2022 modifications

We have done a number of modifications to our 2017 Tiffin Allegro Bus 40SP motorhome, to make it more comfortable as a full-time home, to improve the features, or to repair issues. This is a summary of some of the changes done in 2022; also check out the changes from 2021.

As with previous summaries, for each I include a link to the corresponding blog post, and a sample picture; see the post for details.

You can see all of the modification-related blog posts via the modifications category, with the earliest posts at the top, or the latest posts at the top.

Security cameras:

Eufy camera

Telescoping ladder:

Ladder

Spyder control panel and shades issue:

Wiring

States map:

David adding states

Jack pads:

Jack pads

Bolts to secure our outdoor rug:

Drill driver, bolts, washers

An extra step:

Extra step

Truck windshield rock chip repair:

Adding resin

Wine rack and liquor holder:

Liquor holder and wine rack

Steering wheel table:

Steering wheel table with plants

Cummins for check engine and malfunction lights:

Errors

Magne Shades:

Magne Shade

National park stickers:

National park stickers

Foldable wagon:

In use

Dash cover:

Dash cover

3-stage water filter:

Clearsource water filters

Safe T Plus and Koni shocks:

Koni shock and Safe T Plus

Chair armrest adjustment:

Passenger chair

Cellular internet:

MiFi

Internet cupboard:

Internet cupboard

Emergency labels:

In case of emergency labels

Ceiling AC filters:

Filters

Water quick connectors and gauges:

Tap, splitter, gauge

Coach Proxy:

Coach Proxy hardware

Starlink internet:

Starlink dish

Window latch repair:

Replacement latches

Ceiling fan motor replacement:

Dismounted motor

Replacing 3-stage water filters:

Water filters

Lectric XP 2.0 ebikes:

Bikes

Propane fire pit:

Propane fire pit

CLAM screen tent:

With our chairs

IKEA storage cabinets:

Drawers and cupboards

Reflectix insulation in cupboards:

Reflectix

Heavy-duty security chain and lock for bikes:

Bike lock

Sinclair Trails stickers:

Stickers

Half-bath door hinges:

New hinges

Hammock:

Assembled hammock

Map and sticker art:

Picture

Theater seating and cabinets:

Theater seating

Mirror glass replacement:

Removing broken glass

Firefly Vegatouch Mira:

Vegatouch device

Unclogging macerating toilet:

Toilet in shower

Automatic paper towel dispenser:

Dispensing

Water softener:

Water softener

BlueFire diagnostic adapter:

BlueFire data adapter

Power Watchdog dimmer shade:

Power Watchdog at night

RV fire safety:

Open emergency exit

Wash Wax All waterless cleaner:

Wash Wax All kit

VIAIR tire inflation compressor:

VIAIR tire inflator

2022 campgrounds

Another interesting summary of 2022 — the places we stayed during the year. A much longer post than 2021, which you might also want to revisit.

For each location, I’ll include a link to the corresponding blog post, so you can click through to see a lot more information, and a picture of our site. Enjoy!

You can also see all of the campground-related blog posts via the campsite category, with the earliest posts at the top, or the latest posts at the top.

Black Rock RV Village in Salome, Arizona:

Campsite

Xscapers Bash at Lake Havasu Rodeo grounds in Arizona:

Our coach

Leaf Verde RV Resort in Buckeye, Arizona:

Campsite

Catalina Spa and RV Resort in Desert Hot Springs, California:

Our campsite

Orangeland RV Park in Orange, California:

Our site

Ocean Mesa RV Resort near Santa Barbara, California:

Our site

Lakeview campground in the Rancho Jurupa Regional Park in California:

Site

Thousand Trails Palm Springs RV Resort in Palm Desert, California:

Our site

Buckeye Desert Backyard in Buckeye, Arizona:

Coach at Buckeye Desert Backyard

Picacho/Tucson NW KOA Journey in Picacho, Arizona:

Our site

FMCA “Sunsets + Saguaros” annual convention in Tucson, Arizona; pre-convention site:

RV

FMCA site:

Our site

Thousand Trails Verde Valley RV & Camping Resort in Cottonwood, Arizona:

Our site

Grand Canyon Railway RV Park in Williams, Arizona:

Our site

Lake Mead RV Village in Boulder City, Nevada:

Site

Young’s RV Park in Caliente, Nevada:

Our site

The Riverside Ranch in Hatch, Utah:

Our site

Thousand Lakes RV Park in Torrey, Utah:

Our site

Green River KOA Journey in Green River, Utah:

Our site

Monument Valley KOA Journey in Monument Valley, Utah:

Our site

Ancient Cedars Mesa Verde RV Park in Mancos, Colorado:

Our site

Montrose / Black Canyon NP KOA Journey in Montrose, Colorado:

