MOTORHOME MAINTENANCE - 2016 Winnebago View Screen Door Latch - Compass - Spring Cleaning and BEAR!

RSV has stricken it's ugly head in our household. (Respiratory Syncytial Virus) 

Ten days ago I hauled Steve's butt into the ER because he was so sick and he said it's like nothing he's ever felt before. His blood pressure was up and he was feeling absolutely miserable. His head and chest were tight with congestion and he was having a hard time breathing in between gasps of coughing fits. After a myriad of tests, they came back with the results that he has RSV! The doctor said that it will get worse before it gets better. And that I should probably be prepared to come down with it too. It takes about 2 weeks to get past the worst of the symptoms and another two weeks to totally resolve. They really know what they were talking about.

Ugh is all I can say. 

We spent ten days in our jammies, eating soup and juice, dosing on vitamin C and D. Round the clock Mucinex for the mucus and night time/daytime cold meds as appropriate. Luckily, neither of us entered into the pneumonia phase.

So during these 10 days that we have been home and recuperating... This is some of the stuff that's been going on around us. Of course, prevents us from going camping! 

We had an awful ice storm roll on through. It coated all of our windows with sheets of ice. In a way, it was kind of pretty.

All of the tender young buds starting to come out on the trees were glazed and icy. Everything was coated and the smaller branches were snapping off. Huge branches were breaking off when the winds kicked up. Those are in danger of taking down power lines and causing real damage.

There were power outages all over Wisconsin. We were fortunate to not have anything happen here in our town. We did have our Bluetti power station ready as a backup power source. 

Fortunately, the next two days of weather after the storm were warm enough to melt off the ice. We didn't go anywhere, we weren't feeling good anyhow. So that storm came and went...

~~~~~~~~~~

~~~NOTE THIS LATCH REPLACEMENT TOOK PLACE BEFORE WE GOT SICK~~~

We mentioned in our last blog about our lever for the latch on the screen door had broken on our motorhome. The exact match of the new lever had arrived and we decided to take care of replacing the temporary one that we had on there.

It's a pretty specific lever that is made to catch the latch so both doors open together simultaneously. If the screen portion is closed, and the main door is now swung shut, this special latch will connect the two together. That way, the next time you go to open the door, the screen door will again open simultaneously. Otherwise you are opening and closing two separate doors... Get my drift? 

So we needed the exact one that would line up and work with what we already had. The temporary one would catch but it would not work in the simultaneous mode.

We had looked all over at every RV parts outlet as well as Amazon and E-trailer and Camping World.  Even the Winnebago factory did not have them in stock. I guess they've been discontinued everywhere? 

But we did manage to find one with an exact match!! It was at this place called "RV Go Parts"

link to: RV GO PARTS

We ordered it and had it shipped to a place we were stopping while on our vacation. Then we didn't end up stopping there, so it got forwarded with our children back to us from their trip through Oklahoma. 

Now that we had it in our hot little hands, it was time to replace it and put everything back to the way it should be.

In this photo you can see that the temporary lever went in an upwards motion, and the original lever went in a downwards motion.

Steve screwed the new lever into place. It's nice that they make slotted adjustable holes so you can adjust it to perfectly catch in the door jamb as needed. Too far and it would not unlock when you open the main door. Not far enough and it wouldn't catch at all.

He also adjusted the height of the latching device on the main door. Now it would catch perfectly each time as the main door swings shut.

TAHHH-DAHHHH!

He also restored our little barrel lock on the far right. With the temporary latch he had to remove our barrel lock to make more room on the door frame. Now he can put the barrel lock back where it was. 

We really like that particular modification and have added one on all of our RVs over the years. That sliding barrel lever allows us to add an extra sense of security when we have the main door open, but the screen door closed for fresh air within the motorhome. It also prevents any sassy little dog from leaping against the screen door and possibly popping it open!

We can just push the slider over to reach in and release it when we want to from the outside, but nobody else really knows it's there. 

From the inside, we can lock it if we are going to lay down and take a nap and we still want fresh air coming in through the screen door.

