Our stop in Elkhart, where our motorhome was manufactured by Forest River, proved fruitful. We had to have the television replaced, and since no direct replacements for the old fashioned CRT model are available, we upgraded to a 26″ Toshiba LCD with some HD capabilities. We tested it with one of Susi’s DVDs and once she toned the color down a bit it looks great.

The wind whistle was the hard one to cure. The dealer was not successful, so we went to the factory the next morning. Besides the irritation, We were worried that the sound could indicate an air leak that could eventually lead to water damage, especially after two dealers were unable to fix it. At Forest River’s suggestion, we put a piece of rubber pipe insulation around one of the awning support bars. Voila! Whistle is gone, which also relives fears of a leak. Once again, a vote for the go-with-your-hunch school of mechanical repair because that’s what fixed it despite all the RV Techs who said they’ve never seen that type of awning support make noise.

We also added another battery for longer capacity when we don’t have “shore power”, and put a heavy rubber flap across the back of the RV to protect the Scion from rock damage. The truck instrument panel say we have “74% oil life remaning” meaning we dont’ need any engine service for a long while. I guess we are good to go!

Hooray for iPod and good sound! Before we left we added new speakers to what is essentially the Chevy van that underlies the RV. What a difference! Better bass sound from low on the doors plus to little tweeters that bounce sound off the windshield back to us sound a million times better. We also finally joined the digital age with an iPod and ripped about 3,000 songs from our CDs before we left. It is such a pleasure to shuffle through an entire genre like “the blues” rather than listening to one album at a time — and a lot less hassle than handling all the disks. Then today at a rest stop in Iowa with WiFi I subscribed to about 4 hours worth of NPR podcasts, so we even had “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me” this afternoon.

One bit of equipment bad news: my new computer seems to have fried it’s battery. Yesterday when I pulled it out of the bag it was very hot. It seems that it must have woken while asleep and run hard enough to thoroughly overheat. Now I have to plug it in to use it. Since it’s only a few months old, I’ll try out the Lenovo warranty.