The Gala of the Royal Horses came to the RV Park

Yesterday afternoon we had the pleasure to watch two of the beautiful horses from the troupe of royal horses perform right here on the lawn in our RV Park.

The Gala of the Royal Horses is an equestrian troupe that came originally from Australia. They have settled here in the Ocala area on a large farm where they give residents and visitors the opportunity to see the troupe in action with performances of the Andalusian, Friesian, Lipizzaner and Arabian breeds.  Rene Gasser, the owner of the establishment, told us that the troupe travels extensively all over the country to entertain people with their specialized horse show.  The horses of Europe are some of the most celebrated in history, favored for centuries by royalty and the performance is about the tradition, athleticism and grace of these admired animals.

Rene Gasser performed movements on an 8-year-old Lipizzaner horse called Cubano that were very impressive to me. Meanwhile his daughter had the audience in awe with performances of her Arabian horse.  It was interesting to learn that typically their horses start at the age of 3 with their training and continue with different levels until to the age of about 12 to 18 to be fully trained. So it takes 10 years for a horse to command all the movements and then they become teachers for the young riders. 

To learn more and to view a video of the horses click this link The Gala of the Royal Horses  of their official website.

We very much appreciated the performances and entertainment provided to us here at the Park. It was a beautiful event on a warm 82F/27C Saturday afternoon.  Stay tuned for my blog post about our daytrip last week to the Navy's finest that took a 637km/400mile round trip with our truck.

( Linda and Ed's youtube video from the comments section: klick here )

Fire at the RV Park

It’s a scary sight to see a plume of smoke rising from the roof of an RV.  That is exactly what happened yesterday afternoon while we were sitting over our cups of coffee and polishing off the last of our delicious European cookies while glancing out of the side window.  I noticed smoke wafting across the row of 75 yards away-parked fifth wheels and motorhomes.  My first thought was of someone having a campfire, but it was way too early for that.  I’d seen a rig being washed before and the spray and mist of the pressure washer making it look like smoke, but I ruled that out and I said to Benno to go out quickly and run over to investigate to see if in deed it was smoke and if our help was needed. 

Yes, there was a fire going inside of one of the parked motorhomes and a fellow RVer had just gotten on to the rooftop with a garden hose to spray water into a vent beneath him.  Several people had gathered around watching helplessly as more and more smoke and a flame billowed out of the now busted rooftop vent.  The owners of this 2004 Safari CHEETAH motorhome were outside as well looking upward where the smoke wafted around the roof.  Within minutes I heard the siren of a fire truck approaching.  (They came from the Marion County Fire Department and Art Sarrach, our RV Park Host rushed with his John Deere Gator to the Park entrance to guide the fire truck to the motorhome.)  As soon as the fire truck stopped on the paved road in front of the motorhome the firemen rushed out setting up a long fire hose while another fireman ran to the rig with a fire extinguisher.  The fire crew went on quickly about extinguishing the fire, but there was more smoke before the fire was out.  In the meantime another fire truck had arrived followed by a water truck and the fire chief in a separate car.

So what happened?  Today I talked with the owner of the motorhome.  He and his wife were sitting inside when they thought they smelled burning electrical wire but they could not see anything burning so they went outside to have a look and see what was burning. That was when they discovered that there was smoke coming out from the roof of their rig.  There was nothing they were able to do but to call the fire department.  The fire had started in the vicinity behind the Norcold Gas Absorption Refrigerator.  According to the owner, the electric heater element of the fridge did not shut off and that started the fire. This Diesel Pusher Safari CHEETAH   motorhome with a CAT 330 hp motor is 12 years old and had a warranty issue with the refrigerator, which was dealt with some years ago. By the time the firemen were finished, wall panels and rooftop liners were torn out in order to get to the source of the fire and hot spots.  There is extensive destruction inside in addition to smoke and water damage.  The owners stayed in a motel overnight and today they were waiting for the insurance adjustor to come for an assessment. Their insurance is giving an allowance of $750 for hotel expenses but I presume it will be a lengthy process to either fix or replace this beautiful motorhome.