From the outside, we can just push the slider over and reach up inside and unlatch it. This is really great if we are out in the campsite, or maybe chatting with neighbors. 

The first time we ever installed one was after we had been sitting just a few campsites away with all of our friends and family at their campsite. It turns out some kids from the beach area had gone up into the campground and went from camper to camper, going inside of each one! (They later said they were looking for cigarettes or beer!!!!) One of our relatives saw them and chased them down back to their parents at the beach. The little criminals were like 10 or 12 years old and didn't seem too worried about getting caught.  And their parents didn't seem too concerned either. Geesh! We threatened to call the police, but they said their kids didn't take anything so "what of it"??? Then they packed up and left the beach.

Now--- back to the door:

Speaking of a sassy puppy possibly pushing open the door, we also added this fancy grill on the bottom portion of our screen door. Some of the RV grills available are just standard looking with a punched out metal grid. Not too pretty. But I really, really liked this one!

Believe it or not, we found it at Camping World. It was on sale too. I think you can find them in other RV places as well. I just thought they were a lot prettier than the standard extruded metal kind that you normally see. 

Another little thing we added to the motorhome this week was an actual compass. We had been using the digital one on my phone app, and it really isn't all that accurate. There are some times we want to know what direction we are facing when we are driving through and choosing campsites. We try to face our rig to the West if we can, so our passenger side with the refrigerator is facing to the north and out of the sun. Also our Starlink needs to face to the North so that's another reason to know what direction we are parking at --- and where we get a good open view of the sky.

Steve found this pretty one that attaches with a suction cup to the windshield. The only problem is we have accordion pleated shades that expand and retract across the windshield on slider rails. If we just stuck this compass with the suction cup, it would get in the way of the pleated shades.

There's no battery and no light on this compass, but it is made with a reflective quality to the bezel that kind of illuminates it just from daylight.

We looked around various spots to stick it. Finally we came up with the idea of attaching it right to the dash over on the driver's side. Steve can see it easily and we used a hunk of sticky gooey "nano tape" to fasten it right to the surface of the dash.

While we were out there in the motor home parked in the driveway, I decided that the motorhome needed a good cleaning up after our trip. I could smell faint reminiscent scent of campfires long passed. 

I removed all of the bedding and the quilts and even the throw pillows. Nick's little doggie bed went out for a trip through the washer and dryer as well.

The floors were pretty dirty, so I gave them a good sweeping. Then it was time to get out the Swiffer Wet Jet and really give the floors a scrub.  Even with just that small space, I used two pads and half a bottle of cleaner!! 

It smelled a lot better now.

Load by load, I finished up all of the quilts and sheets and blankets. Even all four of the throw pillows. Everything was done and fresh again.

Steve helped me carry it all out and make the bed. I hung up all of the newly washed towels in the bathroom, and reloaded the dish towels for the kitchen.  Now we are ready to roll as soon as the weather cooperates! 

In the meantime, we are content with just watching the wildlife in our own backyard.

These yearling youngsters are wandering around our neighborhood the past few weeks. Their mamas have kicked them away in preparation for having new fawns this spring. They don't quite know what to do, so they gather in our backyard and try lapping up all of the fallen bird seed, as well as nibbling off all the tender buds of our bushes, cedars, ivy and anything else they can find! We have fencing corraling all of our tender young trees and bushes and shrubbery.

Just about every evening, they wander in and hang out underneath our bird feeders. They lick up anything they find on the ground. Then they hop the fence to go next door and see if there's any apples on the ground underneath the neighbor's tree. They paw at the snow until they unearth any left over apples.

Nick enjoys watching them and is quite excited about their arrival each evening. He gives them a very sound scolding from behind the safety of our own glass windows or his fenced in potty yard. Of course, we would never let him chase after them because they would kick him in the head!

After that, this past week we have had torrential rain! It melted almost all of the snow. We did get a significant amount of ponding in our backyard, like we do every spring.