Our site

Vernal / Dinosaurland KOA Holiday in Vernal, Utah:

Our site

Tiffin rally at the Sweetwater Events Center in Rock Springs, Wyoming:

Our site

Mountain Valley RV Resort in Heber City, Utah:

Our site

Village of Trees RV Resort in Declo, Idaho:

Our site

Ambassador RV Resort in Caldwell, Idaho:

Our site

Fish House Inn & RV Park in Dayville, Oregon:

Our site

Thousand Trails Bend-Sunriver RV Campground in Bend, Oregon:

Our site

Gill’s Landing RV Park in Lebanon, Oregon:

Our site

LL Stub Stewart State Park in Buxton, Oregon:

Our site

Mt Hood RV & Camping Resort in Welches, Oregon:

Our site

Alder Lake Park Rocky Point Campground in Eatonville, Washington:

Our site

Mom’s house near Shelton, Washington:

Coach and truck at Mom's place

Concrete / Grandy Creek KOA Holiday in Concrete, Washington:

Our site

Brookhollow RV Park in Kelso, Washington:

Our site

Plymouth Park Campground in Plymouth, Washington:

Our site

Gilmore West Campground in Farragut State Park in Athol, Idaho:

Our site

McGregor Lakes RV in Marion, Montana:

Our site

Moose Creek RV Resort and B&B in West Glacier, Montana:

Our site

Jim & Mary’s RV Park in Missoula, Montana:

Our site

Osens RV Park in Livingston, Montana:

Our site

Buffalo KOA Journey in Buffalo, Wyoming:

Our site

El Rancho Village RV Park & Cabins in Wheatland, Wyoming:

Our site

St Vrain State Park in Longmont, Colorado:

Our site

Cheyenne Mountain State Park in Colorado Springs, Colorado:

Our site

Alamosa KOA Journey in Alamosa, Colorado:

Our site

Taos Valley RV Park in Taos, New Mexico:

Our site

Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta:

Balloons

Palomino Campground in Caballo Lake State Park in Truth Or Consequences, New Mexico:

Our site

Las Cruces KOA Journey in Las Cruces, New Mexico:

Our site

Slow Play RV Park in Ruidoso Downs, New Mexico:

Our site

Carlsbad KOA Holiday in Carlsbad, New Mexico:

Our site

Loma Paloma RV Park in Presidio, Texas:

Our site

Marathon Motel & RV Park in Marathon, Texas:

Our site with our truck in front

Pecan Valley RV Park in Junction, Texas:

Our site, with chickens

Hidden Valley RV Park in San Antonio, Texas:

Our site

Corpus Christi KOA Journey in Corpus Christi, Texas:

Our site

2022 travel days

I thought it’d be interesting and useful to include a summary of travel days. Here are links to blog posts, and a sample picture of the view of each, so you can see how the landscape changed as we travelled in our coach.

You can see all of the travel-related blog posts via the travel category, with the earliest posts at the top, or the latest posts at the top.

Travel to Lake Havasu City, Arizona:

Highway

To Buckeye, Arizona:

Mountains

To Desert Hot Springs, California:

Inspection station

To Orange, California:

Freeway

To Santa Barbara, California:

Hollywood sign

To Jurupa Valley, California:

Coast

To Palm Desert, California:

Freeway

To Buckeye, Arizona:

Welcome to Arizona

To Picacho, Arizona:

Picacho Peak

To Tucson, Arizona:

Tucson

To Cottonwood, Arizona:

Cacti

To Williams, Arizona:

Williams arch

To Lake Mead, Boulder City, Nevada:

Entering Nevada

To Caliente, Nevada:

Rocks and curves

To Hatch, Utah:

Entering Utah

To Torrey, Utah:

Road and mountains

To Green River, Utah:

Capitol Reef National Park

To Monument Valley, Utah:

Rocks

To Mancos, Colorado:

Rocks

To Montrose, Colorado:

River

To Vernal, Utah:

Steep grade, sharp curves

To Rock Springs, Wyoming:

Highway

To Heber City, Utah:

Heber City exit

To Declo, Idaho:

Welcome to Idaho

To Caldwell, Idaho:

Snake River

To Dayville, Oregon:

Welcome to Oregon

To Bend, Oregon:

Hills

To Lebanon, Oregon:

Rough road

To Buxton, Oregon:

Our coach

To Welches, Oregon:

Portland

To Eatonville, Washington:

Highway 12

To Shelton, Washington:

Shelton sign

To Concrete, Washington:

Seattle

To Kelso, Washington:

Seattle Space Needle

To Plymouth, Washington:

Gorge

To Athol, Idaho:

US-395

To Marion, Montana:

Kootenai River

To West Glacier, Montana:

