Let’s Spend Some Money in Alabama!

We left Florida and headed into Alabama to get the annual maintenance completed on the chassis, get new rear tires (six of them), and to replace the toppers (awnings on top of the slide outs). I guess the ole Busse Bus is getting older and needs a little TLC.

On the drive up we got a vivid reminder to drive safely:

And then after that we picked up a rock to the windshield – almost made it an entire year with chipping or cracking the windshield!

A double star chip – yay!

When we arrived in Red Bay we stayed at the Red Bay Acres campground and our next door neighbors were friends of ours from Myakka, Mike and Ko Holland. It is a small world!

That evening we had severe rains and a tornado warning. All we heard was the early morning rain but we were concerned about our next campground in Huntsville, AL as they had a tornado touch down. Always fun on the road!

Our chassis appointment was scheduled for 11:30 at Bay Diesel which allowed us time to find a windshield glass place to hopefully “fill” the star chip. Red Bay Body was able to “fix” it for a mere $75. Hopefully it will hold throughout our summer travels. Once we got to Bay Diesel I realized that this year’s maintenance was going to be a biggie because it was the six year / 72,000 check up. There goes another $2,100!

We left Red Bay and headed over to Huntsville, AL for the weekend to visit with Bill and Tamara Burkard, friends for 40 years!

The Monte Sano State Park Campground did have some tree / branch damage from the storms but it was all cleared up by the time we rolled in. It was the first time that we stayed at that campground. Our usual one, the Space and Rocket Center Campground had closed to allow for the expansion of Space Camp.

Immediately after getting set up, we headed out to meet Bill and Tamara at the Yellowhammer Brewery / Earth and Stone Wood Fired Pizza joint. What a bonus when we got there and their daughter, Rayna and her husband Michael where there to meet us. After some delicious pizza, Katrina and I headed to a speakeasy called Catacomb 435. We had a wonderful time and the mixologist, Katie, was superb!

You selected the alcohol (Vodka, Whisky, Tequila, Bourbon, etc.) you wanted and then two ways (sour, sweet, smoked, clean, crisp, fruity, etc.) that you like drinks. Katie did the rest! Outstanding end to the evening! Thank you Laurie and Steve Chubb for the recommendation!

The next morning I was up and out early to take our truck over to the Ram dealer to get the 60,000 mile maintenance completed. Another biggie – $1,200. At least they found the reason why our front left tire was losing air, a screw. Once I returned, Katrina and I went over to Bill and Tamara’s house and then to a quaint mexican joint called El Coyote. Good street tacos!

After that Bill had us scheduled for his gun range, Hobbs Island Shooting Range, so we were able to practice shooting. It had been a while so it was a welcomed stop along the way.

The most fun was shooting water jugs with the 20 gauge:

No, that wasn’t Katrina holding jugs for me to shoot! Those are what was left of the water jugs that she shot!

Thank you Bill for providing the safety training, guns, ammunition and cleaning lesson!

After getting cleaned up we went to dinner at Mazzara’s Vinoteca in an historic building in downtown Huntsville. Wonderful food!

Another Chubb recommendation – thank you!

The following day Katrina and I slept in (10am), I guess we needed the rest. After we got going, we headed to Bill and Tamara’s house for a day of relaxation. Very nice! Bill smoked/grilled some chicken while we taught them how to play Golf – the card game. The food was outstanding! During the day, Bear got to meet and play with their two dogs, Koda and Sadie. Sadie is an Australian Shepherd:

We stayed long enough to try to catch the Northern Lights but were unable to see them. Bummer because on FaceBook there was such a chatter about being able to see them as far south as Florida.

Mother’s Day started out with us attending Bill and Tamara’s church, Willowbrook Baptist, with them. What a wonderful service and preacher! That was the church that they have been attending for the past 17 years, their children attended school there, Bill is in the band, and Bill is also on the security team. Seems weird knowing that church services are protected through security teams! What is this world coming to?

We were able to spend a nice quiet afternoon at the Burkhard’s house before we had a farewell dinner with them at one of their favorite local restaurants, China Cook. Good food! The restaurant even gave the girls a rose for Mother’s Day. Nice way to finish our time with them.

Thank you Bill and Tamara for all your hospitality!

The following morning we serpentined down Monte Sano heading back to Red Bay to complete our maintenance work. Our first stop was at Kimbrough’s RV and Power

in Tuscumbia, AL for new rear tires. We had replaced the front two two years ago and now we needed to replace all six rear tires. After 74,000 miles and seven years it was time.

The process was painless until we had to pay – $5,500. Ouch! Then we headed back to Red Bay Acres for the evening as we had a local exterior cleaning place coming to clean out our black and gray tanks. Unfortunately, he could not get the gray tank but cleaned the black for $100.

It was nice to have connectivity again so we ended up catching up on a couple of shows that we had been watching.

The next morning we had to be up early so that we could get to Girard to have our awning toppers replaced on our three slides. Up at 5:30am to get the coach over to Girard only to find out that our appointment was slated for 8:00, not 7:00 like we thought. Could have slept another hour! They took the rig at about 8:15 and were able to remove all three in about an hour.

I was able to talk them into letting me inspect the top of the full wall slide because we have been having a moldy smell in one of our closets. I found two screws that were suspect and a slit along the waterproof skin. A little bit of silicone and I think I have at least stopped the leak. They took the coach back into the bay and were able to put the new fabric on the toppers. Bill – $2,500. Another ouch!

Unfortunately, we discovered that our chassis batteries were not holding a charge when we had to bring the slides in and out so many times without being connected to shore power.

A quick call to Bay Diesel confirmed that they had two batteries and could fit us in. Off we went to get new chassis batteries! The good news is that they also found a disconnected wire for our Tire Pressure Monitoring System (TPMS) that reports heat and tire pressure to our cab for both the coach and the towed truck which they fixed. At least the costs were coming down – only $400.

All-in-all a very expensive couple of days in Alabama! At least we felt much more comfortable with our upcoming trip over the summer. The good news is that we won’t have to repair these items for many years to come.

Because we got a later start that we anticipated, we decided that we could not stop at our friends, Bill and Nancy Baird from MRMR, place in Sturgis, KY as the drive was longer than we felt comfortable with.

Katrina found us a place in Paducah, KY to spend the night.