We planned to leave today around noon for an RV rally in Clio, Michigan, about an hour’s drive north of our house.  We spent most of the morning with final preparations, loading food, clothes, technology, toiletries, and finally the cats.  We also put fresh water on board and checked/adjusted all of the tire pressures.

The tires were holding their pressures fairly well, but I discovered that the Pressure Pro Tire Pressure Monitoring System was reading 1 to 3 PSI low on most of the sensors compared to my tire gauge.  I have a very good gauge and had its calibration checked a couple of years ago at the Eastern Gypsy Gathering Rally, so I tend to trust its readings.  Besides, when it tells me two tires have the same pressure and the Pressure Pro TPMS tells me the pressures are different (from each other) I tend to go with the gauge.

The last thing is always to disconnect and stow the shore power line and lock up the house.  I fired up the engine, put it gear, and got stuck in our brand new gravel driveway!  We tried to extricate ourselves, but that only made it worse and the drive tires ended up buried in the loose gravel.  I called the guy who did the driveway work for us to let him know of our predicament and see what he could suggest.  He didn’t have the equipment needed to get us out, but recommended a towing company that could handle vehicles our size.  He also indicated that he would stop by the house tomorrow evening and survey the situation.  Clearly something (else, additional) will have to be done.

I called Woody’s Towing, and they said they would have someone there within 45 minutes.  While we were waiting for the tow truck, I engaged the level low system and aired the suspension all the way up.  This got the chassis up enough that we could dig out some of the gravel from around the tires and under the rear end.  The tow truck showed up on time.  It didn’t look like a big enough truck to do the job, but it turned to be up to the task.  The secret was the very substantial winch and the use of multiple pulleys to multiple the pulling force.

The technician had to position the truck three times to finally get us out.  This was because we had to make a hard left turn onto the concrete driveway that would then take us out to the street.  The first pull was straight forward using both attachment points under the front bumper with the bus engine running, the transmission in 1^st gear, the tag axles UP, and me applying power as directed.  This was the hardest pull as we had to get the drive tires out of the rather deep holes they had made for themselves.  The second pull was from the driver side attachment point at an angel toward the driver’s side to get us started in that direction.  This got our steer tires onto the concrete driveway.  The third pull was again from the driver’s side attachment point at an angle, pulling straight out towards the street.  This pull finally got our drive tires off the gravel and onto the concrete.  The holes where the tires had been were very impressive.

The technician from Woody’s clearly knew what he was doing.  He got us out without any damage to the coach, and we were glad to pay the $175 charge.  We hooked up the car and were on our way around 1:30 PM.

We made it less than four miles from our house and encountered a major construction-related traffic jam on M-59 just west of US-23; a one lane road with a flagger.  With no way to turn around and no alternate route there wasn’t anything to do put patiently move ahead when we could.  In what seemed like an eternity, but was probably only 15 minutes, we cleared the construction zone and were northbound on US-23 at 62 MPH, my preferred highway travel speed.  US-23 merged into northbound I-75 at the southwest corner of Flint and we continued on our way.  Things were looking good until about six miles south of our destination exit, when another construction zone had the left two lanes (of a 3-lane highway) closed down.  There was a warning sign some miles before, but almost no indication of the actual lanes closures.  No barrels placed a mile or so before the work to close down one lane at a time; just the sudden loss of two lanes of the highway.  Highway work crews should not be allowed to do this.

Some folks, most perhaps, get on their brakes and stay/merge to the right.  But there are always those “other people” (who are obviously more important than the rest of us) who try to speed by on the left for as long as possible and then merge in at the last moment.  Well, not today bunky.  I was already in the right hand lane when I became part of the traffic crawl and I watched with some delight in my driver side rear view mirror as several vehicles teamed up to block all of the other lanes, including the left shoulder.  We patiently worked our way through the blockage for what seemed like our second eternity today, but was again probably no more than 15 minutes.

We exited I-75/US-23 at M-57 and made our way east through Clio, Michigan.  On the east side of town we headed southeast on Saginaw Road.  About three miles down the road we spotted the Fireman’s Park and made our turn.  The Clio Fireman’s Park is a nice little rally site.  It has an open pavilion with power surrounded by fairly level grass and gravel surfaces, all hard packed.  There is a long driveway leading in that provides an excellent place for arriving RVs to stop and unhook their towed vehicles.  We did just that and while Linda parked the car and went and found Marty Caverly to find out where we should park.  Marty and his wife, Pat, are one of the two that organize and conduct this rally.

Today was early arrival day and there were only five other motorhomes there (all converted buses) so we had our pick of spots.  We chose one we had used before, next to the pavilion and with good access to 20A power.  Marty is an electrician and had been working for days to install permanent and temporary power drops so everyone would have a legitimate 20A connection.  In warmer weather we would not be able to function on a 20A connection, but the weather has been, and is forecast to be, cooler than normal for this time of year with highs in the 70’s and lows of 50.

Part of the protocol of RV rallies is that folks tend to leave you alone while you get parked and set up, but once you are done there is lots of meeting and greeting.  We are expecting 22 converted coaches, and the balance of them will be arriving tomorrow, so there will be lots more meeting and greeting.

The pre-planned dinner event for this evening was the Black Forest Restaurant in Frankenmuth.  The 13 of is figured out car pooling arrangements and we rode with Paul and Claudiene Elbisser.

 

 

I had a raspberry/strawberry Belgian wheat dessert beer and it was freaking awesome!  (I am not generally a big fan of beer and have finally figured out that I don’t care for the bitterness of hops.)  It made a great “cocktail beer” too; think strawberry daiquiri with a hint of beer after taste.  Linda and I ordered a 16” think crust pizza, no cheese, with mushrooms, onions, and pineapple.  What they brought to the table was a pizza with a crust 2” thick.  15 minutes later we got the pizza we ordered, and it was pretty good.

Back at the rally site, we got a tour of Paula and Claudine’s MCI MC-5 conversion.  We last saw it two years ago at this same rally, and they have made a lot of progress on it.  It‘s a very nice design, and Paul is a superb craftsman.  Ed Roelle set up to serve ice cream with toppings, and everyone brought their camp chairs to the pavilion and set them up in a big circle.  Ed and his wife, Janet, are the other rally organizer couple.  We passed on the ice cream, of course, but enjoyed the camaraderie.  As the sun set it got very cool, and folks gradually peeled off from the group to hunker down for the night.