We made our annual RV trip to Seattle, leaving Phoenix on August 10th and returning on August 25th, 2019. This time, it was in our new 2019 Winnebago 24D motorhome.

• Day 1: Drove the 275 miles to the Lake Powell Wahweap RV Park from our home near Phoenix. We had a beautiful space overlooking the lake.
• Day 2: Drove 350 miles to a nice little RV park next to Utah Lake in Provo, Utah: Lakeside RV Campground. On the way, we took a beautiful side-trip through Bryce Canyon National Park.
• Day 3: It was a 330 mile drive through Utah and Idaho to the Ketchum, Idaho, where we spent the night at the Meadows RV Park, which was a small RV park just south of Sun Valley, Idaho.
• Day 4: Drove about 200 miles from Sun Valley, Idaho up through the mountainous Sawtooth Wilderness. We thoroughly enjoyed brunch at the quaint Redfish Lodge on Redfish Lake (Paul had a wonderful combination of fresh trout, eggs, potatoes and homemade sausage). Redfish Lake Lodge sits at an elevation of 6,550 feet above sea level. The water is crystal clear with a beautiful sandy beach. We continued on the Sawtooth Scenic Byway which hugged the Salmon and Payette Rivers for about 100 miles, ending up in Caldwell, Idaho, staying at one of our favorite overnight stops, The Ambassador RV Park.
• Day 5: We had planned on driving the 350 miles to the Trailer Inns RV Park in Yakima, Washington, but, after driving past the park, we decided that the numerous homeless people and warehouse district setting wasn't for us, so we drove the entire 500 miles toward Seattle, where my brother let us park the RV in his driveway in Issaquah until we could check into one of our favorite RV parks, The Lake Pleasant RV Park, in Bothell, WA.
• Days 6-10: Using The Lake Pleasant RV Park as our home-base, we rented a car to drive around Seattle in and spent most of our time visiting with relatives and friends.
• Day 11: We had nice weather for the 310 mile drive from Bothell, WA to Newport, OR, where we had reserved two nights at our absolute favorite RV park, the Pacific Shores Motorcoach RV Park. We love this park because it sits high above the Pacific Ocean and it's very well kept with beautiful manicured spaces and grounds. We had a premium space #189, which was one row back from the bluff, allowing us to see the ocean and the beautiful sunsets each night. Unfortunately, a Pacific storm blew through and it rained all day long on our one day we had planned on doing nothing but enjoying the view.
• Day 12: The weather cleared up for our leisurely 300 mile drive down Highway 101 through southern Oregon and northern California to the conveniently located Mad River Rapids RV Park. The best thing about going south on Highway 101 vs going north is that you're on the ocean-side of the highway, making it easier to pull into the many viewpoints. Of course, we had to stop and get some homemade fudge at the Fudge Factory in Banning, Oregon!
• Day 13: After almost two weeks on the road, we were itching to get back home, so we took a short side-trip through the scenic Redwoods Avenue of the Giants, then hightailed it over to I-5's Flag City RV Resort in Lodi, California. Traffic was absolutely terrible around the Bay Area on a Friday afternoon. I swear I will never drive around there again!
• Day 14: Drove one of my least-favorite drives; 375 miles down I-5 from Lodi to Los Angeles, then east on I-210 to one of our favorite RV parks; the Bonelli Bluffs RV Resort (formerly East Shore RV Park). This park sits high above the Puddingstone Reservoir with nice, wide campsites and beautiful views over the lake.
• Day 15: The final 350 miles were from the Bonelli Bluffs RV Resort to our home near Phoenix, Arizona. This is a drive we've done dozens of times over our 30+ years of living in Arizona, so we know it very well. Yes, it's a boring drive through the desert, but it's an easy drive of mostly 70 mph with the cruise control on for most of the 5-1/2 hour drive.

We're already planning our next outing. Possibly New Mexico to see the fall leaves turn.

After searching for the right message to put on our RV's license plate for months, I finally settled on this. It was very hard to come up with something that wasn't already taken!

