Big Ol’ Bug Smacker

More Power To Ya

Tim R. Enright

There will come a time when you want to plug something in and all your outlets in the RV are dead. It could be because of various reasons but, never the less, you are stuck eating cold left over pizza. The microwave just won’t run off the battery.

You may want to go camping at a rustic campsite. It can be less expensive than full-hookups and also tends to be more secluded. More like a true primitive camping experience. If you really want to get away from it all, then go park your RV out on State land somewhere away from everyone. Either way you’re not going to find any place to plug into.

On the other hand you may have just pulled over into a rest area on the interstate. You pop inside your RV, grab a doughnut and wish you could pour yourself a nice piping hot cup of joe. Yet the coffee maker just won’t perk without power.

Maybe the situation is that you just went out into the RV simply because the lights went out in the house and you were in the middle of the big ball game.

These are times when you will be glad you have a generator. I will admit that you won’t use a generator everyday but, it sure is nice to have one when you need it. They sure make life a whole lot easier.

Now that you have determined that you want a generator, you will get to the store only to discover that there is a huge assortment of makes, styles and prices. This is where I am going to need to explain that it is defiantly a case of “You will get what you pay for”. I will tell you up front that you need a generator designed for RVing. Sure you can find a unit that has a lot more power for a lot less money but, like I said “You will get what you pay for”.

What a RV style generator has to offer is ease of operation, low fuel consumption, clean power and above all reduced noise levels. You don’t want to hear people talking behind your back about how noisy your generator is but, then again you won’t be able to hear them above the racket anyway. Guess it would be like bringing a barking dog into a library. You just wouldn’t want to be the one to do it.

You need to determine how much wattage you will need to power the items you will be running in your unit. Keep in mind more power required, the larger the size of the generator. I highly recommend a top brand name manufacturer like Honda or Onan.

Don’t limit your camping possibilities because a place has no power to offer you. Just grab your generator and bring your own power plant.

note: The following plea was written by me to my son some time ago in an effort to convince him to quit smoking. I once was a smoker and know the difficulty in kicking the habit. It saddened me to see him go through the pain that I too had experienced. I am happy to say that as I write this, I no longer know of anyone in my family that smokes. Please feel free to pass along the following message to someone you love.

A Father’s Plea to his Child

Reasons to Quit Smoking:

1. BAD BREATH- yes everyone can smell it.
2. No more need to take time out of your day for a smoke break.
3. You will miss out on dating opportunities.
4. It will cost you higher insurance premiums.
5. You will require more sick days.
6. It can KILL you.
7. You cannot keep up with non-smokers in physical activities.
8. Non-smokers look at smokers as having a weak character.
9. You will miss out on important career opportunities that non-smokers will not.
10. Stained teeth and fingers.
11. Nervousness and depression.
12. Constant coughing.
13. You have to listen to others complain about your smoke.
14. Breathing problems.
15. Fatigue.
16. Heart disease risk, including heart attack, no you’re not too young.
17. Gum disease.
18. You will get facial creases and wrinkles.
19. EXPENSIVE.
20. Smoke stinks up everything you own.
21. You are missing out on the true flavor of food. You will enjoy a better sense of taste and smell.
22. Cigarette burns everywhere.
23. Risk of second hand smoke to people around you
24. Nonsmokers don’t like kissing smokers. There is nothing sexy about smoking.
25. Stroke.
26. You take longer to recover from illnesses.
27. With each puff you inhale over 4,000 chemicals (250 are toxic poisons, 60 cause cancer) These include:  Ammonia (found in toilet bowl cleaner); Arsenic (ingredient in rat poison); Polonium 210 (nuclear waste);  Carbon Monoxide (car exhaust); Acetone (used in finger nail polish remover)
28. Emphysema and other lung diseases.
29. Morning cough.
30. No more naps to combat the tiredness because your body has to process all the poisons that cigarettes have.
31. No more self-hate and loss of self-esteem.
32. You will shorten your life with each puff.
33. Nicotine is as addictive as heroin or cocaine.
34. When you stop smoking, you save a lot of money that can be spent on more important things.
35. Immediately after you quit smoking, you will never again have to deal with the hassle of leaving someone’s  home, your workplace, your own home, a restaurant or any other place to have a cigarette.
36. No more cigarette hangovers after late nights out.
37. The older you get, the more you will regret smoking and the harder it is to quit.
38. Arguments with parents, friends who want you to stop smoking.
39. You are tired of the need of a crutch.
40. CANCER!

Reasons to Smoke:

1. Gives you some type of imaginary confidence.
2.     You are weak and don’t have the ability to quit.
3. After being told a thousand times, you truly don’t realize the reasons listed above.

After reading these reasons which way does your scale tip? Take a good long look and think seriously about your answer. I bring this to you because I love you. I too had this problem and beat it. I hate to see you suffer. I only want to help you.

Remember this- The difference between a wise man and a fool is, a wise man learns from other’s mistakes and a fool learns from his own mistakes.

