Our 2016 Summer Adventure - Dutchmen Owners
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Old 08-28-2016, 04:22 AM   #1
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Join Date: Sep 2014
Location: Sierra Vista
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Arizona
Our 2016 Summer Adventure

We just got back from our Summer adventure. We visited 11 National Parks, 4 National Monuments, Mt. Rushmore National Memorial and Custer State Park. The states we covered were Arizona, Utah, Wyoming, South Dakota, Colorado and New Mexico. We got to celebrate the National Park Service's 100th anniversary with birthday cake at Petrified Forest NP.

Things took a toll on our rig however.
I overextended the power tongue jack and broke the shear pin. Two hours to fix.
I drove over the wheel chocks and broke them. My bad.
Coming down off the Rocky Mountains the rear left wheel bearings failed and damaged the axle. Took a month to get this fixed. We went home while the trailer was in the repair shop in Colorado.
The screw that holds the slideout mechanism drive motor in place came loose from the gearbox causing the drive motor to fall out. Fortunately the enclosed belly pan kept all the parts intact. It took maybe an hour to fix. The belly pan material is held in place with self-tapping screws so that made it easy to gain access to the mechanism and close things back up after the repair work.
Somewhere in Colorado is an antenna-eating tree with our TV antenna hanging from a branch. Ordered a new one from Amazon.
A valve stem on one of the tires developed a leak and flattened the tire. Fortunately the TPMS warned us in time to prevent serious damage to the tire. The TPMS just paid for itself.

Our two-month trip became a three-month trip due to the need for the new Lippert axle.

Despite these inconveniences we had a blast and we are glad to be back home safe and sound.
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Old 08-28-2016, 11:25 AM   #2
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All part of RV'ing. I have several thousand dollars of "pilot error" mistakes myself. Nice thing is that when it's expensive, you have a tendency not to repeat.
Rusty
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Old 08-28-2016, 04:08 PM   #3
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Florida
Sorry for the problems. We have just returned from two months in the Dakotas, Wyoming, and Montana and found the roads to be horrible. My 2016 325RL stayed together but we did have 3 blowouts on the trip and the black water valve stuck closed and the AC was only working at about half-capacity. All items repaired and 5 new load range E tires installed. We are going on a two-week shake down trip next week, staying near home.
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Old 08-30-2016, 10:55 PM   #4
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Ontario
Nice! Despite your troubles, that sounds like a wonderful trip. In fact, I'd like to duplicate most of that trip except maybe do it when it's winter here.
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