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Missing pictures from original posting. I hope?

We just spent 4 nights in Campground 1 at David Crockett State Park in Lawrenceburg, TN. Campground 1 is older, but Campground 2 has just been redone and it is real nice. We couldn’t get a site in CG 2 but we did drive through and look at it. No sewer hookups, but the sites were so level it wouldn’t be a big deal to just pull to the dump station and then go back to your site if you didn’t want to use a tote. https://tnstateparks.com/parks/campground/david-crockett Thirty-two miles (about 45 minutes) from Hohenwald and much nicer than (the local CG) in Hohenwald. Good BBQ place in Lawrenceburg: https://ricksbbq.com/ More good BBQ and a great meat market near Summertown TN: https://g.co/kgs/3V9hEZ Bill

<p style="text-align: left;">October 8-13, 2018</p> Kathryn Hanna Park, Jacksonville Beach, FL

Our Oliver LE2 is stored in along side our house and is subject to rain, oak leaves, pine needles, bugs and whatever else Mother Nature throws at it in Lutz, FL. It is a constant struggle to keep it clean and off-site storage is very expensive. And until the finance department approves a storage solution, I’ll just have to try to keep up with the maintenance. Florida is called the Sunshine State but we also receive a fair amount of rain. After a 5” rain one day this summer, we found the curbside bench cushions to be wet. I found some ideas about the cause of the leakage in the Oliver forums and determined that cause of the leak was dirt and crud blocking the weep slots. ScubaRx/Steve offered some detailed thoughts about cleaning the window tracks which included the weep slots. So I tackled that project which included removing the window seals covering the fixed glass track. Then removing the sliding window track seal and finally removing the screen and it’s seal. With those items removed I was able to clean the tracks pretty well. I have attached a poor picture of the 3 tracks of the window frame and the weep slots. And in an effort to be clear, the picture does not show the slots very well. The weep slots are between the outside of the window frame and the fixed glass track and between the fixed glass track and the sliding glass track. There aren’t any weep slots to the screen track. So if the weep slots become clogged, the water overflows into the sliding glass track and the overflow runs down the inside wall. This can happen to any of the windows except the door window. The Norton’s had told me about draining the the window tracks by placing a finger at the bottom of the weep slot and creating a capillary effect to drain the window tracks. The window weep slots must be fairly clean for this to work. It’s very effective if you are around your Oliver when it rains. And now my helpful tip. I cut pipe cleaners in half and place one in each weep slot. The slots between the outside and middle tracks line up, so push the pipe cleaners through the outside track and into the middle track. It requires about an 1-1/4” of the pipe cleaner to reach the middle track. I find that the tracks dry out much faster with the pipe cleaners than without. The pipe cleaners also travel pretty well as we didn’t lose any on our last camping trip which included some interstate driving. We hope this proves useful for someone.

Bill, Hope you don't mind me posting some photos we took there last year. The Other Bill!

Chris - Thanks for putting this together! Please don't tell me that Duke took the last shot of the sunrise over the ocean. Just as I got to Interstate 95 on the way home the sun was coming up and it was simply special. Bill

I'll second Mike and Krunch's comments! As noted in many news outlets, last week brought some interesting weather to a fair part of the Southeast and devastating weather to some parts of Florida and Georgia. Fortunately, while the weather in the Jacksonville area was a bit damp and breezy at times and required Foy and Mirna and Miguel to do a bit of a two step from time to time, all turned out great. Virtually everyone pitched in to help and there was plenty of time for site seeing, bike riding, running, beach walking, swimming, etc. To me, one of the benefits of having a "small" rally is that there is time to be able to see, meet and talk with most, if not all, of the participants. Try that at the annual Owner's Rally! Bill p.s. Towards the end of the rally there was a rumor that Bob Mitchell was not feeling well. Mike and Krunch and I stopped by his camper on Friday night to check on him. As it turns out, he was taking a nap and there were no problems at all - an annual physical and a day spent with the grandkids was why he was not around his campsite all day.

I went with Lear, although my research indicated there wasn't much quality difference between them. I had two local dealers, one of each brand, both were responsive to the quote process. I went with the Lear simply due to the manufacturing process video I found on YouTube. Both companies had a video, I liked the Leer one better. So far I am happy with my purchase, great color match, fits and looks great, no leaks, and have not found any flaws in any part of it. Happy customer. I'd post a pic, but seems not workable currently.

I had an top of the line ARE cap on my Tundra for 11-1/2 years. Leaked around the tilt out windows from the begining. I pointed out to the dealer where the window glass was not curved properly to seat againt the gasket and form a seal. His response was that it was the glass manufactures fault not an ARE issue and he wouldn’t deal with them! I wrote and called ARE multiple times. I never got a resolution from them. I told them it was not for me to deal with the glass manufacturer, I bought the cap from ARE and they were responsible for fixing it. Crickets. Within a year the seals between the tilt out window and side glass fell out. The tilt out mechanism on one window had to be repaired , then the latch mechanism on the back access window broke. If ARE would have worked with me on the leaks I could have dealt with the other issues. They didn’t so I am going with Lear. A couple of other things: When I requested the Lear quote from 3 dealers via their website; one dealer responded within a couple of hours, one took two weeks and one never responded. The dealer that responded quickly had a much better price than the other dealer. I was suprised at the variation in price. Second, I am very leary when a dealer says they dropped a manufactures line. My experience is that it could just as well be that the manufacture dropped the dealer. The dealer no longer can carry the manufactures line so now they are a competitor and they start bad mouthing them. Just something to consider. You definitely want to have a removable front glass or no glass with cab to cap seal so you can clean the windows. I don’t have my Lear yet so time will tell on that. I do know I will not buy ARE again. -Randy

A little water, a lot of wind, check for widowmakers overhead. We'll learn if we can add hurricane 'season' to our Olivers' ratings.

Looks like a bunch of Ollies are going to get a bit damp this week. No problem! On the way to the rally I stopped for the night at Colleton State Park just north of Waltersboro, SC. It is right on the banks of the Edisto River (one of the few "black water" rivers) - great for canoes and/or kayaks with another SC State Park about 25 miles downstream for a great day's paddle. This campground is about 4 miles east of Interstate 95 so there is no noise from that wonderful road. I should arrive between 1 and 2 this afternoon. Bill