We glance out from time to time and see ducks floating around. Steve puts a pumping device out in the middle of the biggest pond and redirects the water to some of our underground drainage pipes.  From there, it flows out to the curb and gutter in front of the house.

He gets very busy moving the pump from place to place. He puts on his rubber boots and gets himself out there right in the puddles. He's kind of fanatical about it, and eventually he gets all of the water levels down and the yard dries out.

This is an every year occurrence because we are so low to the water table of Lake Michigan a half a mile away.

Because of the excess water in the yard, we get a variety of wildlife wandering on through. Some like the water, others try to avoid it and walk around it. There's generally a flock or two of turkeys that run between the nature preserve behind us, and cut through our yard to get to a field across the road.

Every year, a pair of sandhill cranes show up. They gracefully wade around our backyard, looking for goodies and dipping their heads down into the water from time to time. Not sure exactly what they are finding. But they are enjoying themselves. 

Every now and then they'll flap their wings up and down in their little mating ritual. They make the most god-awful racket of a squawking noise during the process. Then they disappear for a few weeks and then they come back later usually with a baby walking alongside of them. Did you know a baby sandhill crane is called a "colt"?

We really enjoy watching them carefully walking around through the water. They hang out for a while and then they move on either further into town, or back out through the nature preserve behind us. 

We are seeing a lot more bird activity, and a few nests are being reconstructed for the upcoming spring egg laying. This one is up in the crabapple tree, and we will probably see Mr and Mrs Robin tending the nest very soon.

A few of the huge pileated woodpeckers are back. They hang out poking in the holes of our decaying pine tree. So I'm assuming there are bugs in there. They also perch up here in the cottonwood tree and watch what's going on. They can gobble down a suet block in less than an hour. So we only put out one suet block a day. They chase all of the other birds away from it so they can gobble it up. These birds are so huge they are about the size of a chicken!!!

Various neighbors have been giving reports of movement on their security cameras. BEAR!!! So far he's only been in our yard once. He yanked the bird feeder down off the cable but didn't destroy it. Now we are taking the bird feeders in every night, and putting them back out in the morning.

I kind of feel sorry for him. The bears wake up and there's really nothing to eat in the woods. Nothing is growing yet. So they come into town and terrorize the houses looking for garbage or bird feeders to fill their tummies.

The thing is, they are getting too used to people and coming in to forage around when careless folks leave their trash out. We have even been getting warnings to not put out the city collection garbage bags until the morning of pickup. Some folks put them out the night before and that's an open invitation for a "bear buffet" up and down the street!


As the weather has warmed up, we had a nice family Easter gathering at our house. The Easter Bunny even made his appearance! (reluctantly)

So far this spring, in Wisconsin, we have had one nice day to come and sit out on the front porch. We enjoyed a little beverage after dinner and the sunshine streaming across the porch made us squint a bit in this photo.  This photo was taken 2 days before the RSV hit. First Steve, then me.

And thank you for all of you who have asked me about our dear friend Rosie. She is holding her own right now, but has been in and out of ICU several times. She is still hospitalized for the past three and a half weeks. We are hoping she will rally and gain strength and be home soon. All prayers are appreciated.

We sent her yellow tulips for friendship,

and they brightened her day.

Here's the video that goes along with portions of today's blog:

Please stay tuned and hold on tight until we get out camping again. In the meantime, we have a couple household projects we're going to work on. 

Budget Wrap Up - WINTER GETAWAY 2026

(I HAD WRITTEN THIS ALMOST 2 WEEKS AGO, BUT FORGOT TO POST IT)

Now that we've been home for a couple of weeks, we've been catching everything up around the house. I thought it's about time that I do a budget wrap up for the entire trip. 

Total miles that we traveled: 2,536

Total days that we were gone: 44

Here's a map of our route. It sure doesn't look like we went very far when you look at the scope of the vastness of the United States. But I would rather take smaller loops like this and explore one region of the country than make a full loop around the entire United States.

Longest drive day was our last day heading home: 513 miles. But it was mostly tail winds. There weren't any campgrounds open to stop at between Northern Missouri and Wisconsin. So we just decided to keep on going and get home.

