Tour Guide - Part 2

8:17 am - Friday - September 7th - Southwest Harbor, ME - 56º F, 84% humidity, wind 6 mph out of the north......partly cloudy today with a forecast high of 67º F.

We began our first day (Thursday) with Glenn (brother-in-law) and Laureen (TLE's younger sister) by meeting them at 'Eat-A-Pita' for breakfast about 10 am.  It's been about 18 months since we have gotten together.  The last time was at our school reunion in Las Vegas in March of 2017.  We really had no plan for the day, and sometimes that is the best way to begin a day of touring.....just make it up as you go.  Well, the first part was deciding at the last minute to have breakfast at our favorite local breakfast place. From there we drove both cars up to Southwest Food Mart where we left the VW in their parking lot, and continued on with Glenn and Laureen in their rental car to spend the day exploring the highlights of Acadia National Park.  They are only here for parts of three days so there was not a lot of time!

Glenn suggested I play chauffeur, and I accepted the task.  We began our drive over towards Bar Harbor deciding to hit Cadillac Mountain first.  The other day (before Labor Day) when we were there with Charles and Bobbie we had a difficult time finding a parking spot, but this time (after Labor Day) we found a spot pretty quickly.  As always we talked continuously as we walked around the various paved trails at the summit.  The day had begun overcast, but by the time we finished breakfast the cloud cover had melted away.  Nevertheless, it was quite humid, which restricted the amazing view from the summit a tad, but it was still amazing as always.

Cadillac Mountain 'usie'

.....from there we headed over to Sand Beach.  TLE and I had yet to visit Sand Beach, so this would be the first time for all four of us.  The road to Sand Beach is a two lane, one way loop road.  This is the only place in the park that I am aware of where you must pass through a formal kiosk where you show a park pass, or your National Parks card to enter.  There are two attractions along this multi mile one way drive.....Sand Beach, and Thunder Hole.  Sand Beach was our first stop where we very easily found a parking place for our car.....

.....Sand Beach is a popular sun bathing and swimming beach.  The only other sand beach I am aware of is the small one I have written about previously.....Wonder Land......where one might sun bath, but it would be very difficult to swim due to all the rocks.  Sand Beach, as you can see from the pictures is quite large, and there were a lot of people there on Thursday.  We opted to skip Thunder Hole as the tide was all wrong, and the parking would have been impossible.....

.....TLE, of course, took her flip flops off immediately and was wading in the water.  Laureen was wear tennis shoes, and much to her dismay got hit by a small wave getting one of her shoes all wet.

From there we drove over to Jordan Pond to see if we could snag a parking spot, and were unsuccessful, so we headed over to the Asticou Inn for popovers and coffee.  As we drove it began to rain, and when we arrived at the Inn it was still raining, however, we were still able to sit outside at a table with an umbrella adequate enough to shield us from the drizzle.  We had a delightful time enjoying the cloud shrouded view of Northeast Harbor while we continued out non-stop conversation.  After our popovers we walked across the street to the Asticou Azalia Gardens to walk around before returning to Jordan Pond once again.  We were successful in snagging a parking spot on our second attempt....

Jordan Pond

Charles and Bobbie where still in the area, so we made arrangements to meet them at the Bar Harbor Inn Terrace Grill for dinner at 5:30 pm.  We arrived a little early, but went ahead and got a table knowing Charles and Bobbie would follow in about 45 minutes.  I'm glad we did as the rest of the tables were gone well before 5:30.  

Sharing a few cocktails and great conversation

at the Terrace Grill

To say the weather and ambiance were spectacular would be an understatement.....I'm not sure there are adequate words to adequately describe how truly special the evening was.  It was all for which I could have hoped and a lot more.....

Charles and Bobbie joined us shortly after 5:30 and we placed our wine and entree orders (we all ordered their grill salmon dinner!).  Just as we were finishing our dinners the sun began to set to the west of us......just beautiful!

