March 18th - Truck to the Shop and Looking Back

On our last RV trip I noticed that the oil temperature reading in the truck was sporadic. Since I am almost always towing, oil temperature and oil pressure are really important. Yesterday when I got in and started him up the oil temperature was at 122 degrees when the engine was totally cold. The water temperature was 55 degrees, the same as it was outside. The oil temperature should have been the same.  I got an appointment to take it in today. After waiting two hours while they diagnosed it, the mechanic advised that they had to have the truck when it was totally cold to determine which component was acting up. They have time to work on it again tomorrow so I just left it there.  I'm glad I thought to get this checked out before the towing season begins. I guess I will soon find out how well my extended warranty works.

Today I thought it would be fun to look back at pictures of our very first RV trip in 1982. A group of us from Perryville went to the World's Fair in Knoxville, Tennessee. At that time we had a 1973 twenty-one foot long Concord pull behind trailer towed by a 1978 Cadillac. Here is a picture of us stopped at one point.

It was a good first trip but not without issues. Outside Knoxville we made reservations at an RV Park none of us had been to before. When we got there, because of the high demand for sites due to the World's Fair, they had cut new "sites" into the side of the hill. Our site was one of those. There was about two feet on each side of the trailer.You can see the dug out area on the left and the built-up area on the right.  Here is a picture.

Notice how level the sitting area and picnic table was. Our tow vehicle wouldn't even fit on the site. Here is a picture from below.

I didn't complain about our site because two others in our group had sites which were literally just wide spots in the road. Here is a picture of their "campsites". Notice the great fire pit location.

 We've come a long way.