Greetings!  We are trying to get going with full time living in our newly purchased 03 Rexhall Rexair 35' Class A Motor Home.  We made a trial run with our old Class A, it was a Holiday Rambler Endeavor LE, nice old rig but it was a bit small for full time living. We spent 2 weeks in it, and while I was pretty comfortable, my good wife of 46 years felt a bit cooped up, even though we spent a lot of time in my sisters pickup truck touring Yellowstone and the Custer Battlefield.  Our old rig was feeling it's age, the front brakes went out in Yellowstone Park, and I had to drive nearly 100 miles to find a place that could work on it.  That on a weekend, so price of labor doubled due to weekend rates. Then on the way home the inside duel on the passenger side rear blew out, taking with it, the tandem tire and both exhaust pipes, another 500 dollar bill, that added to the 1900 bucks for the brakes and it was becoming an expensive trip. Now don't get me wrong we had a wonderful time, and if I had it to do over again, I wouldn't change a thing. Now my sister and her hubby also had some trouble with their big diesel rig, first their awning came down at 70MPH, what is left still hangs, where a nice passerby climbed atop their rig and tied it up.  Then at Bakers Hole Campground, my brother in law was going to take on some water from the artisan well, he ran into a tree branch which penetrated his rig just below the passenger window.  A couple of paper plates, some duct tape, and shelf liner sort of patched that up.  Well we decided then to cut the trip short, and didn't do the Grand Tetons part of the trip we had planned, and headed home a week early.  About half way home, my brother-in-law called me on the CB (I was leading the way) and said they were loosing  power while going up the mountain. So I pulled over and waited, at long last he passed me, and I followed him down the Interstate at 20MPH all he could get out of his big diesel rig.  After 15 miles of this, his rig died.  Then when at last he got it restarted, it came back to full life, and we drove into Miles City for a nights stay that turned into 3 nights while we looked for repair locations for my exhaust pipes, and my brother-in-law looked for a diesel mechanic.  I found a place and got my exhaust replaced, my sister and her hubby decided that since their engine was running good, and their grandson at home in ND is a diesel mechanic, they would drive her home the way she was.  They took off for Lemmon, then on another 300 miles to their home in ND, while I found the fellow who fixed my exhaust.  Then it was onward and homeward.  When we got to Lemmon, we found that my sister's rig made it to just outside town where it gave up again. This time it didn't find it's way back to full power, and still sits behind my mothers home here in Lemmon.  That was the end of July, and they have yet to make it down. I hope that there was enough chlorine in their fresh tank to keep the smell down, and I know they didn't get a chance to dump.  We don't have keys or I would take care of it some but I guess we wait to see how they find it when, at last their grandson finds time to come down and fix the injector pump for them so they can get going once again.  Oh did I say, this was their first trip with their NEW (to them) motor home?

Well after all that I just had to go make the trade and find a newer model.  At least this unit was eligable for warantee, and we purchased 2 years worth. Who knows what could be wrong with the new rig until we put some miles under the tires to find out, but man is it nice compared to our old '96 Holiday Rambler.  Wish us luck on our trip to the Black HIlls.  It's only 175 miles to Sturgis which is really the gatway to the Black Hills.  We have vacationed there before, our first trip as a married couple was on our Honeymoon back in August of 1969, while all the other kids our age were at the music festival at Woodstock, we were touring the Black Hills in our 1959 Mercury Monterey Convertible, candy apple red with a white rag-top.

All that said, we want to go full time. At the very least head south before the snow flies, I am so damn tired of SNOW!