While camping last weekend, our granddaughter, Kierstyn, came up with this beautiful new design for our website. Future graphic artist in the making :)

It's summertime in Arizona! Perfect time to take a camping trip to one of our favorite desert escapes near Williams, Arizona. High temperature here at this 7,000 foot altitude was 78° compared to 105° down in Phoenix! 

Exact location: 35°09'31.4"N 112°10'15.8"W

We were lucky enough to get a last-minute spot at Fool Hollow Lake campground in Show Low, Arizona last weekend. We had a beautiful space right next to the lake (Cinnamon Teal Loop, space #22). This is one of our favorite camping areas because it has paved roads and spaces, 30 amp electric and water (no sewer). My Verizon phone worked well there as a hot-spot so if we wanted to go back again and stay longer, I could get some work done.

We also drove past the townhome we owned for 3+ years on White Mountain Lake. It was fun to see it again, although the lake looked real muddy from all the rains in the Spring.

I decided to get a handful of items fixed on the RV before our upcoming summer trips. We're thoroughly pleased with this very short list, compared to our past Tiffin Class A motorhomes lengthy lists of issues, and most of them major issues compared to these relatively minor items.

We had a great weekend camping at the Pleasant Harbor RV Resort this weekend. This park is so convenient since it's only 14 miles from our home here in Arizona. Our son-in-law, Dave, took part in the very popular bass fishing tournament, which he has done several times before. The rest of us enjoyed the scenery, kayaking and a good BBQ dinner at Dillons on the dock Friday night. Our whole family celebrated Pam's birthday on Saturday with our own BBQ and cake. The grandkids kept themselves entertained catching bugs, fishing and playing catch.

Driving through Newport Dunes RV Resort to our space #1119.

Beautiful view from our space #1119.

Wildflowers in full bloom along the freeways of S. Cal.

March 16-23, 2019.

We had a wonderful 8 days in our spot #1119 at the Newport Dunes Resort over our granddaughter's Spring Break. While the resort is beautiful, it's a long way from Phoenix (375 miles) and the L.A. traffic made it seem like twice that far (stop-and-go traffic in an RV is no fun!). For a different point of view coming home, we drove down Highway 1 from Newport Beach to San Clemente, then took I-5 to I-8 back to Phoenix, thinking that it would have lighter traffic. Big mistake! Stop-and go-traffic on I-5 from San Clemente to San Diego was terrible. It took 10 hours to drive the 435 miles home this way! Because of traffic, we probably won't go back to Newport Dunes again. However, I-8 is way better than I-10 because of its lighter traffic and lack of semi trucks. The wildflowers were in full bloom in Southern California making for a beautiful drive.

Our new 2019 Winnebago Navion 24D handled perfectly over the 800 mile trip. Unlike our past Tiffin motorhomes, this RV still has nothing seriously wrong within the first 6 months of owning it. The only issue we had with this trip was the Sirius satellite radio cut out after driving over a very bumpy section of I-5. Something must have come unplugged behind the dash. If that's the only thing to go wrong with this rig, I'll be very happy!

Click above to play video.

We made our first "big" trip in our new Winnebago Navion over Presidents Day weekend, Feb. 16-18, 2019. This was a good test of the RV, as it was 377 miles from Phoenix to Lake Havasu and back over a variety of roads. On the way there, we went out via Highway  60 through Wickenburg, then through Parker to Lake Havasu. On the way back home, we took Highway 95 south to Quartzsite, then east on I-10 to test how it handled on the freeway. I was very pleased with the handling on the entire trip.

We stayed at the Islander RV Resort on Lake Havasu for the third time in several years. We had a great spot (#467) right on the lake next to the boat launching ramp which made for some fun boat-watching. Weather was cool, but mostly sunny the entire weekend. I'm getting disappointed in the Islander Resort because they're converting a lot of the RV sites into permanent vacation rental homes. I think I'll look into different locations next time we want to go to Lake Havasu. 

We sold our big Class-A motorhome that I bought this bike for, so now I don't need a folding bike for our smaller Winnebago. If you'd like to have an electric bike for your RV, this is perfect for it!