Now people ask us questions about how much it costs to travel. Of course everybody's traveling style varies. So I'm going to give you the numbers that we actually had over our 44-day trip.

FUEL: 

$611.16 

We started with a full tank and ended with the almost full tank. So our actual diesel fuel costs are pretty close considering that reserve.

Our Winnebago View has a Sprinter chassis with a Mercedes engine. It requires DEF, diesel exhaust fluid. About every 2,000 miles we need to toss in a jug.

DEF $17.43

Average. 12.58 MPG

This is with pulling our little cargo trailer that weighs about 650 lb. We have probably 300 to 500 lb of cargo inside of it. We are able to pull up to 5,000 pounds with our motorhome. When we do not pull the cargo trailer we average about 14.5 MPG. 

So our overall cost of fuel per day is $13.88.

CAMPING FEES:

Now this is another one that really can differ depending on your camping preferences. 

Campground total $629.00

44 nights total.  41 nights we paid for camping.    3 nights boondocking in our friends driveway (also known as mooch-docking)

Average $15.34

We try to camp at rustic National Forest Campgrounds or camping at the Army Corps of Engineer Parks where we can use our America the Beautiful Senior Access Pass. This grants us half price on our camping fees at Federal campgrounds. It also gives a free entrance to all national parks and monuments.

We did do State Park camping in Missouri, and one fee type camping at the gas station in Wenona, Illinois. We also did one KOA in Missouri on our way home.  The rest of the time we were at Army Corps of Engineers and paid on the average $8 to $9 per night for electric and water hookups.

Now, on the other hand, if you are used to full hookups with sewer and water and electric and cable, you could be paying $40 to $60 a night on average. So figure that into your budget appropriately.

PROPANE:

We started with a full tank and only filled once for $19.57.

Our motorhome uses propane for:

the cooking stove and oven, 

the refrigerator, 

the water heater,

and the furnace as needed. 

But if we happen to be at the Corps of Engineer Parks with electrical hookups, the refrigerator switches over automatically to electric. We have an electric version mode on our water heater. And if we are hooked up to electric we can run the heat pump from the roof air conditioner or an electric space heater to warm us instead of the propane furnace. All of those things save on our propane consumption if we happen to have electric hookups.

This next category is also kind of subject to your own personal preferences. Some people like to cook all of their meals in their camper, like us.

Of course if you are the type of people that like to go to restaurants all of the time, your grocery totals will be a lot less.

GROCERIES:

7 weeks $518.86

Started with a lot of groceries on hand from our house, and we came home with other groceries bought along the way to carry back in.

Some of this is also odds and ends like cleaning supplies or tin foil or laundry soap, etc but I just lump them all into the grocery category because we bought them all at the same time. I wasn't going to get that particular on separating the items.

We left with an ample supply of Nicholas's specific brand of dog food. While we were traveling we were getting a little nervous about running out at the end and decided to stop and buy one more bag. Tractor Supply carries his brand so we knew we could get it wherever we were traveling.

Dog food $23.08

It's not good to swap brands on a dog, especially during traveling. Especially a long haired butt dog, if you get my drift... Ewwww!

MISCELLANEOUS:

Now we had a couple extra things in our category of "miscellaneous":

Beer $33.99 

Twice Steve stopped and bought some of his favorite brand of beer. And after 44 days, we actually came home with 4 beers left over.

I brought my own supply of wine bottles from home of "Two Buck Chuck" from Trader Joe's (Charles Shaw White Zinfandel wine).

Restaurant or fast food: 

We did splurge on our absolute favorite Godfather's Pizza in Lebanon, Missouri. $26 but a large pizza like this is actually three meals, sometimes four. We repackage it two slices per Ziploc bag and put it in the freezer. We reheat the slices in our air fryer which tastes almost as good as when it first comes out of the box.

If you've ever had

 Godfather's Classic Combo, 

then you know!

