Stone Mountain State Park, GA

We moved to Stone Mountain Park, GA on Monday after a quick visit with Dad & Anna.  Managed to miss all the severe weather.  We're here to visit Doug & Louise.  Unexpectedly, Elizabeth was also here, so we got a bonus visit in with her.  All seem to be doing fine.  We've eaten with them every night since arriving, and we've been eatin' good!  Weather-wise, it's been nice.  We've had some rain.  Highs in the 70s and 80s with lows in the 50s.  And pollen.

The park seems to be in good shape.  Water level is good.  So far we've gone grocery shopping twice, and Donna got a haircut.

We're getting more familiar with the truck.  Having to learn how to use all those cameras to help us back or park the truck and trailer.  Beginning to park the truck as a F350 vice a F450.  Still not second nature, but we're getting better.  We got a, historic-for-us, high of 10.9 mpg towing from Pelham to Stone Mountain.  If that holds, the 48 gal OEM fuel tank is gonna work out just fine.

Noticed that GM was demonstrating their easier releasing & lowering tailgate in their advertising last night.  All three truck manufactures must be using that tailgate system as we have it as well.  For us, it's too easy to use.

We have three ways to open the tailgate: 1) button on the tailgate, 2) button on the dash just above the emergency brake release handle, and 3) the key fob (remote control).  On our truck, you cannot lock the tailgate, and the dash button is extremely sensitive.  First week we had the truck, I probably lowered the tailgate three times as I'd release the emergency brake.  Yesterday, Donna cleaned the interior and unintentionally lowered the tailgate onto the trailer hitch pin box.  No damage as it just gently lowered itself and stopped when it hit resistance.  But now we start wondering why we can't lock the tailgate so unintended lowering of the tailgate won't occur.

It is a nice feature, though.  When leaving Pelham, I needed to drive around to the trailer before backing up to it.  It was nice to leave the tailgate up and using the 360 degree cameras until I got close to the trailer.  When I was ready, just press a button and the tailgate just slowly lowered itself.   So for now, we don't park the truck as close to the hitch pin as we use to (see picture at the top).  And just be aware.

That's it for this week.  Hope everyone is doing well.  Thanks for dropping by!  David

Pelham, AL

This is our new, updated, on-the-road picture.  The orange you're seeing on the stripes is a reflection from an orange 18-wheeler to the left (not in the picture).

Donna says her brother is doing fine with his new knee.  Recovery is a slow, painful process, but he was moving better when we left.

We got to Pelham, AL about 12:30 yesterday after overnight stops in Madison, FL and Ozark, AL.  Once in, we bought groceries, and then had an early dinner at Zaxby's.  Spent the evening struggling with DishTV to get local channels.  I thought the problem was us.  We probably restarted the receiver a half dozen times.  We even tried our backup, portable antenna with no success.  Finally got local channels about 9:30 in the evening.  Have no idea why we had a problem. Just a hiccup in the process, I guess.

Today we got some diesel exhaust fluid (DEF) and another diesel fuel additive for the truck before dropping over to visit Dad & Anna.  We spent their money at Cracker Barrel, drank their water, took a walk & left.  It was almost eat 'n run.  Back to the trailer before traffic got bad with a stop for self-serve, soft frozen yogurt in Helena.  Didn't realize those places were hangouts for high schoolers.

Back to the DEF: we're newbies with adding DEF, but it all worked just fine.  Another process to no longer be worried about - unless you pour it on you!  Interesting to think you're pouring a urine mixture in your truck to help with diesel emissions.  Makes you wonder if this couldn't be a backup urinal if you can't find a restroom.  I'm told you can't do that, but....

Anyway, we're here for the weekend to visit Dad & Anna. Move to Stone Mountain, GA on Monday if all goes well.   Thanks for dropping by!  David

2nd week in Apopka

Finishing up our 2nd week in the Mt Dora area.  Donna's brother, David, is back home from knee surgery & doing well, so Donna gets to play nurse for a little bit.  Got a tonneau cover put on the truck.  Got a lot of dog walks in.  Haven't been able to visit anyone else in the area like we thought, though.

We wrap up our stay Monday as we head north toward Birmingham.  Gonna have a short visit there, so may not get any visits in on that stop, either.  Head over to Stone Mtn (GA), High Point (NC), and on to Fredericksburg (VA) to finish our southern tour for this season.

From Virginia the current plan is to head on to Indiana for trailer servicing, generator repair, and have a new trailer suspension installed, plus look at options on getting the trailer painted in the next couple of years.  Yes, we're doing our part to get the economy humming!  Headed to Two Harbors, MN from there since we now have a truck certified to run the diesel fuel sold in Minnesota.

Still learning about our new truck.  Looks like it's gonna use more diesel exhaust fluid (DEF) than the 2011-16 trucks use.  It has a larger DEF tank than those trucks do (7.4 gal vs 5.0 gal), but I'm finding ours will use DEF if you're running down the tollway at normal traffic speeds (65-70 mph).  (At least that's what it appears to be doing as we've used DEF in the last week, yet haven't towed since March 3rd.)  That may just be the price of having a 440 hp, 900 ft-lbs of torque truck.  We've also learned how to turn on the heated steering wheel.  We may have it all down pat in a couple of years!