As we paid our bills we took a few sunset pictures and then headed for our vehicles.  We said our 'until next times' to Charles and Bobbie before heading back to Southwest Harbor for the evening.  Glenn and Laureen dropped us off at the VW and we made plans to meet for breakfast again Friday morning.  Friday will be their final day here in their brief MDI visit so we will make the most of our time.

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"I love that dirty water...."

6:34 am - Thursday - September 6th - Southwest Harbor, ME - 66º F, 96% humidity, wind 15 mph out of the southwest.......cloudy with a 40% chance of rain, and a forecast high of 76º F today.

Our time here in Southwest Harbor is coming to an end in just over a week.  The last 4 weeks have been such a Godsend.  We've been able to finish hiking most of the trails we wished to hike, and seen pretty much everything we wished to see.  Being given that time by Tony and Janet is such a gracious gift, and we are forever indebted to them.  In about 9 days we will haul our anchor and begin a leisurely 5 week trek to our next and final job of the year in Campbellsville, KY passing through New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey and Delaware.....that's a lot of states in 5 weeks!  Of course we will pass through numerous other states we have passed through in prior east coast swings, but our goal is to finish our east coast swing having visited all 48 States in the Continental USA before we notch our 49th (Alaska) next summer.

Thursday Elaine's sister, Laureen, and her husband, Glenn, will be arriving in Southwest Harbor for a 3 day stay.  We are looking forward to spending time with them.  Had we still been working, it would have been much more difficult to co-ordinate their visit with our pretty inflexible work schedule......now it is not an issue.

We had scheduled a pump out service to come and pump out our black tank as it has been four weeks since we last dumped and flushed the tank.  We did drain some of the black water out about two weeks ago into a large 30 gallon blue tote designed specifically for that purpose, which has helped extend the time before we have to really dump everything.  All we knew is that the driver was supposed to be here between 7 am, and whenever, so we were relegated to staying home until he arrived and did his duty.

The blue tote

In the interim we spent some time watching the confirmation hearings of Judge Kavanaugh who has been nominated to fill the seat of retiring Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy.  What a circus! Or better yet......great Kabuki Theater!  In the first two days of the hearings significantly more than 100 spectators have been removed and arrested for screaming various leftist slogans, and insults.  On top of that those senators who reside to the left of center, speaking out of order, interrupted the chairman of the Judiciary Committee over 70 times.  I don't recall anything of this scale and breadth like this ever happening at a the Kagan, or Sotomayor confirmation hearings.  Of course, my memory could just be deficient, but I'm pretty sure I'm right.

The pump truck finally arrived about 1:30 pm, and within 30 minutes his truck had sucked up about 65 gallons of black water we generated over the past 4 weeks for a cost of $50 American.  Glad we didn't have to do that every week since we have been here....it would have been quite expensive!  Now we won't have to worry about dumping again until we are on the road.

"I love that dirty water!" - Standells (1966)

Our Wednesday was pretty much 'all about nothing', but sometimes it's just nice not to do anything.  We did watch the 9th of 10 episodes of 'Pacific' before watching recorded episodes of 'Elementary' and 'So You Think You Can Dance' before retiring to bed for the evening.

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Lights, camera.....action!

6:34 am - Wednesday - September 5th - Southwest Harbor, ME - 57º F, 94% humidity, wind 1 mph out of the south by southeast......partly cloudy today with a forecast high of 72º F.  It got down into the mid 50's last night, and this morning we have the heater running to take the chill off the interior......what a contrast to Tuesday.

When we woke up Tuesday it was already 70º.  It had only gotten down to 78º in our bedroom during the night, so we were anticipating a warm day, and that is what we received.  Tony and his wife were out trimming bushes, and doing other yard work type stuff very early, but by 10 am they were inside running their A/C, and so were we.  It wasn't that it was that hot, but more the high humidity in the air that made it so uncomfortable.