• Folding Frame Design
• 750W Bafang Geared Hub Motor
• 4" Fat Kenda Tires
• Lithium-Ion Battery
• Front Suspension Fork
• Twist Grip Throttle
• Recommended Rider Heights: 5'2" - 6'2"
• 275 lb. rider capacity
• Paid $1,499 new last year.
• Asking $899.

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Located in the Phoenix, Arizona area.

This is one of the reasons we downsized from our past class-A sized motorhomes. I wouldn't have been comfortable taking our 41' diesel pusher down to the lakeshore of Lake Pleasant for a quick couple of nights like we did this past weekend. We found this size RV fits our desire to pack up and head out with little planning or preparation. We dry-camped for two nights and had absolutely no problems with the new RV. The solar panels powered us during the day and we ran the generator for two hours in the morning and again in the evening. I was a little disappointed that the the batteries were down to 11.5 amps by morning. I expected them to hold a charge better overnight but we really liked staying in this new Winnebago Navion 24D. It seems a lot bigger than 25' because of the well thought out floor plan and murphy bed. I think we're going to have a lot of fun with this RV!

After downsizing our class A Tiffin motorhome to a Class C Winnebago, we are no longer in need of our 2015 Jeep Cherokee Trailhawk 4x4 tow-car and am offering it for sale. It has been an awesome vehicle, not only as a tow-car (toad), but as an everyday driving car. There are only 38,854 miles on this metallic-black beauty. It has always been kept in our enclosed garage. This is a rare, fully-equipped model with absolutely every single option on it, including:

• Collision-Mitigation Feature
• Self-Parking Feature
• Adaptive Cruise Control
• Panoramic Moonroof
• 8.5" Uconnect Touch-Screen Infotainment System
• Leather Interior
• 271-hp, 3.2-Liter V-6 Engine
• 9-Speed Automatic Transmission
• Advanced All-Wheel-Drive System
• 17" Black Alloy Wheels
• New All-Terrain Tires
• Heated and Ventilated Front Seats
• Heated Steering Wheel
• All-Weather Floor Mats
• Electronic Stability System
• Front and Rear Parking Sensors
• Backup Camera
• Lane Departure Warning System
• Forward Collision Warning with Autonomous Braking
• Trailer Tow Package
• Cold Weather Package

Completely set up for flat-towing behind motorhome including:

• Demco Tow-Bar and base kit
• Invisibrake Permanent Braking System
• Automatic transmission with power transfer unit easily switches to neutral for flat-towing

This Cherokee is located in the Phoenix, Arizona area.
Asking price is $25,500, which includes all the towing equipment.

You won't find another Cherokee with every single option from the factory like this one has. Plus, it's in perfect condition. Please contact me (Paul) via the contact us form, or by commenting here in this post. Leave me your contact information and I will get right back to you.

Thank you for your interest.

I made this 30-minute video of LaMesa's Johnny showing us how to work everything in our new 2019 Winnebago Navion 24D so I could refer to it later if I forgot anything.

When buying a motorhome, would-be RV'r's often become distracted by size and think that bigger is better.

We have learned by experience that bigger is NOT better, at least for us. 

After purchasing a new 41', 4" long 2018 Tiffin Phaeton 40IH last summer, and driving it about 7,000 miles to Seattle and back, twice, we have decided to go smaller. While that RV was absolutely beautiful, we found it to be too large for what we wanted to do. We like the "camping" feel when we go places. At 41 feet, we were very limited to the places we could go and stay. We could only stay in expensive, large, pull-through RV parks. We couldn't stay in most national or state parks because they limit your length to about 35'. We had to fill the 100-gallon fuel tank at big, inconvenient truck stops. We couldn't stop anywhere without first looking to see if there was a way out without backing up (you can't back up an RV towing a car).

With RVs, there are a lot of things that can go wrong, but at 41 feet, there are even more things to go wrong. We had this RV for five months. The last two months it has been sitting at LaMesa RV's service center, waiting to get 30 items fixed. Most of the 30 items were problems that came that way from the factory. This is our third Tiffin, and we've had similar poor quality experiences with the previous two. After 7 years of owning Tiffins, we're done.

It's time to simplify!

