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Old 07-23-2018, 12:05 PM   #701
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We did go to Pueblo to see Barb's parents and since they are in their early 90's, decline is obvious. Hard to deal with, but we do.

We spent a week in Buena Vista about a month ago. This was a recovery trip for relaxing and mild exploration. The Valley RV Park CG was ok and had seemed from reviews the best in town, but was a disappointment. It was once a trailer park and still had some park models, but was turned into an RV CG. The owners seem to have trouble maintaining it and the decline is obvious. Tree branches are a real hazard and backing into the site (most if not all sites are back ins) was difficult because of barriers making it difficult to avoid trees. The old guy directing me told me not to worry about branches and we did not get along well. Most of the short term (and that means less than a month I think) sites are close to noisy US highway 24. This CG was not somewhere we would go back to, but we have little likelihood of going back to BV very soon anyway. We hadn't been there for at least a dozen years and maybe a lot more, so we just wanted somewhere close to home for an easy trip.

The town has worked to extend downtown to the Arkansas R. Like many towns, they had treated the river badly with garbage and an old smelter. But now they have created parks, walking trails and some very urbane development with a fancy hotel, old style housing and a few restaurants. This is a couple blocks from the original downtown which has been also fixed up for tourists. We ate at several restaurants and were not impressed. The Casa del Sol, a fixture for 43 years, closed last winter and we tried a not so good newer Mexican place. I first went to the Casa del Sol in 1976 and have visited it many times over the years, but it seems the son of the original owners took it over at some point and the restaurant went downhill after that. The best food we had was in Leadville. We went to a place called something like Mountain Pizza and it was better than any pizza we can get in the Grand Junction area. It has few tables inside and a few more outside and can get extremely busy, seating is limited, there are no amenities, but the pizza is fairly good.

The kitchen remodel is going very slowly. I had made a number of "slab" cabinet doors. Once the swamp cooler went on, humidity in the house increased a bit and the doors started warping. This proves that as a woodworker, I have a lot to learn. Looking on the internet, I am not alone though. I am pressing them as flat as I can get them after cutting grooves in the back to help in the process. I fill the gloves with glue to strength the flattening and then brace the back. It works fairly well (I hope) and will have to repaint them soon.

Planning on a trip to Pueblo and N. Mexico in late Sept., then one to back to Bluff, Utah, and Bear's Ears in later October. The slide on the Nash has a problem with wires on the bottom rubbing against things when it is extended. I have no idea why they installed these wires as they did, but they have to be moved and protected better and we found this just before the warranty was up. A modest traveling year, but next year we are thinking if spending a lot more time on Vancouver Is. We are invited to spend time on a boat with our Canadian friends and that is an option. Our last trip was truncated because I got sick for five days. We also went to Oregon last year, but had to come back early because of in-law's health issues. We'll see how next year goes next year as I am also older and slowing down. Those long, long trips we used to take are getting hard to do.
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Old 07-29-2018, 01:30 PM   #702
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Gene,

Keep writing, keep traveling and keep planning new adventures. Vancouver Island sounds fantastic - something to look forward to.

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Old 08-02-2018, 03:04 PM   #703
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Thanks Don. I don't think we'll ever get back to Newfoundland, but I sure wish we could. The years catch up.

For the last few days the smoke has been very bad. I'd like to blame California (just because when Coloradans aren't blaming Texas, we like to blame Cal.), but it seems the smoke is coming from north and west of us in Colorado. Usually we can see the Bookcliffs, maybe 30 miles away across the Grand Valley. The Bookcliffs (a/k/a Book Cliffs in Utah) are an escarpment that runs east-west in western Colorado and then starts to turn northwest in Utah. I think it is about 200 miles long and close to our altitude of 6,900'. Grand Jct. is 4,593'. So the Valley is bracketed by two ranges. On our side is Colorado National Monument, visible to our west and a little below us and a few thousand feet away. For two days the Bookcliffs have been invisible, before that for many days they were barely visible to more like ghost mountains. The Valley is filled with smoke and it is well above us at times. Reminds me of when we were at Crater Lake last summer and we could hardly see the shoreline.

Last evening I went outside to check the smoke and my eyes immediately started watering and the air was acrid. This was as bad or worse than the last two times we went to the northwest—last year and three years ago. Last month Grand Jct. had .08" of rain—in 2002, there was none and average is less than one inch. 2002-03 were also really bad droughts. The monsoon is supposed to start in late July in go into Sept. Long range forecast were for above average summer rains. So far, wrong. The moisture from the the south is blacked by a high pressure system that won't budge. Less than 200 miles south, in the Four Corners area of Colorado, they had lots of rain and flash flood watches for a couple of weeks, but here, I just watch storms come near and disappear. I think the Valley and the half mile high mountains on each side mess up thunderstorm circulation and destroy most of them.

