Toad Wiring - Open House Sunday - and Grandtots!

After a restful Saturday night in our motorhome in the driveway (so we didn't mess up the house for Sunday)  we woke up to a warm and wonderful sunny spring day!

While I was sprucing up  a few last minute things on the house on Sunday morning, that Busy Busy Zoom Zoom Steveio got to work on the wiring of the Tracker.  For those readers new to this blog, last February we bought a different Tracker to tow behind our motorhome.  Of course, that means mounting a baseplate and re-wiring the lights.  He did the baseplate last month, but the wiring remained as a task to take care of.

Plugging a line into a connector from the motorhome, this wire setup will allow the Tracker's taillights, brakelights, and signal lights to operate along with the motorhome's own lights.  No need for an extra "light bar" or "suction cup lights" you see on some toads.  (towed vehicles behind a motorhome are called "toads")   It takes more trouble to wire them up this way, but less hassle to hook up lights when we are travelling.

Towing a vehicle behind a motorhome is a very serious endeavor.  One needs to carefully inspect and have all the proper equipment in working order, or risk having a loose vehicle flying down the highway, uncontrollably destroying everyone behind you!


Mel, a fellow RVer and poster on our SafariCoaches List mentioned:
" NEVER TALK TO ANYONE while they, (or you), are DUMPING tanks or HOOKING-UP a toad!----
IMO that can not be mentioned too often, (or emphasized strongly enough)!
Mel
'96 Sahara"


I totally agree!   So I responded with this checklist:


Yup... interruptions can be a very costly or dangerous mistake to make while hooking up

(and messy if interrupted during a tank dumping) 

As a couple, we doublecheck each other's "jobs" when toading our Tracker.... 

Steve has 4 things to do while hooking up:

1. attach the arms of the towbar
2. attach the power cord plug
3. attach the safety cables
4. put on the padlocks on the pins

and I have 4 things to do inside the Tracker when hooking up

1. shift Tracker into 2nd gear
2. shift transaxle into neutral
3. turn key to "on"
4. tie a white rag to top center of steering wheel while checking that it is freely moving-- so we can see the white rag in our rear view camera.  Then with a glance in the camera, we know the tires are tracking correctly and not cocked sideways after turning a corner. 

-- then he goes inside and runs the motorhome signal lights through "left turn, right turn, tail, brake"  while I stand behind  the rig with the hand held CB telling him each one is okay

---- and then he pulls forward while I walk alongside for a short distance.  I am watching to the be sure all tires are rolling and the two little flip levers on the tow bars flip up.

Then, and finally then, he lets me inside... where I lock the door and make sure the steps are up on the motorhome as we take off on another adventure! 

For the non-RVers reading this, you can now see all the steps that we go through to have that extra vehicle nonchalantly following us as we go by on the highway.


Sunday morning flew by fast.  Once it got close to noon, it was time for our Open House!   The signs went up on both corners of our road, and one in front of the house.  We pulled the motorhome and car over to our neighbor's house and parked in his driveway.  Not only does it make our driveway look bigger when empty, but also prevents anyone accidentally backing into our motorhome or letting their car doors scrape the sides.

I had planted some lovely red geraniums in a pot by the entrance... and added baskets of flowers in between the newly arriving sprigs of hostas and sedum plants in my flowerbed alongside the garage.  We are still having frost at night, sometimes temps down in the mid-20's, so I can easily take the pots back up out of the ground and set them in the garage overnight.

I even put one planter out on the deck railing out in the back, and put the canopy up on the gazebo.  I had added a new coat of stain during the week to the deck boards, so all things were in ship shape for the Open House! Let em roll on it and fall in love with our home!

We had five more couples go through the house, and I would guess two couples would be considered good interested buyers.  We also had two long-distance inquiries who will be travelling to this area in 2 weeks to view the home in person. We won't say anything more till we see something on paper, or else we will jinx ourselves!~


Monday morning was up and at em.  Our oldest daughter Erin had a dental appointment in Green Bay, and arranged for little Chelsea, age 2, to have her first dentist visit for a checkup.  Hauling along a 3 week old baby is kinda difficult while trying to convince a toddler that dental visits are a good thing.... so Granmuddah to the Rescue!  I came along to help wrangle the kids in case Erin's appointment went longer and overlapped with Chelsea's appointment.  It didn't and things went smoothly.  She even let them apply flouride and polish her teeth!  Chelsea was happy to show us her new sticker, tooth brush, toothpaste and kiddie floss.

After the dentist, we went for a visit to daughter Heather's house to see her and our grandson Jameson.  The kids had a blast and we could hear mischief coming from Jameson's bedroom.  AH HAA!!!   Two Little Monkeys Jumping On The Bed!!!

We discovered them launching themselves off the headboard and onto his race car bed!   We put an end to that and made em slow down a bit.  Later we did a visit to Panera Bread   with the kids for a nice lunch. It was our first time there, and it sure was good.  The kids behaved very well for a sit down restaurant. They are used to being taken to places other than fast food or the run amok craziness like Chuck E Cheez!  LOL   Even some nearby older diners commented on the kids, and I beamed with Granmuddah Pride!


Today (Tuesday) started out with one more little bit of time with newest grandson, Clayton.  Seems Erin had a chance to take over a cancelled teeth cleaning appointment today.  She dropped off the little guy here, dropped Chelsea at the day care, and off she ran to Green Bay.  She paid me in vine-ripe tomatoes, mini-cucumbers and some great "Everything Bagels" from Sam's Club in Green Bay for a treat!

(The little stinker slept almost the whole time!)

We didn't get to see the other two grandtots lately, but here are two pics of them... Mason is already a whole month old!   And Allegra, age 2, is taking very good care of him!

Time to get a few more things done around here.  Then I have a rug order to work on.  Life returns to normal until Saturday morning with two more Open Houses scheduled for the weekend.  Wish us luck!



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