Last weekend, we traded the Tiffin Phaeton in for a 25', 8" long 2019 Winnebago Navion 24D. The Winnebago will allow us to go just about anywhere, as it's not much bigger than a large SUV. With the Winnebago Navion, the entire chassis is made by Mercedes-Benz. With Tiffin, the engine was made by Cummings, the transmission by Allison, the chassis by Tiffin, the dash by several different manufacturers. No wonder there were so many things wrong all the time! With the new Winnebago, the entire chassis, engine, transmission and cab are all made and serviced by Mercedes-Benz. With the Winnebago, we're simplifying from three roof air conditioner units to one, four slide-outs to one, four TVs to one, two bathrooms to one (see the trend here?). I still expect things to go wrong, but there are fewer things to go wrong in this smaller motorhome.

We're looking forward to being more nimble. The Winnebago drives like a SUV, not a semi-truck. It gets 15+ MPG instead of 8. It can sleep 5-6 adults and/or children with its ingenious queen-size Murphy bed that turns into a couch when not in use, 4-person dinette and above-cab bunk. It still has all the comforts of a larger RV; shower, toilet, bathroom sink, kitchen sink, stove, microwave and 30" television with DVD player, but in a smaller footprint. Plus, we think that it will be less of a burden packing up for short trips rather than always feeling like we had to go on long, major trips. 

We are going to sell our Jeep tow-car, as I hated always having to hook it up, tow it, and being limited to where we could go because you can't back up an RV towing a car.

I wish everyone the opportunity to own an RV. We've had a lot of great memories in our 7 years of owning RVs. Certainly, the big, 40 foot plus size RVs are perfect for many people. If you like driving a long distance to stay in one place as a home base for a month or more, then the bigger-is-better theory can work for you. But, we've found that bigger is not always better.

We drove the RV and towed the Jeep from Phoenix back to Seattle and stayed there for two weeks to attend the "Celebration of Life" get-together with family and friends of my mom who passed away the previous month at the age of 95. It was great seeing everybody and hearing their stories of how much they loved my mom. We miss you, mom.

Forest fire smoke was thick all the way from southern Utah to Seattle, and during the first week in Seattle, but it cleared up for the trip back to Phoenix.

We stayed at the Lake Pleasant RV Park the first week. We love this park but it's very popular and difficult to get reservations at the last minute. We stayed at the Trailer Inns of Bellevue RV Park the second week. This park is basically a parking lot, but the location is great for us because it's closer to family in Issaquah.

We stayed for two nights in Salt Lake City at the Pony Express RV Resort so we could attend our grandson's first birthday party. It was held in a city park with lots of relatives from Crystal's side of the family who live near Salt Lake City. We're so glad we were able to move our reservations around to be there. He's growing up so fast! We'd like to go back and spend some more time at Park City after we took a day-trip there exploring the beautiful area.

On the way up and back, we stayed at the Ambassador RV Resort, in Caldwell, ID. This is our go-to park for traveling between Salt Lake City and Seattle, as it has very nice, wide, pull-through, paved spaces with easy access from I-84 (and a convenient Flying J truck stop nearby for fueling up).

One park we won't be staying at again is the Solstice Motorcoach Resort in Mesquite, NV. This place is billed as one of the nicest RV parks in the country, but it's terribly run down now. The original developer went bankrupt and it was bought by someone else in 2015 who hasn't put a dime back into the property. Weeds everywhere, dead grass, empty fountains and ponds, etc. It looks nothing like the photos on their website! The only good thing about this place is the nice territorial view over the valley below.

Our new 2018 Tiffin Phaeton 40IH motorhome performed great over the 3,000 mile trip. I'm constantly amazed at how well this RV drives compared to our previous ones. I can drive 650 miles in a day if I need to without getting worn out. Love it!

When you start considering a RV to buy, all the "experts" say you should buy your third RV first. After almost 6 years of RVing, I now know why they say that. Until you own one and drive one, you just can't anticipate what your needs will be. With that said, we traded in our 2016 Tiffin 33AA RED for a new 2018 Tiffin Phaeton 40 IH last weekend.