Another line is developing north of us, but the same happened yesterday and they never got to the Grand Valley, much less moved across to us. Mostly we get winds associated with rain that doesn't reach the ground and sometimes lightning without rain. It was a lot of lightning in early July that started about 6 or 10 fires all around the area and forced us to rush back from town to see if they were close to our house.

Drought years are not uncommon in the west, but this is a really bad one. I just read a very long article how work on reducing climate change was stopped in the 1980's and early '90's and how because of that, the planet is facing catastrophe in a century. Maybe a sea rise of scores of feet can be avoided, but given how little the world has done by now, it appears human civilization could collapse in the next century. Better see NYC, Boston, Washington and Miami now. We were promised extremes of temperature and heavier rains by the 2010's and here it is. The science on this was settled a generation or more ago, everything predicted is coming true and little is being done. The southwest may become inhabitable—too dry, too little water and too hot. Maybe we should move north.

So with that pleasant thought, I guess it is almost time for lunch.
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Old 08-02-2018, 07:11 PM   #704
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The science on this was settled a generation or more ago, everything predicted is coming true and little is being done. The southwest may become inhabitable—too dry, too little water and too hot. Maybe we should move north.
Yet the building boom in the Southwest continues, miles and miles of tract homes. Phoenix and Tucson will eventually be one...but those of us who have lived here for decades are asking where the water will come from? I remember when Tucson was referred to as a "cow town" and some people here were offended by that. How I wish we still were a "cow town".
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Old 08-04-2018, 05:06 PM   #705
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Grand Jct. is starting to grow again after the last bust. This area has more than a century of a boom/bust economy based on extractive industries, the latest being natural gas. I think I prefer the bust years—little traffic is one reason. The Colorado and Gunnison Rivers join here and are pretty low right now. Grand Mesa also provides water through many small reservoirs on top at around 10,000'. Eventually there will be too many people for what we have and what we have will probably be less and less. Blue Mesa Res., up the Gunnison, is 54' lower than the high last year. If this continues, it may go dry next year. It did rain yesterday and Barb told me it rained for an hour where she was in town. I was in a meeting without windows, so I didn't know. Some rain at home because we found some small amounts where it collected. The ground is so hard, most doesn't soak in. We need several days of rain to soften up the ground and start to make up for the drought.

Lack of water has never stopped development. Someday Phoenix and Tucson will be hurting and recycling sewage water. I think Arizona does not have much in the way of rights for Colorado R. water beca8se when the Colorado R. Compact was signed in the 1920's, few people lived in Arizona and therefore Cal. got most of the downstream water. Maybe the Olympic Penn. rain forest is the place to be. Oh, I forgot the Cascade Fault and the future destruction of coastal Wash., Oregon and BC. Juneau?

We had a day of clear air. The smoke got so bad I had a sore throat and was coughing despite all my allergy drugs for asthma. Smoke is back today and getting worse again. I'm staying inside most of the time.
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Old 08-19-2018, 02:49 PM   #706
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Everyone is talking smoke and hot and dry. No matter which way the wind blows, there is a fire to send smoke from to our house. We can’t see across the Grand Valley most days since early July. We had a little rain the last few days and it cleared the air for short time, but this morning it is smoke in every direction. With asthma and seasonal allergies and smoke, that is a bad enough combination. So I got a mild cold, but enough to cough a lot for the last two weeks. Barb got it too and is doing her share of coughing. I hear smoke is all over the west and some has made it to the east coast. We had a fire scare here in July, but fires were pretty far away and put out quickly. And it rained a bit, but then no rain for a month. What rain we’ve is far less than normal and the annual monsoon has hardly materialized. I’m looking for somewhere with no forest fires, cool weather, no traffic, quiet, mountains and the only place I can come up with is Antarctica.

We spent a week in Buena Vista, about 2000 miles northeast. The RV park was deteriorating as it had owners too old to keep it up and tree branches to maneuver around. But the town had changed a lot. No only have they fixed up the old downtown, but they have extended it to the river and built some very urban houses and a hotel there. They built trails along the Arkansas R. and some parks. We didn’t care for the restaurants, but found pretty good pizza in Leadville at a place with “mountain” in the name. Did some driving around to the ghost town of St. Elmo and around Turquoise Lake and the lower part of the Hagerman Pass road. The truck is just too big for those old pass roads and the bouncing over rocks is a lot for an old body to take. We’ve been over lots of old pass roads over the years, but it is just not very appealing anymore.