Later, when Benno talked to the owner he was told that they had just recently done several upgrades to the rig including all new Michelin tires.  With tears in his eyes the owner told Benno that they are full-timers and they do not have a place to go to.

This was a very sad and scary incident that motivated me to search the Internet about RV fires.  Apparently there are over 6000 RV fires annually and refrigerator fires cause half of those and most of the fires occur while being stationary.   My goodness, that is an awful statistic.  I shudder at the thought of what might have happened if the owners had been away from the RV Park when the fire broke out.

It can get cold here in Florida too.

Yesterday we enjoyed lovely temperatures here in Ocala, FL. With lovely I mean sunny and warm but not hot, just right and it lured the dogs and me to sit outside in the semi shade of the big oak tree for a while watching the squirrels and our surroundings.

 It was also Elsa’s 1^st birthday, which meant another hotdog for each of our two rascals to celebrate the occasion.  Instead of a birthday hat Elsa chose to dress up with a pink bow, a girly thing. By the time the warmed up hotdogs appeared, Elsa and Reggy were more than ready to devour them and there was no way of holding them back.  Afterwards Benno and I took them for a walk around the RV Park.

For the last few days we have observed a crew working on the existing Cable TV for all sites here in the Wandering Oaks RV Park. The traditional TV cable system had served it’s purpose and now the crew from the Dish Network installed a satellite dish close to the Management location and fitted associated electronic parts and boosters for feeding a digital signal into the upgraded cable system. Every site has a new hookup post; I must say the picture quality has improved tremendously in addition to all the new channels we are now enjoying. Hey we now have satellite TV, what a park right :))

This park does not have a website, but is generally booked out quickly to 90%. The Wandering Oak RV Parks is well kept, has a loyal clientele and staying here is not killing your budget. So, if any of our readers are interested, I took a few pictures while walking around the three lanes between the rows of parked RVs.  There are large grassy areas to the south and east sides of the park and the north and west sides are adjacent to forest and treed parcels.  Although we see and hear the traffic of the US Hwy 441, there is quite a bit of open area in-between the park and the road. Ocala offers good shopping for food, 2 Walmart Supercenters, 10 Publix Supermarkets, 4 Winn Dixie Supermarkets, 2 ALDI Supermarkets, 3 Save-A-Lot Supermarkets just to name a few. For the boys there is a Northern Tools store, a Harbor Freight store and a huge Gander Mountain for hunting and outdoor goods, so that he could get off the couch.

 Our site is the second last at the end of this road

This is our site

What a difference a day makes.  While I write this the temps outside have changed dramatically from yesterday.  Overnight we experienced a big storm with severe lightening and thunder accompanied with torrential rains.  Inside the trailer the pounding of the rain on the roof sounded like a machine gun on full power and this ruckus lasted for hours. I had to take both doxies into the bed under the blanket because they were scared.  When we all woke up this morning the clock showed 9:30 a.m.  I don’t recall ever having slept in that late into the morning. Tonight the forecasted temperature will hit -3C/26F, but next week looks already much better.

Hayes Sway Master

Opening the box and unpacking the contents made me realize that this installation will be a disappointment for my tool collection. I had really hoped to have an excuse to get into the truck and run down to Harbor Freight or the Northern Tool store in pursuit of buying some more tools for a difficult and time-consuming installation of the Sway Master, but after reading the supplied installation and operation manual the shock set in. I discovered that this installation is an easy and simple undertaking, which as well, could be done by my lovely wife, Marlene. All that is involved after I determined the proper location for the Sway Master is to drill four holes. Yes, gentlemen, only 4 lousy holes. A girl can do this, right? No hard wiring, filing or painting, just 4 holes. This is a plug and play situation. Your existing trailer cord with female connector plugs into the Sway Master and the new, already attached 5-foot pigtail cord from the Sway Master plugs into the truck. By adding a small amount of dielectric silicon grease to the female connectors you prevent corrosion and it guarantees a good electrical connection. Of course with some plastic cable ties you could beautify the cable run for a neat look, but you could wrap the cable around something else, too. The nice thing about this unit is you could unplug the trailer’s original cord from the Sway Master and plug it directly into the truck to bypass the unit in case you feel the need to do this.

