RV Trouble...It All Started At The Kennedy Space Center

When we were planning our trip we didn't have Cape Canaveral and the Kennedy Space Center in our plan but we're sure glad we changed it up and went. When we got there the Ford Fusion battery died so I put it on a battery charger, closed the hood, and we went into the park. We were hoping when we got back the car battery would be charged. The car battery was charged but the car still wouldn't start.

A nice man saw our hood up on the car and offered to jump us....Thank you Mr. Man. We were back on the road again. We were headed to a Ft. Pierce, Fla. Cracker Barrel for an overnight stay to break up our drive to Hollywood. We were preparing our departure to leave the Cracker Barrel and we couldn't get the RV into drive. We got Good Sams Roadside assistance on the phone (they are like a AAA for RV's). After an hour of technical assistance and two hours of us troubleshooting ourselves, a mobile mechanic arrived on the job. Within 20 minutes he analysed the problem, gave us a part name and number to order, and, temporarily got us on the road. We say temporarily because he taught Brad how to put the RV into park, reverse, drive, and neutral by crawling under the Coach and manually shifting the transmission. He left it in drive while it was running, with the emergency brake on, with Kathy stepping on the brake for backup. Needless to say Kathy was not enamoured about Brad going underneath the RV while it's running and manually shifting it into gear. And, that's with the emergency brake on and her foot on the brake. Can anybody say "Life Insurance"? Haha....We're back on the road again and headed to Hollywood.

We picked Hollywood as our next landing spot because it was 20 minutes from Miami and 15 minutes from FT. Lauderdale. We got to Hollywood without issue but when we arrived we had a couple issues. The first one popped up when we were pulling into our spot. When you enter these campgrounds you‘re not only paying for the space but also for the use of their utilities. Which includes electric, water and their sewer system. When we were first parking, we over-shot the first batch of utilities available, so we needed to backup the Coach to plug in. So Brad had to assume the position underneath the RV to put it in reverse and then park once again. It went pretty smoothly and Kathy got a bit more comfortable about thinking of running Brad over... or not.

That first night we couldn't get all of our systems, the air conditioner, microwave, and electrical outlets working at the same time so we had to run our generator all night. For about an hour that night the campground manager came by and tried to troubleshoot the issue but couldn't come up with a fix. She promised to comp us a free night and said she'd address it again in the morning.

In the morning the Mgr. (Karen), Robin (The new employee from Colorado), Kathy, and I, moved the RV about 12ft forward to plug our electric, sewer and water into a different set of utilities. Brad assumes the position underneath the RV to put it into drive, Kathy is in the drivers seat, Robin's holding the electrical cord, Karen the plumbing and all the slide-outs are still popped out (That doesn't usually happen when your in drive). Yes, we took a shortcut. It worked and we were back in business. Brad slid underneath the RV and put it into park! On with the visit...

We went to South Beach in Miami the first day. We hung out on the beach where Brad's nephew Meir met up with us. We chatted it up until Meir had to pickup Lucifer (see below) at the vet. Then we met for lunch at the American Cafe on the strip. Meir came back to our RV site at night and we had some additional quality time. It was great seeing him. The other pics below were of Hollywood Beach. They had an awesome boardwalk that we rode our bikes on and grabbed another lunch. One day we went to the Hard Rock Casino and walked around ( Brad didn't gamble). It was beautifully done! Besides all of the framed rock star outfits, they had a cool floor to ceiling dancing water fountain boogieing to the music with a synchronised light show.

South Beach the first day in

Our nephew Meir

Hollywood Beach

Hollywood boardwalk

Hard Rock Casino

The first day in Hollywood we went to a Ford dealership and ordered the part we needed. We also contacted Good Sams to get another mobile mechanic out to us. They said we had to have the part before they could find someone for us. We got the part 4 days later so we had three days to try and get our repair done. Kathy obsessed over trying to find someone while we were waiting for Good Sams. We must have called 15 places and were lucky enough to get a repair place to take us on the day we were leaving which was 3 days later. Good Fallback! Even though it was a 1/2 an hour north and we had to obviously drive there and get under the RV one more time to put it into drive.

Once we got the part we contacted Good Sams and they set us up with a mobil mechanic. Promise after promise and eight hours later the dickhead mobil mechanic never showed. The next day, Good Sams was going to send a different mechanic. This guy passed two deadlines so we told him and Good Sams to forget about it. The day we were leaving we drove up to Pompano and had the RV repaired. We couldn't write the check for $140 fast enough and he even gave us our part back. It wasn't even needed. No more crawling under the RV and no need to have any life insurance nightmares. Life on the Road!?!?!? HA!

Other than that cluster-F, we did pretty much enjoy our stay. The reason we really enjoyed ourselves the most was because we had the opportunity to catch up with family and friends. Besides seeing Meir, we caught up with Doreen's first cousin Darlene who I love dearly and our great friend and fellow RV'er Ron Clukey, Both live within an hour of where we we were staying. We met both 1/2 way in between where they live and where we were staying. We went to the world's biggest Butterfly sanctuary...Big Woop! It was cute and since Kathy has accommodated Brad's Eagles fixation and has accompanied and accommodated him for all seven games to date, she earned this one. We did stop at a local watering hole to catch the game after the butterflies and we only only missed half of the first quarter. After the game we picked up Darlene and had a lovely dinner. We shot the $hit for a couple hours and it was heartfelt. The next day we met Ron in Boca Raton for dinner. We had a great meal but it didn't trump catching up with him. Ron is a CT. native who has relocated in Juno and we had another two hour meal mostly filled with great conversation. The only thing missing was Donna Clukey, but it was a great time nevertheless.

Then there was Ted. You'll notice the last four pictures above are Brad and Ted at our campsite.. Ted is a 72 or 77 year old Czech who served in the Czech army in World War II, He had a stroke a few years back and gets fined $400/day from the city for his 6 Volkswagon buses and 20 Ferrell cats. Ohh, and he had like eight teeth. He was a trip...very entertaining to say the least. Our next to last day he dragged six coconuts across the street to give Brad a present. Brad was working out while Ted was cutting them down. When Brad saw Ted's six foot ladder out and a chain saw, when he was done he went across the street to see if he could provide Ted some assistance. Before he falls off the ladder and impales himself with his chain saw. Brad climbed the ladder, cut a couple huge branches off his palm tree for him and then borrowed his chain saws to cut the coconuts off the branch he dragged across the street. There's one more Ted story we could share but this is a long blog and it's time to wrap it up. If you want the last Ted story let us know. We'll DM you! Thanks for following us. Next stop the Keys. YAY!