REPAIRS: 

We add into our budget little things such as maintenance and repairs while we are traveling. Of course, the cost of replacing something or fixing something is absorbed into future use down the road. But it is a category we keep track of while we are traveling. 

The first night in the RV parking slot at the Burger King / Shell in Wenona Illinois the winds were very, very strong! The door whipped out of our hands, and when it slammed back shut it actually broke this little plastic lever that is attached to our screen door. It allows the screen door to open simultaneously with the big door. And the lever of the laughing system got smacked right off! 

We ordered a replacement latch system from Amazon and picked it up when we were in Arkansas from a counter-ship location. It wasn't quite the right replacement, but it was good enough to finish the rest of the trip. The doors would still work, but not in combination together. We did find the exact matching one later and had it shipped to our next location on the way home in Oklahoma. So both latches together cost:

Repairs door locks $80.04

That is our budget for fuel, camping, groceries and all of our miscellaneous categories.

OVERALL TRAVELING AVERAGE

$1,277 TOTAL FOR 44 DAYS

$29.02 PER DAY

While we were gone, the huge Blizzard Elsa, also known as Snowmageddon, hit Wisconsin and most of the Midwest. Our driveway was filled up with over 3 ft of snow. We hadn't planned to get home until after it all melted. But, plans changed and we decided to get home when we did during the end of March. We knew there was still a good 2 to 3 ft in the driveway and it was solid and crunchy and heavy wet snow. 

Our wonderful neighbor Adam has a tractor with a big back blade. He is also young and strong, and does snow removal and lawn work on the side, in addition to his regular job.

We asked him to come over and at least yank out enough snow that we could pull in the 25-ft motorhome and the little 6 ft cargo trailer. He cleared more than enough so we could get in the driveway upon our arrival. Then he decided to keep on going for a couple hours and completely remove all of our snow from the driveway and the sidewalks and doorways etc. 

He had set a price, and we insisted that we double it! So that was part of our budget, and it was well worth paying our neighbor to move our snow! $100

On our video, in the link below, we talked about some of the highlights of our trip. We each decided to post our "FAVORITES"

Best campground choice:

Karen - Buckhorn Creek Corps of Engineers Campground on Lake of the Pines, Texas. 

This was hands down my favorite campground. We were in a perfect location with tall trees to the south of us to protect us from the winds. We could see the sun rising from the East and setting in the West and we had a perfect wide open view out our patio side to the North.

This place was peaceful and quiet. Serene and relaxing. We enjoyed it so much the first week we actually renewed our campsite for a second week. That is the limit of 14 days with the Corps of Engineer Parks. We enjoyed every minute of it!!! 

https://www.recreation.gov/camping/campgrounds/232536

Steve - Pat Mayse Lake West Campground. This was also a Corps of Engineers Park in Texas. Steve loved that our campsite was out on a peninsula. It had a cement parking pad and 360° view just about in every direction of the water.

https://www.recreation.gov/camping/campgrounds/233579

This is not a crazy stretched photo from a digital camera. Notice the straight horizon in the background. This is literally how the shoreline swept around us in a big arc, with a sandy beach all around us.

We literally sat here, day after day, watching the waves on the water, huge flocks of pelicans fly by, and enjoying the peacefulness of not having anybody else around us. 

A few huge storms started up while we were here. We had to vacate the site one night to go up and park near the dump station by the shower building for safety. Another night we moved to a campsite over the hill that was less exposed to the heavy winds.  In spite of the crazy weather, we really enjoyed this campground.

Our cheapest campground was $8 a night using our Senior Access Pass at Platter Flats in Oklahoma.

Most expensive campground we stayed at was a KOA Lebenon, Missouri $56 a night!!! This was a "Steve Splurge" because we were going to boondock in a Walmart overnight. The weather was very uncomfortable with high heat radiating off the pavement. The crazy "Heat Dome" that was descending on the Southwest was catching up to us. He opted to go to the KOA where we could have full hookups and operate the air conditioner all night long in comfort.

All in all, during the first month, we enjoyed the weather. We had many days in the '70s and comfortable evenings in the 50s.