The installation is a breeze. After you position the Sway Master and mark the 4 holes with a sharp pointed tool or marker, you use a center punch to give the 7/32 or 5.5mm drill a starting point and then drill the holes. Once the holes are drilled, use a skinny 3/8-socket driver and drive the provided self-tapping screws in with the power drill on low speed. Reverse the power drill and remove the screws, add a little synthetic grease onto the screw threads and mount the Sway Master with a not a too high torque setting of your power drill’s clutch. Hayes even supplies a bracket for an out of the way storage of the pigtails female trailer cord connector. This bracket can be mounted at a convenient position of the tongue with 2 supplied self-tapping screws after you drilled two 9/64 holes.

Contents of the package

Tools needed: 3/8 socket driver, drill, center punch, self-tapping screws

A bird already marked the location :))

4 drilled and tapped holes

Mounted Hayes Sway Master

Side view

Bracket for the trailer plug to keep it off the ground

How did I come to the decision to purchase this electronic sway controller?  At the time we purchased our new 2016 White Hawk 24 RKS, Jayco offered a factory installed sway controller as an option, but they took it off the market in July of 2016. There were some problems with certain towing vehicle’s own brake controllers, which lead to troubles.

While towing our previous Jayco Swift 19RB, we managed okay and Marlene and I alternated driving duty on long runs. My honey is a good driver, even on our boat when not on autopilot she could hold course a lot better than I ever could. She has a very relaxed driving style. Yes, strong crosswinds or some large and fast driving 18-wheelers would shake the 19ft Jayco Swift but it was manageable.

While picking up the new 24ft Jayco White Hawk in the spring, I did notice a different trailer movement during the tow. The White Hawk is a lite weight trailer and it has a lot more sidewall surface. The crosswinds and fast moving, big trucks that passed us were playing a different game with the movement.

I was thinking we could manage it, but reality taught me a lesson when that 70+ mph driving 18 wheeler flatbed nailed passed us on our way down from Canada to Florida a couple of weeks ago between Detroit and Toledo during blowing and blinding snow on the I-75 south.

Snow had started to pack on the Interstate with ice patches in some areas. That fast driving 18-wheeler displaced a lot of air and created a vacuum that sucked our 24ft White Hawk into fishtailing. I was doing about 48 mph and lots of folks had their flashers going. Instinctively I throttled up a little which straightened out our rig. I have to admit, at this moment when the trailer started to fishtail, it scared the “dickens” out of me. I normally don’t get into panic at all, but this was a close call. A driver could have hit the brakes in panic and that is the wrong approach in that moment and would end in a disaster.

I investigated three of the electronic sway controllers that are on the market: The Hayes Sway Master, the Dexter Sway Control and the Lippert Sway Command, which Jayco discontinued. The Sway Command and the Dexter Sway Control both needed hard wiring into the trailer’s brake wiring, which I object to. I opted for the Hayes Sway Master.

An electronic sway controller with built-in Gyro and GPS like the Sway Master from Hayes would have taken the beating out of our fishtailing ordeal and straightened the rig a lot faster. The “Hayes Sway Master” was $224.99 and shipped free from Amazon. I think for the safety sake this is not too expensive. A smashed up truck and trailer can be replaced, but not our lives.

There is an installation video on the Hayes website, just click this link below:
http://www.hayesbc.com/products/controllers/sway-master/

Wishing all our readers a Happy and Healthy New Year!