Before we were chased inside I worked on fixing a failed brake light on the VW.  Charles and Bobbie were following us in their truck over to Thurston's on Sunday, and when we arrived Charles had mentioned our left brake light was not working.  We've owned the VW for several years now, and I've never had to replace any of the lights, so I had no idea how to get to the brake/turn/running light assembly.  I first pulled out the stuff we keep in the hatch area, and then began to examine the area near where I would assume you should be able to service that left rear lens.  I finally noticed a round disk about 4" in diameter that looked like it could be removed.....  

The access port

......I then removed that disk thinking I would be able to see the rear of the light assembly and remove the defective bulb, only I could see only wires, and sheet metal......

  
.....then I saw this 'thumb' screw.  It seemed that if I unscrewed that 'thumb' screw the lens would be loosened and I could then pull it away from the car thereby granting access to the bulb.  To be sure I went on YouTube to see if there was a video showing how to replace the brake light bulb......

How to replace a brake light bulb on a 2001 VW Beetle

.......and found one immediately!  I watched it a couple of times, and it confirmed my suspicion.....that 'thumb' screw was the key.  Don't you just love YouTube for stuff like this?!  Over the years we have owned our Beetle I have been impressed at how easy it is to fix stuff like this.  You might recall a couple of years ago our fuel pump failed while we were in Mexican Hat, UT.  After we were towed back to our campsite I went online and ordered a new fuel pump to install when we got back to 'civilization'.  My friend, Tom, McCloud, contacted me with a YouTube video link showing how easy it was to access the fuel pump, and replace it.  Most everything on this car has been just as easy to fix thanks to YouTube!

Within minutes I removed the defective bulb, determined the replacement part number, and then drove over to the local Napa Auto Parts store about 1/2 mile away and got two new dual filament brake like bulbs, and replaced the defective one just before 10 am.  Okay, it's too warm.....time to cool down in the A/C!

The rest of the day was spent reading, and staying cool.  I think the temperature ultimately reached 80º F, but by 3 pm it began to cool quite quickly.  We did make a run to Food Mart to pick up a few things around 1 pm, but that was the extent of our day.  We had planned to meet up with Charles and Bobbie for dinner, but TLE was dealing with a sinus headache most of the day, so we decided to stay home for the evening.

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Saying goodbye.......

7:38 am - Tuesday - September 4th - Southwest Harbor, ME - 71º F, 85% humidity, wind 8 mph out of the north by northwest......sunny with a forecast high of 75º F.

Monday, Labor Day, began with heavy overcast, but by 11 am the sky had cleared and it was very sunny.  It was also quite humid....not the worst we have had in northeastern Maine by a long shot, but noticeably, palpably humid, nonetheless.  Remarkably, I am beginning to care less and less about humidity.  Maybe the solution to my humidity phobia all along was to just live where it was humid for 4.5 months and get used to it.

We had plans to meet Charles and Bobbie at their RV park in Trenton for a pizza dinner around 6 pm, so we had the entire day to ourselves.  So what did we do.....pretty much nothing....lol.  I did have the Dell Technology PGA tour event on from about 10 am all the way until after 5 pm when we left to drive up to Trenton.  I did finish reading another book, and TLE pretty much read all day long.......she is a major reader, and by comparison puts me to shame with her voracious reading of one book after another.

At one point TLE broke away from her current book to clean our thermal coffee carafe, which she does on an as needed basis.  She had dismantled the screw on lid to clean the interior workings when I heard her announce that there was a broken part.  Part of the reason she decided to clean it Monday was that it was pouring quite slowly, and she thought maybe something was clogged inside the lid.  In order to get it to pour you have to depress a small lever just above the handle with your thumb to allow the coffee to flow.  That lever had broken inside the lid.  So, this is where I get involved.  I love to fix things, but after examining what was broken, and where it was broken I was pretty sure nothing I have, including my two part epoxy, would fix it.  Nevertheless, I cleaned the part and then epoxied it.  After about 4 hours, more than adequate time for it to cure, I attempted to reinstall it, and sure enough it broke again.  As a result we are now in the market for an new thermal carafe.  The old one was was left over from our Starbucks Aroma Barista coffee maker we used for years before we replaced it with our current CorningWare electric percolator about 5 years ago.  This carafe would keep coffee hot for 12 hours!  In order to keep using the old one while we shop for a new one I glued the lid back together so it can still be used for a few more days.  Oh well, that is life.....stuff breaks, and on you move......

