the doors, we find ourselves trying to get the RV back for out trip this Friday.

First, let us revisit the original drop off and pick-up dates that were offered on the phone. We would drop the coach off on the 10th of December, they would do the paint work and other items and we would be able to pick it up on the 14th. Well on December 19th, K agreed to touch up the paint, and I told him I would either pick it up on the 21st, or the 26th. K had no problem with that. So the morning of the 26th I called over and asked when would be a good time for me to pick the coach up. K hesitated and said “I don’t think J’s done the paint yet.” So I told him I wanted to rig for a trip I was planning on leaving on Friday morning. K promised to call be at 8AM on Thursday and let me know when I could pick the coach up.

So, it’s 8:30 and I just called K since I hadn’t heard from him. Seems he still needs to talk to J to find out when the paint will be done. He has promised to call be back and let me know what time I can come over and pick up the coach. We’ll see.

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December 24, 2007 by steve.

Merry Christmas to all from the CurbCrushers. Not sure how many people read this as I haven’t played with the web statistics stuff that came with the account, but I know some family, and three people that have made comments read the blog at least once.

One or two things that I’ve added. When camping and talking to neighbors, everyone always ask me what kind of gas mileage I get. So I’ve put together a mileage summary page that shows the mileage I got for each tank of gas, and the overall mileage to date that I’ve gotten with the Itasca. I may link this permanently from the pane on the left.

I’ve also started posting campground maps. I probably will not put up every campground map, but will try and post those where we go, or where we’ve been that are not available at the web page for the campground.

Merry Christmas to all!!!

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December 21, 2007 by steve.

Well, K never did call me back. So around 3PM I called him. They had finally emailed the pictures to Winnebago. J at Winnebago told them to put the slide out that goes over the doors and send some more pictures and they were in the middle of trying to do that. K said he’d call back later that day.

Around 4:45PM K called back and said that Winnebago would not approve re-painting the doors. However, Suncoast was willing to do a “very good” touch up job on the doors. I accepted that as a compromise. So we’ll see what it looks like when we pick it up after Christmas.

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December 18, 2007 by steve.

Back in February, a JohnW commented on the fact that one my chief considerations of choosing a dealer should be based on them doing warranty work, and not price. I responded in the next post with a fairly cynical remark that said that I wasn’t going to believe anything anyone said about their warranty service.

Alas, the current status of our warranty issues has not led me to change my mind. After I got off the phone yesterday with the dealer, I went down the hall and asked my colleagues if the number one commandment for RV dealer customers services was “Lie to the customer at least once a week.” But, I’m getting ahead of myself here, lets start at the beginning.

We’ve had the Itasca for almost nine months now. There have been a few minor things come up, but nothing major. Definitely nothing like the 5th wheel which seemed to go back to the dealer for warranty work every other trip we took. So we had a list of a few things that needed looking at:
1) The electric outlet in the bathroom quit working.
2) The main slide seems to extend and retract sort of roughly with the back leading the way, then the front trying to catch up.
3) The paint at the top of the last two cargo doors on the right side is chipping off.
4) The side view camera on the driver’s side is streaked and blurry.

So Lady CurbCrusher called over to the Suncoast RV location in Cocoa where we purchased the coach from and made a service appointment for Monday, December 10 at 8AM. When making the appointment they indicated that they would deal with the paint first, and then the other issues and have it ready to be picked up the next Saturday. CurbCrusher drove the motorhome over there and dropped it off, and we presumed they started work on it.

Come Friday (the 14th of December) we had not heard from Suncoast about the progress of the repairs and so late that afternoon Lady CurbCrusher calls over to find out what is going on, and if we can go over the next day to pick up the motorhome. After a bit on hold, she talks to C in the body shop who says they are not going to fix the paint. C tells here that he sent pictures of the paint damage to Winnegago, and they said that the customer removed the safety straps on the cargo doors and caused the paint damage. In addition, we can’t pick it up on Saturday as the service department is not open.

We’ve never messed with any straps (they are actually cables) that keep the door from going to far. As a matter of fact we don’t even know how to disengage them, as it is not something that has crossed our minds. So Monday (the 17th) CurbCrusher calls over and talks to K about this issue. K describes how the ONLY way the damage could come is from disengaging the straps, and that their (Suncoast’s) hands are tied because Winnebago is rejecting this claim. So I ask K if it would help if I called Winnebago. He says it would help tremendously as sometimes Winnebago is more responsive to owners rather than dealers.

So, I call the Winnebago 1-800 number and talk to J. I tell J the story about the paint, and he ask me who they sent the pictures to. I don’t know this information, and J says, “Find out and get back to me and I’ll see what I can do to help.” So back to Suncoast, where I ask K who they sent the pictures to. K says that C is the one that sent the pictures and he’ll have to get back to me after he talks to C. It’s about 10AM at this point.

Well, 3:30PM rolls around and K hasn’t called back. So, time to call Suncoast again. K comes on the phone and tells me that his digital camera is broken, it feels damp and he suspects that someone dropped it. I sympathize with him, but ask how this affects the pictures that were sent last week. He explains that the broken camera is keeping him from taking pictures. We seem to be talking past each other here, so finally I ask “Did you send any pictures last week?” This is pretty much a yes or no questions, and K doesn’t let me down, he answers by saying that he thought they’d sent the pictures last week, but apparently they still need to take the pictures.

So basically, it would appear that Suncoast made a local decision and was trying to foist it onto Winnebago. My final request was for K to give me a call today and let me know the status of the pictures and Winnebago’s response. We’ll see if they follow through on that, or if I’m the one making a call this afternoon.

To be continued……..

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December 13, 2007 by steve.

Well, time for the annual Christmas Campout with the Florida Pop-Up Campers (FPUC), so we headed off to the west coast of Florida south of Sarasota last weekend to Oscar Scherer State Park. The park is located off of US 41 just outside of the town of Osprey.
We arrived on Friday afternoon around 3. The park has over a hundred sites, and most of them are tight. We were able to get parked with out too much trouble, even though the site was very narrow. After putting out the slides, I could not get into the storage compartments on the driver’s side as it was hard up against all the palmetto bushes. If we’d showed up here in the fifth-wheel, I think I would have just turned around and driven home. There are some pull through sites (about five or six), but even some of these are very tight. We walked around and there are a number of wider sites in the campground, if we go back there are about 15 - 20 of the sites that we think would be better.
We took advantage of the nice weather (highs in the mid 80’s) and took a canoe trip on South Creek. The creek runs through the park, and is very slow moving. Canoes can be rented from the ranger station for a little over five bucks an hour. You are allowed to go down the creek to the US 41 bridge, and up the creek to a damn location right near the nature center. We were able to do the whole trip in right at an hour. The creek is tidal, and we were canoing at low tide, so there were some low spots on the down creek trip. The creek was fairly active with canoers and kayakers.
Saturday night was filled with the FPUC pot luck dinner, a rig decorating contest and the annual FPUC auction. That always makes for a good time. The CurbCrushers won 3rd place in the decorating contest, the only one to place that didn’t have one of those inflatable lawn decorations. Maybe next year.
We were up early Sunday morning for the trip home. Little CurbCrusher had a number of Christmas performance obligations at church. So we meandered through the park to the dump station. From our site location, we pretty much had to do three-quarters of the campground loop to get to the dump station. There are lots of low hanging limbs in this park. None that will do real damage, but they make a heck of a racket as you drive through the park, and it really got the ol’ adrenaline flowing driving through the campground at five miles an hour and listening to the screeching on the roof.

Pictures of our trip are here.

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