Hi, we are the C.L.E.M.S..

Welcome to our blog. We are taking a 30 day cross country road trip with our three kids and dog. For privacy sake we are not using our real names. My husband is Sparky, our 10 yr old daughter is Little Bear, our oldest son, who will turn 9 on this trip, is Legoboy, and our youngest son, who is 6 3/4, is Carboy. Oh, and don’t forget our mini dachshund, Oscar (Meyer Wiener).

With a family of five plus canine, a standard vehicle trip just didn’t seem feasible and I felt it was a little cruel to have the kids strapped into car seats for, who knows how long each day. So, we set out to find or rent a motorhome, a home on wheels. We found that renting was WAY out of our price range, especially when you calculated the $1 per mile you have to pay, and we still couldn’t get the bed configuration we needed.

The hunt to buy netted us a 1985 Windcruiser Winnebago Itasca. It was an oldie but a goodie. It has two single beds in the back and a queen sized futon/sofa in the main room and a drop down bed over the drivers seat. Perfect to sleep 5.

The selling dealer did a few things to bring it up to inspection, like a new exhaust system.

Flyer, as we have lovingly nicknamed our sluggish to start but cruises on the open highway motor home, gave us quite an adventure all in it’s own in the five weeks since we got her. We started out with a laundry list of fixes and upgrades. First we had a steal bunk bed welded over one of the twins in the back so all three kids can sleep in the back room together. Then we repaired the stair to move it forward to give us a full step down after Little Bear took a tumble, installed a hand rail and a few more seat belts. Ripped out all the shag carpet in the cupboards and replaced the old drawer system with MDF shelving. Luckily the folks before us had already ripped the shag carpet out of the main areas and laid “wood” laminate. We also wallpapered the bare plywood walls around the kitchen and about 100 other little things.

It had been suggested to us that we drive Flyer around town and on short trips to see how things went and if anything were to break we could fix it before our trip. We started driving her to run errands about 40 minutes away and things worked pretty good but we did notice a new things that needed to be fixed, what did we expect for 1985 when it’s 2013. We did manage to order an original owners manual which gave us some info. Winnebago has been pretty awesome.

We knew it was meant to be when the license plate for Flyer came and it said “GAB”, the nickname for our son, Gabriel, who would have been 7. Only fitting that in a small way he is here with us in thought.

Then just three days before we left it happened, the big break and I don’t mean in a good way. The generator stopped working. Yikes, that is our power source when we are not plugged in. We scrambled to find anyone who would even look at it within this month and it was the only the 5th! We did finally find a mobile generator service and he came out to look at it and basically gave us the bad news that the starter wasn’t going to work and we’d have to have it rebuilt or jump the generator every time we ran it. Getting it rebuilt would mean dropping the whole pan from the coach and taking out the 600lb generator. No one had time to that for us before we left so at least it will run as we need it with a jump, but it’s certainly not as convenient as simply pushing a start button…

Then that same day we found out that, what we thought was a simple fix for the drivers AC was actually in need of a part, not just any part, an 1985 Winnebago part that they added to the Chevy chassis, an aloof part. After 45 minutes on the phone with everyone under the sun at the local camper supply company, Winnebago, Victory Climate Systems, and Parker Hannifin the local guy came through with the part to be overnighted to our house for Friday morning, just one day before we were to leave. Our local mechanic confirms he can install it before we leave and Sparky is relieved as he was sweating just thinking about the trip with no AC for him in the cab while the kids and I are riding in style in the coach with full AC units.

Friday, the part arrived as promised and I rushed it over to the garage, phew! 3:30 pm, update – part needs couplings to connect it to the hoses and not just any couplings, refrigerant ones that are threaded and go from one size to another, more aloof parts… I called around and thought I had a lead where I could find them with the mechanic saying he would still install on Saturday. First thing Saturday am I drove Flyer the 30 minutes so they “could see exactly what was needed”. No go. Five more places were all strikes outs, man, I REALLY needed my MRO guys! I finally had to bag it because now half my day was gone and I hoped to be on the road at 6pm. Fat chance now…

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