In the morning, we toured the “hall of deer” (or whatever it was called) in the Cabela’s store:
There was a nice aquarium in the store as well:
And a variety of stuffed large game animals were in the store as well:
Looking over the fishing department:
We stopped at the Flight 93 National Memorial. The weather seemed to match the mood of the place. It was very sad and moving.
We spent Shabbos at Laurel Mountain State Park nearby. See the trip map for today’s drive and our current location.
Leaving our house in Rockland County, NY, we drove through the driving rain Westward. The original plan was to take Route 80 across Pennsylvania and spend the night at a Walmart in Du Bois or Clarion, but I checked my “RV places to see” list and realize we would be going somewhere close to the Cabelas Super Store near Hamburg, Pennsylvania. So we decided to go down that way. This is the kind of unplanned wandering that we could never do on our strictly regimented summer vacations, but since there are 350ish days left on this trip, why not?
We arrived at sunset and found an entire section of the parking lot is dedicated specifically for RVs:
The superstore is a quarter million square feet is size. The airplane in the background of this photograph is full size, and its hanging from the ceiling. There’s also an extensive aquarium and several displays of stuffed animals like the one shown here:
The fishing section alone is larger than some sporting goods stores I’ve visited in the past. Good thing real estate is cheap out here!
Our amazing WiFi antenna and amplifier are working incredibly well, and right now all of our wireless devices are connected via our wireless router and through the antenna to a wireless access point at a Lowe’s about half a mile from here. Amazing! All of this is being powered by our inverter which is wired into the breaker box, allowing every outlet in the RV to provide A/C power.
We drove about 150 miles today. Tomorrow we continue to head West, hopefully putting in another 300 miles or so. See the trip map for today’s drive and our current location.
After about a month of preparation getting the house ready and getting moved out into the RV, we’ve actually hit the road!
Well, at least we’ve left our driveway. We’re now in the parking lot of the local community college having a late lunch at about 3:45 p.m.. After that, will be hitting the open road, westward bound.
The adventure begins!
We’ve been having a problem with the back end of the RV hitting the ground when we drive into a steep driveway. The problem was so bad that I welded a set of skid wheels onto the back of the RV. Last time they hit, we were going around a corner, and while the wheels held up, the sideways force bent the frame member to which one of the wheels is attached.
I decided more drastic action was in order, namely removing the axles from being mounted above the leaf springs and mounting then below the leaf springs. This move would increase the trailer clearance by about 5.5 inches, which should be enough to eliminate any bottoming out issues on steep driveways.
The first step was to remove the axle:
Next I removed the hub:
Next, the brake plate comes off:
Finally, the axle is removed:
The axle has some bend in it so that it is flat when under load. Therefore the axle has to stay in the same orientation as before. This means that the axle perch, the component that meshes the axle to the springs, is facing the wrong way, as the axle used to mesh to the springs on the axle’s bottom. Now that the axle is below the springs, the axle perch needs to be on top of the axle. This problem is solved by adding a second axel perch.
Here’s the difference for between the modified axle (left), and the original axle (rght):
I did all four axles. Now that it’s done, I hope we will never have to deal with the back-end of the trailer dragging along the ground.
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