Written by: A loving Father

This RV park is a good place to stay and is a really good value this time of the year. The cold is coming early this year and it is getting harder to find spots with water still on. In fact the summer was much too short. It started late and is coming to an end already.

The RV park offers full hookups and cable on most sites. All of the sites offer concrete pads, yet they happen to be too short and narrow for most rigs. Everyone had their trucks parked side-ways in front of the RV and the Class-A’s had to back off the pad to fit onto it.

The WiFi has been drastically improved over our last visit. It was virtually unusable last time.

The casino took my $20 contribution pretty quick. That was not the case for my wife, who actually walked away with $27.50 in winnings. The casino food is much better than most other places and the prices are not bad either.

To wind down from the wedding last weekend and nurse our now full blown colds, we drove over to the nearest hot tub and sauna. That brings us to the Valley Plaza RV Resort. This is a nice place to go to this time of year. Plus it offers off-season rates and a Good Sams Discount making the cost very reasonable.

Sunday, we caught a break in the rain that we have been getting for the last several days. So we hopped into the truck and headed downtown to the 46th Annual Northwood University International Auto Show. Our youngest son Spike, who is a junior this year at Northwood, is working at the show. The show was quite a bit smaller this year due to the reduction of Automobile makes and models being offered these days.  It looked to me as if the attendance this year was down as well. I am not sure if this is due to the weather or the economy. Most likely it is both.

Our oldest son, Jason got married today to a wonderful girl by the name of Becky Card. I am so glad the day has finally arrived. I want to congratulate Jason and Becky for all of the arrangements that the two of them had made to bring this all together. The wedding ceremony was beautiful and the reception was quite exquisite. We had an excellent turn-out. My wife, Terri and I greeted nearly 300 people.
 
I want to take a moment to thank all of our friends and family for helping us celebrate this very special occasion. I hope a good time was had by all. We are extremely grateful for all of the support from each and every one of our guests.
 
I would also like to pass along a special thanks to that one special individual that allowed me to take home their cold. I guess that by touching so many people, latching on to a germ or two was inevitable. It was a totally unexpected bonus.

On our way to the campground last weekend we stopped at Hagerty’s for a pulled pork sandwich. I discovered this place while doing a search for the closest place that sold Ashby’s Sterling Ice Cream (If you have never eaten this brand of Ice Cream you are missing out on a real treat). I found out that this place also offered some darn good smoked BBQ Ribs and Pulled Pork. So we stopped back for dinner.

You are probably wondering what any of this has to do with “Axles”. While I was in the store ordering dinner, a guy at the counter said that he had been following my rig down the road and it had looked like my rear tires on the RV were tilted in at the top. Upon checking it out for myself, I discovered that the rear axle looked bent. The inside of the rear tire on the right hand side was also worn out. This can’t be a good thing.

When we returned home I made several phone calls looking for someone who might be able to straighten the axle and align the wheels on my RV trailer. This proved to be quite difficult to do. RV shops would just replace the axle and alignment shops didn’t service trailers. I didn’t want to replace the entire rear axle since I had spent so much money replacing the drums, brakes, backing plates and seals just last summer. I finally called a place by the name of Tow Line Trailers in Saginaw, Michigan. I took the 5th wheel over to them and they informed me that the combination of light axles and Michigan roads had been too much for my trailer.

Not that I had ever over-loaded my RV, the axles were just not sturdy enough for the enormous potholes and earth shattering bumps we have here in Michigan. They then proceeded to fix my trailer up right.

They replaced my 3500 lb axle beams with 7000 lb beams. They then welded a couple of 2×2 steel support tubes across the axle hangers to straighten and firm them up. They also repacked my bearings and swapped my worn tire for me. They did an excellent job. The suspension is much better than it ever was before. Hats off to Tow Line Trailers for helping me out.

We arrived at the campground around 7PM only to find they had closed at 5PM. The people in the office were kind enough to leave an envelope that contained a map, the password to the gate and directions to one of each type of campsite the park had to offer. We chose one with full-hookups. Full-hookups at Lake Huron Campground include the usual electric, water and sewer. It also offers cable TV and WiFi.

The WiFi at this place has its good days and bad days. It took me a while to connect to the Internet, not realizing the password for the WiFi was LHGC instead of LHCG. Not sure who allowed that mistake.

The next morning we went up to the office to select a new site near the rear of the park to stay in for the remainder of our visit. The back of the campground offers more trees and is more secluded. The entire park is just shy of 400 sites, with most of them being full-hookups.

The campground offers pizza for sale at the store upfront. We had tried it before, but this time it was not very good. Maybe we liked it a little better last time because they actually delivered it to our site for us. They would not deliver it to us this time.

On Saturday, my brother, sister-in-law, my wife and I tried our skills at Putt-Putt Golf. I won of course. That was until my brother rechecked my math and discovered my wife was the real winner. Following our tournament we headed over for some ice cream cones, which were pretty good.