Getting ready to say 'goodbye' to another 

member of our coffee family

A little after 5 pm we began our drive up to Trenton to have dinner with Charles and Bobbie.  We arrived just after 5:30 (stopped to fill up the gas tank), and then we called Pat's Pizza in Ellsworth to order two 'Create Your Own' pizzas.  They said they would be ready in 20 minutes so we left within 5 minutes to make the 10 minute drive up to Pat's Pizza to retrieve our orders.  Unfortunately, right after we called they got slammed and it ended up taking another 20 minutes after we arrived to get our pizzas, but it's all good, right?  We're retired, what do we have to do?

We were back around 6:30 pm and headed outside immediately to eat our pizzas and watch the sun set.  As always we talked non-stop, and when the mosquitoes came out around 7:15 we headed back inside for more conversation, as well as dessert......vanilla ice cream with caramel sauce on top......yummy!  Bye the bye.......the pizza was muy delicioso!

Finally, around 9:30 pm we bid our adieus and headed for the barn once again.  We arrived home around 10 pm, and sat down to watch a recorded episode of  'Better Call Saul' before retiring for the evening......love that show!

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Tour guides.......

7:27 am - Monday - September 3rd - Southwest Harbor, ME - 65º F, 94% humidity, wind 9 mph out of the south by southwest.....overcast and a forecast high of 68º F today.

Sunday dawned clear and cool, and by the way, dawn is now 5:58 am here in northeast Maine.  Quite a change from back in May when it was dawning at 4 am!  Sunset is now at 7:06 pm.....the days are getting shorter and the summer season is just about gone.  

In spite of it being Labor Day weekend downtown Southwest Harbor was not quite as busy as it has been.  Most children are back in school now.  There is a saying here in Southwest Harbor that after Labor Day the tourists consist of the 'near dead' and the 'newly wed'.....very few families can be seen walking the streets of Southwest Harbor.  Some local businesses have already begun to 'shutter their windows' and will be closed until next summer.  Things seem to wind down pretty quickly here in northeast Maine.

Now, for the rest of MDI (Acadia National Park and Bar Harbor), things are still going full tilt and you have to get out pretty early to find a parking spot at the major attractions, which is pretty much everything in ANP (Acadia National Park).  We had agreed to meet Charles and Bobbie at the intersection of Highways 102, 3 and 198 (198 takes you to 3 and then into Bar Harbor) where we would park our car and join them in their large Ford crew cab to hit some of the highlights in Acadia National Park.  We met them about 10:30 am and headed for our first destination of the day....Cadillac Mountain.  What better place in ANP to get a great overview of the entire area......

 Bobbie and TLE

 Charles and moi

.......we reached the summit parking lot to find a long line of cars all looking for the same thing.....a parking spot.  Charles let the three of us off near the summit sidewalk and then set off to find such a spot.  While Bobbie, TLE and I walked around he circumnavigated the parking lot 5 times before finding a spot, but he was successful and eventually joined us.

After spending about 30 minutes taking in the almost always beautiful view (very few clouds this day) we headed down the hill and into Bar Harbor.  We knew we would have no chance on earth of finding a parking spot there within 1/2 a mile of the town center, so we just made a circle through the town to orient Charles and Bobbie to what was there, and some of our favorite eateries, and then headed out of town and down highway 3 towards Otter Creek, through Northeast Harbor, and ultimately back to Somesville where we had parked the VW.  Once we had retrieved the VW we headed through Southwest Harbor to Bernard and one of our favorite lobster pounds....Thurston's.  We arrived to find their parking almost completely full except for two spots at the furthest point from the restaurant so we dropped off the girls and went to snag those last two spots.  The great thing about Thurston's is no matter how full their parking lot is you will never have a hard time finding a table, or two.  They have quite a large dinning area with great views of Bass Harbor......