Coach parked at Woody's

To Missoula, Montana:

MT-35

To Livingston, Montana:

Smoky trees

To Buffalo, Wyoming:

Wyoming

To Wheatland, Wyoming:

Interesting rocks

To Longmont, Colorado:

Removing tire

To Colorado Springs, Colorado:

Heading towards state park

To Alamosa, Colorado:

Scenic mountains

To Taos, New Mexico:

Taos

To Albuquerque, New Mexico:

Rio Grande gorge

To Truth or Consequences, New Mexico:

Mountains

To Las Cruces, New Mexico:

Las Cruces and mountains

To Ruidoso Downs, New Mexico:

Mountains

To Carlsbad, New Mexico:

Pond

To Presidio, Texas:

Entering Texas

To Marathon, Texas:

US-67

To Junction, Texas:

Cutaway

To San Antonio, Texas:

Freeway overpasses

To Corpus Christi, Texas:

Back to our coach

VIAIR tire inflation compressor

Another essential gadget I’ve had for quite some time is the VIAIR 450P air compressor, to inflate the tires on our coach.

I already had a tire inflator that plugged into a 110V outlet, which I’ve previously used for truck tires and other tires. But it can’t quite handle the maximum 130 PSI of the coach tires, plus is very noisy. (I inflate the front tires to 120 PSI.)

The VIAIR unit is much quieter, and automatically shuts off when not actively inflating.

Unlike the old one, this one connects to a 12V source like a car battery. I hook it up to the truck’s battery; the truck needs to be running while in use, to avoid draining the battery.

I keep it in the back of our truck, so we’ll be able to use it while driving the truck around if needed.

It comes in a handy bag, and includes two long coiled hoses, so I can leave the compressor by the truck, and reach all of the coach tires:

VIAIR tire inflator

VIAIR tire inflator

Here it is in use; it’s easy to inflate by pulling the trigger, and release to read the gauge to check the static pressure:

VIAIR tire inflator

An essential tool.

Video

Video: 2021 motorhome travel timelapses

I’ll soon be publishing a video showing all of our motorhome driving timelapses in 2022, so I thought I’d first publish one for 2021, to be complete. Or as complete as possible; I didn’t get a dashcam until about a month after we got the coach.

This video is 20x the speed of the original timelapse videos.

Hidden Valley RV Park

We stayed at Hidden Valley RV Park in San Antonio, Texas. (Campground Reviews listing.)

A rural campground minutes from the city.

We had originally planned to stay at a Thousand Trails campground a bit further from the city (because TT is free for us), but had concerns about access to it, and thought we’d rather be closer to the city, as San Antonio has lots of interesting attractions. We could have been closer still, but this place was a nice compromise between the kind of rural sites we enjoy, but close to the city.

Dates:

  • Check in: 2022-12-11
  • Check out: 2022-12-18
  • 7 nights

Weather:

  • Mostly sunny, a little drizzle
  • High temps ranging between 59-77°F, lows around 41-61°F
  • Occasional wind, up to 28 MPH gusts

Noise:

  • Some road noise, occasional train and plane noise
  • No neighbor noise

Site:

  • #6, pull-through, gravel
  • Didn’t need to disconnect toad; parked behind coach
  • Unlevel; needed to use some blocks on the front jacks
  • Medium-large site: about 80 feet long by about 40 feet wide
  • Picnic table

Utilities:

  • 50 amp power, conveniently located
  • 55 PSI water, conveniently located
  • Good sewer connection, conveniently located (1 10-foot pipe needed)

Internet (in usage priority order):

  • Starlink: 1-22 Mbps down, 2 Mbps up, 46-93 ms ping
  • AT&T: 15-21 Mbps down, 8-12 Mbps up, 40 ms ping
  • T-Mobile: 4 Mbps down, 1-9 Mbps up, 90 ms ping
  • Verizon: 1-8 Mbps down, 1 Mbps up, 60 ms ping
  • Campground Wi-Fi: not used

Amenities:

  • Garbage dumpster (near entrance)

Our review on Campground Reviews:

A nice country feel, close to the city

This was a great place to stay for our visit to San Antonio. We were in the lower, creek portion of the campground, and it was nice to be able to visit the attractions of the city and come home to a nice, quiet place. We really enjoyed looking for turtles along the creek (you have to be sneaky as they dive under the water at the first sign of people). Our site wasn’t particularly level front-to-back, but with enough blocks under the front jacks, we were able to make it work. Cell service was good, and Starlink had a good view of the sky for a connection. We camped at Hidden Valley RV Park in a Motorhome.