As I'm sure every RV owner does, I've been dreaming upgrading our motorhome for the past several months. I started a list of all the things that would make up my dream RV, and the Phaeton 40 IH ticked off all the boxes. Such as:

• More horsepower and torque
• Better handling
• Steering wheel controls
• More driver's side legroom
• Table and chairs instead of a booth
• Computer workstation
• Better insulation
• Bath and a half
• Theater seating
• Washer and dryer
• More basement storage and slide-out trays

This will be our third motorhome, and Pam and I believe we'll be very satisfied with it for years to come. We're looking forward to our next adventure!

We had a nice 3 days/2 nights camping at Arizona's Dead Horse Ranch State Park over Mother's Day weekend.  We were planning on going to dinner Friday night at Pizza Bocce, a very well-known restaurant here in Cottonwood, but the wait was over an hour and a half, so we got some good BBQ ribs at another place. Several family members met us at the lake on Mother's Day for a nice picnic, kayaking and fishing. Weather was perfect with highs around 75 and lows in the 50s and not a cloud in sight. We camped in space #104, which was high up on a hill with a great view overlooking Cottonwood, Jerome and the surrounding mountains. Price was only $30/night. The site had a nice paved drive with a fire pit, picnic table, water and 50 amp electric, but no sewer hookup (they do have a dump site near the entrance). No wi-fi, but my Verizon phone worked well as a hot-spot so I was able to get some work done. I'm sure we'll be back here again!

This is a video that I created of footage from our new Garmin Dash Cam 55. This little camera is awesome. It records in 1440P resolution (this file is only 720P to put on the blog) and has voice control! While you're driving, you just speak commands to make it save video, take a still photo or record in time-lapse mode (Garmin calls it "Travelapse"). I added a 64 GB microSD card so it will record about a days worth of driving at a time before it starts recording over yesterday's footage. You can always tell it to "Save Video" if there's something you want to save for later. I love it!

We attended our first Tiffin Allegro Club Rally this week. 315 Tiffin RVs and over 700 owners and spouses converged on the Pima County Fairgrounds in Tucson, Arizona for 5 days/4 nights of fun-filled Tiffin-related activities including vendor seminars and displays several meals, concerts, ice cream socials, hobby & craft displays, swap meet and much more! I enjoyed the Freightliner seminar the most because I learned a lot about our Freightliner chassis that I didn't know. There were large vendor displays and a Tiffin accessories store where you could purchase Tiffin clothing and assorted parts. One of the best features of the rally was the Tiffin factory technicians performing up to three minor repairs on everybody's coaches. The nightly entertainment was a lot of fun with "The Piano Man", a tribute band to Billy Joel and Elton John on Tuesday night, Sarah Getto on Wednesday night and "December ’63", Frankie Valli tribute band after Thursday's farewell dinner. It was really fun getting to meet so many other RV enthusiasts and swap travel stories!

​We had one issue occur on the trip, which I cannot fully explain. Our key fob to the RV wasn't working when we got there, which I attributed to just needing a new battery. Then, neither Pam or my key fob to the Jeep would work either. I thought it was just a big coincidence that all 3 key fobs didn't work, but I did tell Pam that I had a feeling that we were in some kind of key fob dead-zone. I pulled the key out of the fob and manually opened the driver's door to the Jeep, which set off the alarm for what seemed like an eternity! It finally shut itself off, but I couldn't start the Jeep or do anything. I suspected the Jeep's battery was going bad, so another Tiffin owner volunteered to bring over his portable jump-starter. After another 10 minutes of the alarm going off, we tried to jump start it, but it would not start. I ended up calling Jeep and having a tow truck haul it 15 miles to the nearest Jeep dealership. Of course, the key fob worked for them there at the dealership. They tested the battery and it tested OK so they took the Jeep out for a test-drive to make sure everything was working, and the battery failed on them during the drive, so they got it back to the dealership and installed a brand-new battery. After getting a ride from their shuttle back to the dealership, I got back to the rally just in time for the farewell dinner. Went out the next morning to load the Jeep up to leave, and the key fob didn't work again! Remember, all this time, the RV key fob didn't work either! I managed to get inside the Jeep and hooked it up to tow home behind the RV. Once we returned home, both Pams' and my Jeep key fobs and the RV key fob all worked perfectly! WTF?