Bass Harbor view from Thurston's on Sunday

......Bobbie, Charles and I ordered their Lobster BLT, and TLE their Lobster Stew, which she adores.  In addition TLE and Bobbie ordered a bottle of some white wine, and Charles and I a bottle of an Argentinian Malbec.  If it is possible I loved the the Lobster BLT was even better than the last time I had it, and I loved it then!  The conversation flowed as we covered everything from 'A to Z' in the 90+ minutes we were there.  What a perfect way to end the afternoon!  By 3 pm we had made plans to meet up again Monday afternoon, and were both on our way back to our respective abodes.

As soon as we got home I turned on the golf tournament, then sat down and took a hour nap!  The great thing about watching golf on TV is that you don't miss too much in an hour....😀  We finished the evening watching the 7th episode of 'Pacific', and then retired to bed about midnight.....yeah, midnight.....haven't done that in a long time!

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Two for the price of one, and THE DILEMMA......

7:05 am - Sunday - September 2nd - Southwest Harbor, ME - 58º F, 100% humidity, wind 5 mph out of the south by southwest......cloudy with a forecast high of 68º F.

Since I used yesterday's blog post to give the interior pictorial tour of our coach  I haven't written about Friday yet, so the first part of this blog will cover Friday's happenings, then we'll get to Saturday.

Friday we were expecting to hear from our dear friends Charles and Bobbie sometime in the afternoon as they would be arriving for about a week of touring Acadia National Park.  I have known Charles since junior high school, so we go way back.  They live in Arizona through the winter and early spring, and travel in their Landmark 5th wheel during the summer into early fall each year to escape the Arizona heat.  The past three summers we have met up with them wherever we happened to be working.  In 2016 it was South Lake Tahoe, in 2017 it was Yellowstone, and this year, of course, here in Acadia National Park.  At any rate, since we were not sure when we would hear from them we hung around home most of the day.

I spent time puttering in the trailer, and fixing my most favorite coffee cup ever.  I have had this coffee cup since 2005, or 2006.  It was given to me by one of my sons-in-law after he and my daughter had returned from a trip to Alaska to visit his parents.  This is the best thermal coffee cup I have ever had.  It keeps my precious coffee HOT for about an hour.  It's only flaw over the years has been the propensity of the handle to become detached from the coffee cup.  I have reglued this handle to 'old green' about 5 times over the years using two part epoxy.  The most recent time was over 3 years ago, and that repair has lasted the longest of all the repairs I have done.  This coffee cup is like a guy's favorite t-shirt that he wears until it virtually turns to dust.  I really love this cup, and have so many good memories attached to it!

My 'Alaska' coffee cup

When the handle came off a few years ago I actually went online to see if I could find one just like it, and actually found one on eBay, but I decided to stick with 'old green' and fixed the handle.  Well, it came off the other morning while I was holding it by the handle.  The cup fell into my lap, and spilled a little coffee on me, but thankfully I always drink my coffee with the snug fitting lid attached.  In a weak moment I went online to Amazon to just look for another double wall, insulated thermal coffee cup and ordered it......

The new cup keeping my coffee hot!

.......it is just a 'plain Jane' stainless steel, double wall thermal cup, but it has a matching stainless steel handle that appears to be pretty firmly attached.  It was a moment of extreme weakness, but I felt it was time for something new.  After I had ordered it I felt bad, and went out to the trailer to clean off the old epoxy and reglue the handle on to 'old green' one more time.  It actually turned out quite well......

