Ludington, MI

Ludington Lighthouse

We've had  a nice stay here in Ludington.  We chose this place as it's relatively close to the Taylor's "cottage" just in case some Taylors stayed over.  Turns out that didn't happen, but Donna did find a Curves (gym) nearby and a House of Flavors was just close enough that it was convenient to go visit while just far enough away that we weren't there every hour eating ice cream.  We stayed at the Good Sam 10/10/10 rated Vacation Station RV park.  Really nice park with wide, concrete sites.  Ours was wide & long enough that the both truck and trailer fit on our site.

This was also a good spot to put the trailer while we took a short trip to Shipshewana for an over night at the Peaceful Acres Bed & Breakfast, and a trip to Lambrights Comfort Chairs to order new furniture.  We're replacing our two leather rocker-recliners with a narrower wall-hugging cloth recliner and a narrower cloth rocker-recliner that allows for a night stand between the two chairs.  These pieces are similar to the ones we saw in the campground in Mitchell, SD.  Donna took her knitting along to ensure everything worked as planned.  I think it's a good change for us as it'll result in more usable space in the trailer.  Furniture due September 18th

We also took the time to set up an appointment at MOR/ryde to swap out our 5th Airborne pin box for MOR/ryde's rubber pin box on August 30th.  This should give us some relief with the chucking under braking that we're experiencing.  It won't all go away, but we were real happy with the Demco pin box on our Excel 5th wheel.  The MOR/ryde rubber pin box is a similar solution (though different engineering design) as the Demco, so the thinking is that it'll help solve some our chucking problem as the Demco pin box did.  Background:  Some people on the Ford forums are noting that the 2008-2010 F450s are experiencing chucking that isn't being experienced on the other Ford trucks when towing the same trailer.   The issue has popped back up as  people are beginning to buy used F450s and experience a pretty rough ride while towing 5th wheel trailers.   We had a pretty rough time with that chucking coming up US 31 going to Manistee, and that spurred us to go ahead and change out our pin box.  Only time will tell if it is worth the money and effort.  

Well, if all goes as planned we'll move to Shipshewana, IN tomorrow.  Trailer service is scheduled for the week of September 9th in LaGrange, IN.  Then we'll hangout for the new furniture.  At least that's the plan.  Later, David

Ludington Lighthouse and harbor entrance