But ... We spent a lot of the second month dodging storms!!! Between the ferocious winds and the large amount of thunderstorms passing over us, we were dodging either the Heat when we were parked or the Wind when we were driving. It seemed like band after band of storms were passing over us during the month of March. Many times they were compounded with heat fronts and then cold fronts, fluctuating the temperatures. We had days forecasted getting up to the '90s and we decided it was time to escape and get North faster than we had planned. The weather was exceptionally strange for that time of year in that area of the United States.

WHAT WE ENJOYED MOST WHILE CAMPING:

Relaxing- this was really one of our main goals during this getaway. We weren't up to running around doing a bunch of touristy things, touring a bunch of historical sites or fancy attractions. We just wanted to get somewhere warm and to relax.

What did we do the most? Bike riding, especially around Jonesboro Craigshead Forest. Some of the Corps of Engineer Campgrounds had a large network of trails and roads to pedal around on. Other times we actually left the campgrounds and pedaled in outside areas.  

Taking along our e-bikes instead of a towed vehicle, is a real bonus for us. We get outside and get fresh air and exercise.  We don't just twist and go with the throttle, we actually pedal and use the pedal assist mode to help us on hills and long distances.  They have really added to our enjoyment as well as our health.

We love using our e-bikes, and we take our little trailer behind for Nick to ride with us.  He gets so excited when we set it up, and he jumps in before we are even ready to go.

So what else do we enjoy while traveling?? We try to mostly avoid the interstates if we can. Back roads, which we call "red roads" on the map, driving at 55 mph or even less. We enjoy the scenery and the terrain, as well as the small towns and interesting architecture. 

(From the interstate you only see the same chain store businesses and hotels and billboards)

WHAT ARE WE ENJOYING NOW AT HOME:

Unlimited water for showers & dishes & laundry... Not having to carefully monitor the usage or plan ahead if we are going to be somewhere without additional water access.

Now having a dishwasher again!

After being home now for a week, not raising my foot for imaginary pedal to flush toilet. 

Having the big fenced in potty yard just outside the open door for letting Nick out to do his thing. 

Nick says he enjoyed having snow when we got home! He was pretty tickled that he could roll around and play in it and eat it.

Want to hear something funny? Right before we left, Steve bought a DJI Neo2 drone. We brought it along, but never tried it out. 

I guess we just never had the time nor the inclination to learn some new technology while we were out and about. So once we got home, Steve got it out and we tried it in our own backyard.

I told him it's specifically "his toy" and all I wanted was some aerial footage to add to my videos. He never felt like doing it I guess until now. It can be controlled by a controller, a cell phone, or just by hand movements! Here he is telling it what to do:

We actually got home just in time to celebrate our youngest daughter's birthday. We were able to gather with everyone at a favorite Mexican restaurant and enjoy a celebration for her as well as the welcome home for us.

What a beautiful girl, our youngest, Heather. 

A mere 5 days after we got home, our oldest daughter and son-in-law and three children hopped in their motorhome to go.... to Texas and Oklahoma!  Right where we had left!

While they were gone, we had the task of babysitting the two grandpuppies and a hedgehog....  It's much easier to travel with the rambunctious family in a 25 ft motor home without two dogs under feet or a hedgehog in a cage.  Plus, with many of the places they wanted to go, the animals would be left unattended in the motorhome. That cannot be risked in the heat due to the rising temperatures down there. Even with the generator running with the air conditioning, bad things could happen. 

BISCUIT

EWOK

and KIWI the hedgehog

We took care of them for 10 days to make the children and grandchildren's vacation easier all around. Making memories is what it's all about.

Here's the video that goes along with this blog: 

Thank you for traveling along with us! 

In the past we have done loops---

Down into the Southwest a few times, 

Many times to Florida and back, 

We have done a loop out to Maine and back, 

and a loop out West as far as Montana and back.

 Of course, our HUGE journey last summer up to Alaska and back was our biggest "loop"! 

Stay tuned for our next adventures, we are planning where we're going to go next.