The offending handle reglued

.....and now I am in a quandary....do I continue to use 'old green', and wait for the inevitable failure of the epoxy sometime in the distant future, or do I embrace the new cup and get on with my life?  On the one hand I love the open ended handle on 'old green' which allows me to grip it firmly.....

.....since it has a rubber coated grip I never feel like it will slip out of my hand, unless it just falls off once again.  I'm able to grip the new cup in similar fashion, but the handle is not as manly as the old one.....

.....I can still get three of my fingers inside the handle, and this new cup does keep my coffee hot just as long as the old one.  On the other hand this new cup has no personality....no character, no history, and no memories.....what do I do?  Such are the dilemmas of the retired man.......😏  

We heard from Charles and Bobbie about 4 pm, and agreed to meet them at their RV park in Trenton about 5:30 pm.  Trenton is about 1/2 way to Ellsworth and the drive takes about 20 minutes so we left home at 5 pm to make the drive over to the 'Narrows Too' RV Park.  We sat talking, and catching up for about 2 hours before we bid them adieu after making plans to meet up again on Saturday for lunch.

We were back home by 8 pm, and settled in for the evening.  We knew the overnight low was going to be in the low 50's, and it, indeed, got down to 52º outside.  The temp in the bedroom got down to 55º F with ALL the windows open.....how delightful!  I actually turned on my electric blanket about 5 am for the first time since early June!

Saturday we awoke to English Premier Soccer.....three games in a row!  Saturday also kicked off the NCAA college football season with games all day long and into the late evening.  Additionally it was the second round of the current PGA tour event being held near Boston, MA....what more could a guy ask for with a cornucopia of sporting events from which to choose.

Charles and Bobbie had come into Trenton a day earlier than they had planned, and the site they had originally reserved (right on the ocean) was not available until Saturday, so they had to set up temporarily in another site.  As a result they had to move to their reserved site on Saturday, but couldn't until the customer occupying that site departed.  We know how that can work, right?  Well, they didn't depart until early afternoon, meaning Charles could not move their 5th wheel until then.  We finally heard from them about 3 pm via text message.  He had tried to call me, but my phone did not 'ring'.  When I got the text message I called him, but he didn't hear his phone ring either, so we were trading voice mails, and text messages.  Finally, via text message, we agreed to meet at Finn's Irish Pub in Ellsworth for lunch.  Bobbie was not feeling well, so Charles met us there and we had a lovely lunch.  We have been to Finn's before, as you might recall, and were looking forward to a return engagement.  Charles arrived a few minutes before we and secured a table.  The last time we had two of their appetizers, so we decided to order an actual meal this time.  I ordered their  'Finn's Burger' and was not disappointed in the 1/2 lb. burger.   TLE ordered their Ruben and was equally impressed.  I had a couple of pints of 'Allagash Black'.  We sat eating and talking for close to two hours before we bid Charles adieu and headed for the barn.  We'll get together with he and Bobbie on Sunday for a driving tour of Bar Harbor, then up to Cadillac Mountain and finish the afternoon at Thurston's over in Bernard.

I spent the rest of the afternoon watching portions of several NCAA football games, as well as the tail end of the 2nd round of the 'Dell Technology' golf tournament.  In the evening we continued watching 'Pacific' beginning with episode 4 (10 episodes in all).  We finished the night getting through episode 6.  This series is very intense and attempts to accurately portray the utter brutality of the war in the Pacific, which involved taking back one island at a time, bunker by bunker from the Japanese, who would rather die than surrender.  It was brutal to watch....I cannot even imagine what it would be like to fight that kind of war under those extreme conditions.

We were both in bed a little after 11 pm looking forward to Sunday's events!  Thanks for stopping by!

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1982 Newell Classic Interior tour.....

7:41 am - Saturday - September 1st - Southwest Harbor, ME - 52º F, 98% humidity, wind 5 mph out of the northeast....clear blue skies this morning and all day with a forecast high of 67º F.