So that's how our week has gone.  Hope everyone is doing well and surviving your unique, local weather.  Thanks for dropping by! David

Mount Dora/Apopka, FL

Disney Springs

Like I posted last week, we arrived last Friday without incident.  Backing into our campsite with a new truck seemed to take forever.

Everyone is doing as well as expected considering Donna's brother David is having knee replacement surgery today.  I got the best job:  dog sitting.  Abby - the dog at a respectable 13 yrs young - may not like me all that much, but she knows I go for walks.  And she loves walks.  So she tolerates me.  We be doing fine!

We've gotten in a couple of meals out and got Donna & my Disney Fix in at Disney Springs.  We were able to visit Disney Springs with Donna's sister-in-law Mary.  Truck got in and out of the parking garage just fine.  Got our t-shirts.  Got our Earl of Sandwich sandwiches.  Got our Ghirardelli fix.  Bought more Ghirardelli dark chocolate to take with us.  I think we walked ourselves almost to exhaustion.  Disney did well.

We also got a surprise meeting with Paul & Tricia on Sunday.  They were down in Kissimmee at a restaurant convention working on new business for the year.  Normally, they're just too busy to get together when we're in the Fredericksburg area.  This visit was great as there was no rush.  Paul and I talked flying.  I have no idea what Donna & Tricia discussed!

My woes with computers and phones continues.  Motorola updated the phone's software on Monday.  Noticed Wednesday night I'd lost the ability to file transfer via tethering.  An hour on chat and another hour downloading & installing new software/drivers on my backup computer to allow file transfer via tethering passed with absolutely no success.  Wasted another hour this morning with the same result.  Finally broke down and bought & installed a WiFi Transfer app for the phone.  That seems to work just fine.

Newest computer is at the Geek Squad awaiting pickup.  They say it's fixed.  I'm assuming they reset Windows 10.  Guess I'll be mooching off Donna's brother & sister-in-law's internet next week to get that computer back up to speed.

New hitch receiver reducer (3 inch to 2 inch) to make loading the bicycle rack on the truck a one-person effort didn't work.  Seems Ford's 3 inch hitch receiver isn't equal to everyone else's 3 inch product.   Sad as it was a really nice piece of hardware.

Our replacement iPod arrived yesterday.  First time for me to go out and purchase an obsolete product.  Hopefully,  the truck won't kill this one.

So that gets you up to date.  Thanks for dropping by.  Until next week, David

Travelin' to Apopka, FL

 Actually, we're at Apopka, FL.  Here to visit Donna's brother David and sister-in-law Mary.  Be here a couple of weeks.

Trip down was interesting.  We, once again, experienced unintended emergency breakaway engagement every time we made a sharp turn to the right.  The new puck system in the bed of the truck raises the hitch legs which

the break away cable loves to wrap around and activate the breakaway switch.  That locks the trailer breaks.  And, yes, we go down the road smoking the trailer tires to get to a safe place to pull over.  And, yes, that means the new truck has enough power to drag the trailer when we have to.

We made a two-night stop at Tallahassee on the way down to visit Randy and Shirley.  They're great people who we spent a season volunteering with in Voyageurs.  They'd volunteered at a fish hatchery near the Grand Tetons.  We'd grown jealous of Shirley's pictures and wanted to get some info on the place.  They gave us the grand tour of the south Tallahassee area with one stop at Wakulla Springs.  Really enjoyed our visit with Randy and Shirley.  I think we kept them out too late!

The trip down - other than the breakaway cable issue - was great.  Getting roughly the same fuel mileage as we would have in the other truck.  Adaptive cruise control works great.  Other than parking the trailer in the campgrounds, Donna did all the driving.  She's real happy with the seats - all that heating/cooling and massaging stuff they do.

Truck GPS still thinks we're in a Focus.  Ford builds a truck that tows 15+ tons of weight - trailers that can be 13 and a half feet (or more) tall, sometimes 102 inches wide, and axles that can weight over 9,000 lbs.  But the GPS?  Nope. It's for a small car.  So we get the busy dash you see in the bottom picture.

However, the trip down wasn't good for my online life.  We toasted an 8 year old iPod.  I'm on my 3rd computer in 13 months and the last one (4 months old) toasted Wednesday night with a bad NETwtw04.sys file.  Apparently, it's enough of a failure that I can't even reset Windows 10.   So I've resurrected the previous laptop (now a desktop as it won't run on battery).  It, too, is giving me fits as I update stuff.  And, to top it all off, blogger is refusing to save this post.   (We're getting 4G LTE with 4 out of 5 bar strength, so I doubt the internet is the problem.) The navy sucked every ounce of tolerance out of me for this stuff.  I've got to take a few days and calm down just to take the 4 month old computer to the Geek squad just to see what can be done about that NETwtw04.sys file.  They'd probably have to call the cops just to calm me down if I went today.  And in the end, they'll probably tell me to get a new computer! I'm convince that the Bill Gates' business model of selling flawed, unfinished products is the main business model for today's economy.

So I'm ready to bust up some computers.  How about you?  Everyone have a great weekend and enjoy yourselves!  David