The slide started making a rubbing noise coming out. I discovered wires underneath that were abrading on a roller, but that was not the rubbing problem. Fortunately still under warranty by a matter of weeks. Waiting and waiting for new parts—I think the guides that keep the slide moving square with the trailer were bent. I though they had figured out slides by now, maybe I was wrong. I get an extension on the warranty, but not a really long one. Not something you could ever fix yourself.

We want to get away for several days to get away from smoke and heat. Smoke is bad all over the state, but maybe we can east of the worst (here) and higher, but we have no trailer and have no idea when it is going to be fixed. We are going to Pueblo, Santa Fe, Albuquerque and maybe the Navajo Res in late September and back to Bluff in late Oct./early Nov.

And once the swamp cooler was on, the new doors I made for the kitchen cabinets started to warp. I should have read more about warping. I now have and learned I am one of many amateurs with the same problem. I have been flattening the doors, bracing them, repainting and reinstalling. I’ve always said that by the time I finish the project I’ll know what I am doing. Meanwhile, I don’t want to go outside and feel somewhat trapped. I am using eye drops with antihistamine in them many times more than ever, using all my allergy meds to the maximum. My pulmonologist left town for a better job in Denver, so I guess I’ll wait until winter to open the door (exaggeration warning). Friends are here (they went out in the smoke to “see” the sights) so life is good.
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Old 08-20-2018, 07:33 AM   #707
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Hi Gene,
The smoke in the west seems to be an annual issue this time of year. We diverted our trip last September from Tofino, BC and the PNW to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon due to the smoke. We re-scheduled to go to Pacific Rim Park the second week of this September, then through Washington and down the Oregon coast, but are monitoring the air quality to see if it is another year of diverting to someplace else.

This government website is helpful: https://airnow.gov/

Sorry you are having some many issues with the smoke.
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Old 08-20-2018, 11:25 AM   #708
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I heard smoke is bad up the BC coast. BC Friends with a boat (replaced their Airstream) have been to Southeast Alaska have told me of smoke there too. With a large fire "only" 25-30 miles south, we get plenty of smoke plus we worry about it spreading further. And what about next year and the year after? The little rain we had washed the air, but smoke came back yesterday and remains today.

But last night we sat out in the deck for a while before dusk and the air was cooler at that time than all summer and a lot of spring too. When we lived on the Front Range at 8,000' we were used to feeling winter was coming in mid-August. On the western slope we usually have that feeling later in September, so that bit of coolness in the air was a welcome memory and reality. I doubt it will snow here soon—even in Evergreen I never saw snow in August, but did on the first day of summer one year. I liked the climate there despite the occasional 3' overnight snows (maybe more than "occasional"). Winter has always been shorter than here than the Front Range, but with the climate warming and getting drier, even at 6,900' things are different. If smoke is going to be every summer, what about us with asthma? Do we accept a shorter life because we live in the west? Will weakening of pollution regulations make it even worse? I was glad to hear from visitors that smoke has reached Denver too (misery does love company).
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Old 08-20-2018, 11:42 PM   #709
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Smoke

Hi, here in Oregon we have had plenty of smoke. And it depends on the direction of the wind. One week they tell us it came from California. The next week they tell us it came from Washington. And we have had smoke from Canada too. Believe it or not, we even got smoke from Oregon. Tonight, on the news, they told us that our smoke was coming from Washington and Idaho. Our poor valley is in the red zone for bad air with only Hazardous and Dangerous left on the chart.
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Old 08-21-2018, 12:02 PM   #710
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Yeh, Bob, our air is in that same range and sometimes higher. I saw a map on TV that seemed to show a lot of places are worse than here. We have flash flood warnings today and I welcome them, especially since flooding is impossible where we live. It rained hard for 10 minutes and much more is expected. The smoke, we are told, comes from the Bull Draw Fire, about 28 miles south of us, but there are fires in every direction, and I'm sure Oregon and others contribute. Our Canadian friends reported visibility at Nanaimo was one nautical mile yesterday. My cough is getting better, my eyes are watery, I am exhausted by two plus weeks of coughs, and understand how seniors can lose interest in living on the wild side.

I wonder what happens when that meter goes over 500? Does everyone just fall down and die? If the pollution is that thick, does it hold you up and you die that way?

That short rain should energize me and I'll get back to the wild side soon.

