New Jeep, Towing Vehicles, Salt and the RV and Killing Fleas

The week started with losing an hour of sleep when daylight savings time started.  Not sure I’ll ever get used to that.  Usually I wake up about 7 am and then just lay in bed and watch TV for an hour before getting up and getting my day going.  Well we are a few days into the new time thing and I’m slowing working my way back to waking up at 7 instead of 8 am.  But, hey, we’re retired, so does it really matter?

We’ve been saving up with the hopes of upgrading our jeep from a 2-door to a 4-door with more storage in the back end.   Well we finally reached a financial point that I could start looking around.  For a few months now I’ve been searching the internet for just the right jeep – you know, low mileage, low price, but bigger than ours….  I’ve been watching for them back in the Oklahoma City and Sulphur area but just for fun started looking at the Corpus Christi area as well.  Then BAM, there it was one day sitting on a BMW lot in Corpus!  Everything we were looking for as well as a great price and low mileage plus two years newer than ours.  I spent time in prayer over this and God just kept the door open.  In the end, we got more than I expected for a trade and the price on the jeep we bought was well under book. 

On Monday we cleaned up our old jeep and cleaned everything out of it and on Tuesday went to Corpus to make the deal.  We had to take the old jeep to a hitch place to have the tow bar removed and next Monday we will go back with the new jeep to get it reinstalled.  Then John will add some things like a quick disconnect on the battery and some things we need to hook up our brake system for towing.  Glad he’s so handy.  See my info on towing a vehicle at the end of this blog.

 On Wednesday we made a trip back out to the Aransas Wildlife Refuge to check out some more areas we hadn’t walked into.  We were looking for a place we had heard had several gators and when we thought we found it, I stayed in the car with the dogs while John trekked around it.  Sure enough, he found 5 of those bad boys and at least one was resting with his head facing the walking path about 5’ away.  John agreed, no dogs on that trail whether they are carried or not.  Gators can move very fast and we are not interested in them having our girls for dinner.

The fleas in south Texas are horrible!  Our girls have never had fleas but they got them here even with Frontline Plus.  The vet in Rockport said the topical treatments don’t seem to work.  I guess the fleas have become immune.  They don’t have a cold enough winter to kill them off either.  So, she gave us Nexgard, which is a chewable.  After reading about it we were hesitant to give it to them for fear of seizures or even death but finally we felt at peace about it and gave it to them this week.  Thank goodness they didn’t have any adverse reactions to it so they should be flea free now.  Yea!!  We’ll definitely have a chit chat with our regular vet about this.  I had just purchased 6 months of Frontline Plus and don’t want that to go to waste.  Hopefully, I can use that up when we get back north and then we may need to move to Nexgard.  It isn’t cheap though.

Thursday was cleaning day.  Even though we aren’t right at the water, the salt water still gets on the cars and RVs so we had Scrub Monkeys come out and give the RV a good washing.  We topped that off with putting on a roof treatment to keep the roof in good shape.  Now John just needs to get up there and check all the caulking.  I headed to the laundromat with all the bedding, rugs, dog beds, and blankets to deflea all those things.  It’s going to be nice to be rid of all that problem.

Even though we don’t own a home, there is still maintenance that needs to be done to the RV and if it’s a motorhome, there is maintenance with the engine, chassis, tires and keeping the wheels balanced.  Once a year we take it into a truck place for routine preventive maintenance and a truck tire place to check the tires and the wheel balancing.  We also have to maintain the generator and change the oil in it as well as check the coach batteries, which often need distilled water.  Right now we are dealing with a refrigerator that has problems and the first company we hired just walked away from us as they didn’t want to mess with it.  So now we are waiting for a second company to come and take a look.  We prefer to use mobile RV repair folks so we don’t have to move out of it for days at a time.  So more to come with that.   John is learning a lot of things himself thanks to online videos.  In fact, an RV group offers an RV technician school that we are looking at.  You can either attend it in person or purchase the videos and materials and do it at your own pace.  May be worth it.

Towing a Vehicle – We used to bring a car and a motorcycle with us on the road and had a huge trailer that the bike would sit crosswise in and the front wheels of the car went up on the back of it.  It was a front wheel drive vehicle so towing it that way was not a problem.  The problems came with the two straps that went over the wheels.  We went through several of them as they would wear out from the wheels moving around when we turned.  Maybe we just weren’t getting them on right, but as we got older loading all that up and having to push that trailer around became more than we wanted to deal with so we sold all of it and bought a Jeep Wrangler. 

The Jeep can be towed with all four wheels on the ground.  BE AWARE – not all vehicles can be towed this way and it is imperative that you check the manual or go online to find the vehicle you want to tow in the Motorhome Dinghy Towing Guide.  For those that can be towed this way, there are still lots of instructions – some are limited to how fast you can go, some must be started after so many hours, how do you get them setup with the transmission and battery so they can be towed and so on.  We have a 4-wheel drive automatic Jeep Wrangler and it’s a breeze.  The battery must be disconnected so we put in a quick disconnect.  With the key turned to on you put the regular transmission in neutral, then the 4-wheel into neutral and then the regular transmission into park.  Start the vehicle up and put it in drive or reverse and see if it moves – hopefully it doesn’t.  Then hook up and you’re good to go.  There are no speed limits or driving time limits on it.

Also know, that in most states if you are towing a vehicle over 3,000 lbs. you will be required to have a brake system of some sort in the vehicle.  Some states require it regardless of weight.  There are several different types to choose from so you will need to do your homework. 

That’s all for now.  Have a great day!