An interactive map of the RV park:

The campground map; our site was in the “creekside” section, a bit separated from the main part:

Map

Our site:

Our site

Our site

Our site

The site was rather unlevel, so we needed to use blocks under our front jacks to get the coach level:

Jack blocks

The utilities were all conveniently placed:

Utilities

The cellular service was a little weak, and we had wanted to exercise the Starlink anyway, since it had been a few months since we used it last, so we put that out (with no sky obstructions):

Starlink

Charging up our ebikes:

Bikes and stuff

Our site and others:

RVs

RVs

One downside of this RV park is that it is accessed via a rough one-mile dirt road:

Dirt road

Dirt road

Military planes flew over a number of times, being somewhat near an air force base:

Plane

Plane

There was lots of open space, including picnic tables:

Picnic tables

A group fire pit:

Group fire pit

And a nice creek:

Stream

Stream

Stream

Stream

Stream

The creek had a number of turtles in it, too; they liked to sun themselves on logs:

Turtles

Though they were very skittish; as soon as they saw me, they dove under the water:

No turtles

Our site again:

Our site

A pleasant RV park, other than the mile-long dirt road to get to it.

Travel from Junction to San Antonio, Texas

We drove our coach 135 miles, about two hours of driving, from Junction, Texas to San Antonio, Texas.

The map route, heading southeast:

Map route

The chickens didn’t want us to go; they roosted on our sewer hose (the feeling was mutual; we could have stayed longer):

Chickens

Leaving the RV park, past the pecan trees:

Leaving RV park

Ranch Road:

Ranch Road

Steep grade ahead:

Steep grade ahead

I-10:

I-10

A stop at a rest area for lunch:

Rest area

Paladin on the back of the driver chair as we started off again:

Paladin

But he soon retuned to his safe space next to the passenger chair:

Paladin

A sign of approaching a big city; a HOV lane appears:

HOV lane

And freeway overpasses:

Freeway overpasses

Exit to I-35 south:

I-35 south

Another exit:

Exit

Our destination is appropriately enough on Campground Road:

Campground Road

A rough one-mile dirt road leading to the RV park:

Dirt road

The office:

Office

Paladin on the steps, waiting for Jenn to return from checking in:

Paladin on steps

Continuing on down the dirt road to our site:

Dirt road

Approaching our site

Our site:

Our site

Wash Wax All waterless cleaner

Like any vehicle, a motorhome can get dirty over time from road grime, dust, rain, etc. In the past year or so of owning our coach, we have paid to get it professionally cleaned by a team of people three times — at the Xscapers Bash in January 2022, at NIRVC in March, and at the Tiffin Rally in July. In between those times (and often within days of paying hundreds for a wash & wax), it has been somewhat dirty, which didn’t make us entirely happy.

It’s tricky to get a large RV cleaned — one can pay a lot of money to get a team to come to it and clean it onsite, or one can take it to a truck wash (and worry that they might ruin the paint and/or protective coat), or wash by hand in a campground. But most campgrounds don’t allow washing of RVs, due to the massive amount of water needed.

Also, while carwashes for our truck are easier to find, they can sometimes be tricky, too, when in out-of-the-way places. With our fondness of exploring dirt roads, it can be a mud-ball for a while, too.

I’ve heard for a while of another option, that doesn’t use water, so can be done in any campsite. That system is called Wash Wax All from Aero Cosmetics, and I finally purchased their kit.  

It really does work very well; it’s amazing how much better it looks with relatively little effort — a few hours to clean the coach and truck. So from now on, we’ll keep our coach and truck much more clean.

The kit comes in a couple of boxes, including a long box for the mop handle:

Wash Wax Mop Kit

The Wash Wax All kit comes with a bag of goodies, including the wash liquid, spray bottle, heavy-duty cleaner, mop pole and double-sided head, scrub brush, and multiple microfiber mop pads and microfiber towels:

Wash Wax All kit

The mop is a clever design, with a heavy-duty extendable pole and a double-sided head that angles flexibly. The system works by spraying the liquid onto one side of the mop, wiping it onto a small section of the coach (a few feet at a time), then flipping the mop over and wiping it off before it dries — no water needed:

Mop

For lower areas like below the slides, and fiddly areas, I spray directly on, and use two microfiber towels to wipe on and off:

Spray

The wet towel gets pretty dirty, but they can be easily tossed in the washing machine and dryer (without fabric softener) to restore them to like new:

Microfiber towels

The mop pole is long enough to reach all the way to the top of our coach, but collapses to a compact length:

Clean RV

We also used Wash Wax All on our truck:

Truck

Midway cleaning the hood:

Truck

The mop is useful for cleaning the roof, and larger areas:

Truck

Both the coach and truck look so much nicer when clean! I just wish I had purchased the kit sooner. Highly recommended!

(And no, they didn’t sponsor me; I don’t have any sponsorships for this blog. Maybe one day…?)