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Old 08-21-2018, 09:09 PM   #711
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Hi Gene, this is the current heart-breaking situation in B.C. (Every dot represents a forest fire).
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Old 08-21-2018, 09:30 PM   #712
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Hi, we arrived in Portland Sat and staying in Ariel, WA just outside of Vancouver. Spent today at the beach in Seaside and the smoke was heavy there as well and you can smell it. Looking out the window in Ariel we can't even see the lake just a couple miles away and the mountain ridge 3 miles out was barely visible this morning.
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Old 08-22-2018, 04:26 PM   #713
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It poured last night—.88” until 9 and more predicted today. The Monsoon arrives with a vengeance. Suddenly August is above average and the summer looks near normal. Everywhere I’ve lived locals complain they have the craziest weather, but this weather is crazy. It can take a day to find an update on the forest fire website, so I don’t know how rain affected the Bull Draw fire but there were storms there all day and they only got to here late in the afternoon. The air got cleared last night and it was very cool for a good part of the day, but smoke is coming back. Today we had a few drops here and there in Grand Junction, but saw wet roads part way home and dry here as storms go around us again. We were out last night and everyone was looking lovingly at the pouring rain—typical desert behavior.
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Old 09-01-2018, 08:14 PM   #714
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We went to the San Juan Islands a week ago Monday and visibility on the ferry from Anacortes to Orcas Island was about a half mile it Olga was able to visit her namesake town of Olga. Post office was up for sale and I told her she could be the only postmaster in the country in a town with her name.

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Old 09-02-2018, 12:45 PM   #715
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Go for it, Dana. Buy that post office. When the smoke it too much, go underwater.

We had our monsoon in three days, the first with almost an inch of rain. Some sprinkles since, but that is it. Bit that rain suppressed the fire south of us a lot and most days have been reasonably clear. The record breaking heat seems to be over and cooler air is very welcome. Our colds are over and I am getting more asthma drugs. Not happy about more meds, but breathing is pretty important. The Part D insurer doesn’t seem to want me to have another drug and maybe I will get it from Canada. The negotiations over NAFTA seem to have the US wanting to end imports from Canada, though the story I read was vague.

Still waiting for the trailer to be fixed. The slide had two problems. One was exposed wires and they were fixed. The second was a slide or glide or something—Northwood’s Mfg. is very, very slow on warranty work. When they get the part, they wait to load it on a trailer coming to the dealer—it can take many weeks before that happens. They are too cheap to pay shipping. So it has been five weeks and the part isn’t here yet. Promised (again) for next week. We had hoped to take a short unplanned trip to get away from smoke, but couldn’t.

So, if you are in the market for a new trailer, Northwood, the company that makes Arctic Fox and Nash, does not care how long you have to wait for your trailer or truck camper. Pretty hard to find a decent RV company of any sort.
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Old 09-02-2018, 04:23 PM   #716
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Go for it, Dana. Buy that post office. When the smoke it too much, go underwater.

We had our monsoon in three days, the first with almost an inch of rain. Some sprinkles since, but that is it. Bit that rain suppressed the fire south of us a lot and most days have been reasonably clear. The record breaking heat seems to be over and cooler air is very welcome. Our colds are over and I am getting more asthma drugs. Not happy about more meds, but breathing is pretty important. The Part D insurer doesn’t seem to want me to have another drug and maybe I will get it from Canada. The negotiations over NAFTA seem to have the US wanting to end imports from Canada, though the story I read was vague.

Still waiting for the trailer to be fixed. The slide had two problems. One was exposed wires and they were fixed. The second was a slide or glide or something—Northwood’s Mfg. is very, very slow on warranty work. When they get the part, they wait to load it on a trailer coming to the dealer—it can take many weeks before that happens. They are too cheap to pay shipping. So it has been five weeks and the part isn’t here yet. Promised (again) for next week. We had hoped to take a short unplanned trip to get away from smoke, but couldn’t.

So, if you are in the market for a new trailer, Northwood, the company that makes Arctic Fox and Nash, does not care how long you have to wait for your trailer or truck camper. Pretty hard to find a decent RV company of any sort.
I own a Nash 22H.
I would not take it anywhere close to their dealeships or the factory. Talked to the service manager at the factory when we stopped there 3 years ago. I was not impressed. Wrote a 4 page letter to owner Ron Nash. Never heard a word.
So far I have been able to handle any issues that have come up.
I don't have a slide out. Didn't want the trouble.
Have close to 30K miles on the coach.
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Old 09-02-2018, 05:16 PM   #717
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I was not eager to get a trailer with a slide, but they are very common and there are far fewer models without them. Most now have them and I was hoping they had perfected the design by now. The exposed wires on the bottom were a clearly stupidly done job. They rubbed on the rollers at the bottom and quite naturally, the insulation wore off. I don’t know why something got out of line. The dealer has had the trailer for five weeks.

