Epilogue

And now a few follow-up notes. (You may also want to take a look at the "Improving Gertie" page, where I've detailed the dozens of improvements I've made since I got back. If you're an RVer, some of these may give you ideas worth borrowing!)

Propane usage

Although Gary had suggested that a tank of propane would last about a week, I found when I got home that I still had a third of a tank left after three weeks on the road. Of course if it had been colder or I had been doing more cooking, it probably would not have lasted so long. But I feel I did pretty well in that respect. On the other hand, I have to watch my water usage carefully when boondocking—not because the 58-gallon fresh water tank gets used up, but because the 17-gallon gray water tank fills so quickly. Twice I've had to transfer water from there to the black water tank to even things out. (I carry a pail now for just that purpose.) At least the black tank doesn't fill up too fast...and I haven't had any bad odors from there either, thanks to the EcoSave and Odorlos bacterial additives I use.

GPS roof antenna

I finally gave up on sticking the Mighty Mouse II external GPS antenna to the inside of the front overcab window. Even after I got it to stop falling off (by switching from Velcro to 3M Dual Lock), it just didn't seem to work reliably. And a GPS that loses signal at random intervals is pretty useless! Either the angle was bad, or the window's tinting film acted as a shield...I don't know. So I mounted the little amplified antenna on the roof...and then with a lot of help from my friend Rich Wolfson, snaked the wires down into the interior and through the existing Chevy sheet metal behind the dash (no mean feat!), where they could connect to the GPS perched on the console. It made an immediate and dramatic difference in reception. Now the satellites get locked in bip-bip-bip as soon as I turn on the unit...and there are no more dropped signals!

Back pain

I had a fair amount of trouble with back pain on this trip—partly from driving long distances (though my ObusForme backrest makes a huge difference there), but mainly from sleeping. I was beginning to wonder whether I'd be able to use that overcab bed in the long run—some mornings it was excruciating getting out of bed and down the ladder. But after I got back, I discovered purely by chance that if I sleep on my side instead of on my back, I have less pain when I get up. Later, I found that if I do five or ten minutes of stretches and mild exercises every morning, that helps even more. So I'm no longer worried about having to sleep on the couch because I can't make it in and out of the overcab bed.

I had noticed that when sitting in Gertie's driver's seat, I listed slightly to starboard due to uneven compression of the seat cushion in 115,000 miles of driving...and that contributed to my back's discomfort. So I bought two new seats from Camping World ($250 apiece) and installed them myself. They look better and feel much better too...should be good for another hundred thousand miles or so!

Insurance follies

You may remember that I dutifully called in a report to my insurance company (Newark Insurance, with RV Alliance America acting as agents) when I had the accident with the campground porch roof in Missouri. They promised to send out an adjuster from a local (MO) insurance firm to look at the damage within a day or two, but they never did. Turned out that the information they had was badly out of date—that local company hadn't been affiliated with Newark for years. Meanwhile the poor chap whose roof I'd bumped was waiting for an adjuster who never showed up...and he couldn't even fix the roof until the damage had been inspected!

But there's more. When I got home, I found a stern letter from Newark in my mail, informing me that my policy had been canceled for nonpayment. Strange—it was a new account and I had never even seen a bill from them; in fact, I had been waiting for one. A panicked call to RVAA turned up the information that the policy declaration Newark had sent out and that I'd glanced over before filing actually was the bill. Following pages of soporific legalese, in fine print on the very last line it said that I owed them $397—pay up now. My fault, I guess...I should have read the whole thing word for word. Anyway, RVAA persuaded Newark to put a hold on the cancellation, and I rushed a check for the full amount to them by Express Mail.

I wish I could say that was the end of it. But several weeks later I received two letters that had been sent out on the same day by two different Newark offices. One said that I was paid in full; the other said I was cancelled for nonpayment. What was stranger, both letters were sent out five days after they had received my payment. Stranger still, the office that sent the cancellation letter was the one that had received and signed for my payment! Again I had to call on the nice folks at RVAA to straighten things out. It took a couple of days, but they finally did, and called me back to say that everything was fixed and my policy was in good standing. I breathed a sigh of relief.

And that afternoon while driving home from work, I heard on the radio that Newark had decided to pull out of the New Jersey auto insurance market! Apparently they were losing a million dollars a month, and had decided to concentrate on the most profitable aspect of their business: insuring high-risk drivers (where presumably they can charge an arm and a leg, because they have a captive audience). I still don't know how this will affect me...I'm just going to wait until they tell me.

As for the accident claim, I gave up on having Newark handle it and arranged to pay the campground owner for repairs out of my own pocket (otherwise, who knows how long he might had had to wait?). Good thing I did...in talking with RVAA I discovered that Newark would have slapped a $700 a year surcharge on my account for three years. In other words, for a claim that was undoubtedly less than my deductible and for which they would not have had to pay a cent, they would have sucked $2,100 out of my pocket! I think that's unconscionable. In practical terms, what it tells me is that if I have an accident and the damage is less than $2,100, I'm not even going to report it, because it will be cheaper to pay it out of pocket. So what am I paying for insurance for?

Bottom line: RVAA gets a thumbs up, but Newark gets the raspberry.