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On our way to Virginia Beach

PostPosted: Tue May 21, 2019 8:08 pm
by JE Pettibone
Ed: >My presence on BL.C has been quite spotty recently. We left Florida just over a month ago. I mentioned in another thread that we where in Louisville for the Derby and Attended Church at St. Stephens where Kevin Cosby is pastor. I was sorry to miss him but on that day he was across the river at a satellite campus in Southern Indiana, yet the home church continued on with a great worship service. The next week we where "on Tour" through N. Central Kentucky arranged by Fantasy Tours. This included a "breakfast on Millionaires Row at Churchill Downs. A meal at Claudia Sanders Dinner House ( The original Restaurant Operated by she and Harlan Sanders (The Cornual), and a visit to the KY Horse Farm , Near Lexington. We also a distillery in that area and in Louisville we toured the Louisville Slugger bat factory.

The Morning of the Derby was rathe nice at the track, enhanced by not needing to deal with traffic, busses picked us up at the Ky Fair Ground where we and 82 other RVing Couples where parked for the week. They delivered us almost to the front gates we did have to go across maybe a block and a half of parking lot. because I was walking with a cane they insisted on talking me to the stands in a wheel chair. Our bus driver for the tour also reserved two seats for us, just behind him for each leg of the various trips. The nice weather on Derby day began to deteriorate just after noon. By three O'clock it was raining and getting cool, fortunately we did have a box which we shared with another couple on the tour, in the covered grand stands. By the 6th race (THE DERBY) it was cold, windy and the rain was blowing in from the open north end of the stands. And then the historic finish to the 145th running the first horse across the finish line was disqualified for a bumping incident that occurred almost in front of us. This had never happened before.


Loading the busses required standing is L O N G lines for nearly an hour in on and off drizzle, yes we did have rain ponchos. On Sunday we departed the fair grounds just after noon, and drove to Ashland Ky. where we stayed overnight in a Walmart parking lot.


In the morning the coach started fine but would not shift into drive. We called the factory and they walked us through a few procedures on the phone, that did not work. It ended up the manufacture ended up arranging to have our home towed to Huntington West VA, and we followed in our car. We ended up in a motel for a week and then they told us their electrician would be on vacation for the next week. They did have the Motorhome running but no electric in the home. The did not mention that the GPS and surround cameras where not working and I did not discover this until we had the car hooked up. So we took off we had the week end to get to NC. It was a pretty miserable drive but on Friday night we stayed in a hillside campground. One of the most difficult sites I have ever had to get into ( and with out my backup camera. Saturday and Sunday we spent in the Midway Camp Ground about 50 miles SE of Greensboro.


On Monday when we arrived at Freightliner they denied the had heard from the Dealer in Huntington, and they couldn't even look at our unit for three weeks. We sat In their driveway for over an hour making phone calls to Newmar, Freightliner and or Dealer in Tampa. No one seemed interested Until we got hold of a young woman in the Newmar service center after a ton of questions and her checking with their techs and those working for equipment providers they decided the inverter needed to be reset and we said we had tried that and some on asked did you try the button on the side or the ones on the bottom of the inverter, We did know there where buttons on the bottom and the girl on the phone said you need a mirror, fortunately Trudy has a lighted make up mirror. Following the directions the lady on the phone was giving we soon had the GPS and cameras, micro wave, frig and LIGHTS working.


We then came on up to Martinsville Virginia where we already had reservations for two weeks from now. So we will be here a month until we are ready to head to the ABC Biennial in VA Beach. We will play day tourist with the car. We came here because it was one of our favorite RV parks on our first trip via RV, for the 2016 CBF meeting in Greensboro.