Last year we discovered a flaw in the sofa upholstery, but the Northwood’s warranty guy refused to replace the upholstery. I got the impression he had to disapprove some things to prove he was doing his job. We were going to Oregon, so we could stop at the factory and show him. I found the CEO’s email and wrote him about that. He forwarded it to the warranty guy with a note about “this guy” writing him as if the CEO was so special he resented getting a complaint. He made the mistake of sending it to me too. I replied that I didn’t appreciate his attitude and he ought to learn how to use email. He did not reply, but when I got to the factory, they okayed the replacement, installed all new shower parts because the original ones seemed blocked and water flow was very weak. We took the tour too. It was much smaller than the Airstream tours. OSHA would be interested in the messes including much sawdust and other stuff on the floors. At least they don’t leave their messes in the walls, tank containers and the back of cabinets as Airstream workers do.

I don’t think the CEO was a Nash. Maybe he was hired for cost cutting, an industry trend. There is toxic price cutting in the industry and thus cheap stuff is being used more. This happened at Airstream when they hired Bob Wheeler years ago and the complaints about Airstream quality have never ended. There is also consolidation going on in the industry. The exact same thing happened in the auto industry leading to truly crappy US cars which left an opening for foreign cars with better quality, competitive prices. We may be a couple decades before people are buying RV’s made in S. Korea, Vietnam or Bolivia. Before that we will see new foreign appliance manufacturers making good stuff at reasonable prices that make US appliances look as bad as they have become.

So while Northwood has had a good reputation, maybe those days have ended. Unfortunately, few trailer manufacturers have a good reputation.

After the warranty ran out on the Airstream, I was able to fix just about anything. Most problems had been covered by warranty early on. It is getting harder to fix things because when I wasn’t looking, I became old(er). I also have not finished the house remodel. Learning how to make cabinet doors has been a slow effort complete with many mistakes. With breathing issues and back and/or leg issues, mobility may be a problem. With friends now ranging from 60 and up, way up, I know lots of people with chronic diseases and death is much more common—just lost a friend from West Nile virus. He survived a quintuple bypass a few months ago, but a mosquito brought him down. He was a few months older than me. Seeing more docs takes a lot of time. No matter what you have seen in others, aging can only be appreciated by living it.
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Old 09-14-2018, 06:41 PM   #718
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Gene, did you ever look at the Bigfoot travel trailers? Supposed to be high quality true 4 season rigs (no slides) They are well insulated and owners report the 11K AC unit works fine in 100 plus temps. They make several versions of a 25 footer, we are actually going to get to see one next weekend. Some folks we don't even know yet are passing through our town and have offered to let us have a look, which is a great opportunity as our nearest dealer is over a days drive. The floor plans look just like AS but are reported to be roomier (no rounded roof). Customer satisfaction is extremely high. Not saying you should look at them now, just wondering if you ever did and if so what you thought of them.

(we were just in the PNW and I didn't realize at the time that's where most of the Bigfoot US dealers are)
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Old 09-15-2018, 11:49 AM   #719
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Never did look at Bigfoots, though I vaguely recall having heard of superior quality. Was this the Canadian company that went bankrupt and was bought out afterward? No dealers around here that I know of.

The slide is a product of an LCI (Lippert) division and I have already found LCI to be difficult. Our electric jack was made by another company (Atwood) that had some of its divisions bought by LCI. The original warranty was three years, but when LCI took over they arbitrarily changed it to one year, something that is, I believe, illegal because they cannot change the contract without the buyer's consent. They couldn't care less about that. Ours failed right away and was within the one year period and they replaced it, but if it dies again within three years, I expect problems. I did find quite a few complaints about LCI on the internet.

So far I think the Nash is fairly decent quality, some things much better than the Airstream. Components like the slide and jack may be the cheapest quality available, but I don't have knowledge about that.

We leave Thursday for Pueblo, Colorado, then Santa Fe and Albuquerque, and several more days somewhere around the Four Corners. Mostly family stuff and some friends along the way. Later in October, we plan to go back to Bluff, Utah, and explore and be lazy. Thinking about next year too. I want to get back on the road.

Dry as dust here, no rain in sight. Fires were greatly limited by rain we had in late August, but not much since and the fires are starting to see signs of life again. Only winter snows or heavy monsoon rains will put them out for real, but no idea when and if that will happen. If we have another dry winter, reservoirs will be dry next year and states down the Colorado River will have problems. So will we and fights over water are very serious here.
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Old 09-15-2018, 12:07 PM   #720
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Join Date: May 2017
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It is hard to fathom (pun intended) where water is such a precious commodity most places yet the Columbia River alone dumps close to 2 million gallons of fresh water into the Pacific every second.
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