Warranty Work & Time w/Friends

Last weekend we spent some time cleaning and rearranging “things” in both the cargo trailer, aka “The Prince”(that we use for storage) and in the 5er as we got ready to take the “Castle” to Suncoast RV in Ocala to handle some warranty issues and a few add ons we wanted. Somewhere around midday on Sunday, our blogger buddy, Carolyn, rolled in and parked in the site next to us. She had left her winter base at Citrus Ridge in Davenport a few days earlier and had spent a couple of free nights at Chassa Oaks, a few miles south of Homosassa, before arriving here at Rock Crusher Canyon.

Chassa Oaks RV Resort Clubhouse

Chassa Oaks is one of the newer ownership parks in Florida. Carolyn had been inquiring about their sales prices etc as she enjoys this area of the state. After RCC, her plan was to leave RCC Thursday and move on to visit her son as she works her way back to Tennessee where she’ll workcamp some during the summer. After she got settled in she suggested we go to “The Freezer” for some steamed shrimp and cold beer. The Freezer is one of the locals favorite haunts in this area for sure. There is an indoor area that is truly the inside of a huge old freezer unit and there is an attached outdoor tiki hut area.

The back Tiki porch of “The Freezer”

The steamed shrimp there is awesome and the beer is always cold. People watching is also fun there. You see all kinds of folks there for sure. Check out their website to see all they have to offer.

Monday morning we hitched up the 5er to our Dodge 3500 pick-up (for the first time) and made the hour drive over to Ocala to Suncoast RV. We started getting ready to leave at 7:30am and after unhooking utilities, closing slideouts, hitching up and all else it takes to prepare to leave, we finally pulled out at 9:00am. Remember, we had Suncoast deliver the Alpine to our site at RCC initially so that was our FIRST time preparing to leave, hitching up etc. Whew, what an ordeal! Anyway, we had a couple of warranty issues we wanted Suncoast to take care of that developed or we discovered during the 10 weeks we’ve had it. These issues included: replacing an ill-fitting basement utility door, a back rinse fill connection leak under the rig, a leaky valve behind the toilet, a squeaky floor under the bathroom and they replaced some grommets under the stove grates. The new add-ons they took care of were: adding slideout awnings over all four slideouts, putting two maxxair vent covers on the roof over the fans in the bathroom and kitchen,  installing a ladder mount for our Winegard Carryout antenna and wired it directly into the 5er. We can leave it there on the ladder hopefully 95% of the time but it still can be disconnected easily when we are parked under trees and we can locate it to a clear view of the southern sky to get the signal. It’s the best of situations. They kept the “Castle” overnight Monday and Tuesday, so we picked it up Wednesday after our two night stay in Valrico. They did a great job and we’re pleased with what was done. As we were hitching up to leave we told them about the difficulty we had hitching up Monday so Chris, the service manager, watched and after having difficulties again, he took the “head” off of the PullRite hitch and noticed some metal shavings and worn metal. He said the head must not have been correct so he put a new head on it – no charge-and it works perfectly. They had put the hitch on originally about a month ago for us. When we got back to our site at Rock Crusher the fun began. Of course I was driving but after trying 30 minutes myself with Barbie directing, we switched roles and I guided her in as she was behind the wheel. It was a bit frustrating as our paved driveway is only about 12 feet wide coming off the road, so turning the 39ft Castle with the big Dodge into the driveway while dodging the recently trimmed tree limbs laying on the edge of the road where we needed to turn made things difficult. But, once we got backed in on the site, we leveled and hooked up in a relatively short time.

While in Valrico, we took a drive to Lakeland to visit  Quadra Manufacturing, who manufacture the “Bigfoot” Leveling Systems. There are two locations, the home location in White Pigeon, Michigan and Lakeland, Florida. I had been researching leveling systems for 5ers. I don’t like having to use wood to level side-to-side. The  manager was awesome. He gave us a tour of their facility and wouldn’t you know it, they had just finished putting the automatic system on a new Montana, so he demonstrated it for us on the spot. Bottomline, on May 5 & 6 we’ll have the Quad Fully Automatic System put on the Castle. It will make leveling a breeze AND no wood! So our departure date for heading north will be delayed a week but well worth it!

Finally, late yesterday afternoon old friends, Bob and Betsy Lindsay, pulled in across the street from us to spend a week at RCC. We met Bob and Betsy probably ten years ago when we were both members of the Roamin’ Rigs, an FMCA Tampa Bay, FL area chapter. They headed west somewhere around 2004 and we hadn’t seen them since. Our only contact was through rv forums or Facebook. It was great to see them and we look forward to spending more time with them this coming week.

Before I forget, everyone have a Happy Easter!

‘Til next time….