I alluded to several recently published comments (see yesterday's post) which gave me a few ideas for future posts, and one of those was from one of my regular readers, Patsy Irene, whom we met along with her husband when we were boondocking near Borrego Springs two winters ago.  She asked if I would provide an interior pictorial tour of our 1982 Newell Classic Class A coach.  I thought that was a great idea, so here we go!

What better place to begin than the actual entrance to our coach.  Newells are known for their mid coach entryways.  Although some were made with front entries, the majority have mid entries.....

 Entry stairs

....... originally our entry was carpeted.......

.....the entry door is quite tall.........

 Very tall door

......just to the left of the entry door, and although technically outside, is our Norcold 12 volt chest style cooler/freezer....it can be used as either.  We choose to keep our beer stock here to free up room in the fridge for things we use on a daily basis.......

 Norcold chest cooler/freezer (↑) & the beer (↓)

......right now it is full of a summer's worth of craft beer purchases.....we'll have to work on drinking some of it now!

We'll start the interior tour of our coach with the bedroom.  This picture is taken from the hallway which connects to the bathroom, shower and kitchen areas.  The bed is a walk around queen size bed......

Bedroom

.....the platform for the bed is attached to the top of the platform with a piano hinge on one end, and gas shocks on the other so it can be raised to access our large storage area under the bed, which also includes a 'wine rack'......

 From bedroom looking down hallway to front

Kitchen - from Salon looking through kitchen down hallway to bedroom

........next we look back towards the bedroom from the kitchen, and then from the kitchen forward to the salon area.......

 Salon - Back to front (↑) & front to back (↓)

........looking from the center console back through the salon to towards the bedroom.

Now for some individual features in the coach.  Just over the center console are the analog electrical gauges which give us information about the electricity usage in our coach via our 50 amp connection.  As you may know, a 50 amp plug has two 'legs' each providing 50 amps of electrical power (if you are indeed connected to a 50 amp outlet) for a total of 100 amps.  The two outside gauges tell how many volts are flowing into the coach.  The two gauges to either side of the center gauge.......12 volt amp indicator [+/-]....show how many A/C amps we are consuming at any given time.   The center analog 12 volt amp gauge shows whether our batteries are charging, or discharging at any given time.

I love analog gauges!

 Bathroom - sink

Bathroom - Dometic ceramic toilet

 Shower/tub on the other side of the hallway from the bathroom

 NUTONE food processing center

 Coffee bean grinder

DVR, altimeter and analog battery condition

Above the driver's seat is our DVR, as well as our DVD player.  Just below them we have an aircraft style altimeter, and to its right is our analog battery condition indicator.

Next up is our Dometic Classic absorption refrigerator/freezer.  This unit is about 9 years old.  The original Dometic refrigerator was beginning to give up the ghost back in 2012, so we began to think about replacing it with a new unit.  No point in awaiting its demise before we take action, right?  A good friend of ours who also has a Newell, had removed this Dometic from their coach to replace it with a household type refrigerator.  He graciously gifted this one to us when it was about 2 years old.  We removed the old one, and installed the new one ourselves with our friends help.  It has worked flawlessly ever since!

 Dometic absorption refrigerator

Another very important appliance is our Splenide 2000 washer/dryer combo.  The original one, which was 35 years old, stopped working about 9 months ago when we were at the Grand Canyon.  We found this much newer one on eBay for $700 shipped.  I installed it while we were staying in SoCal back in April.  Not having to spend hours in a laundromat simplifies our lives, and enables us to to do other things around the coach while our laundry is being cleaned.   We would not be without it!

 Splendide washer/dryer combo

The pantry

Our pantry is located just above the Splendid, and adequately holds most of our staples which we need to access on a regular basis.  

So, there you have it.  If any of your have questions, or want to see something I have not covered here let me know via the comments section, and I will do my best to answer your questions, or take pictures of anything I may have left out. At another time, soon, I will give a tour of the exterior of the Newell including the big Detroit Diesel 6v92, and all of the storage areas.

Thanks for stopping by!

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