Our coach has been spending most of its time at a site we created on our property in the country. We have a 30 Amp service for the coach. No other hookups although we did install a water bypass to allow treated water to go to our outside faucets. We can fill our freshwater tank by connecting to the faucet in our garage.

When the coach is at home, we do spend quite a bit of time living in it. It is where we have been sleeping and, when we have those few rare moments, relaxing. We still do our cooking and personal care in our house.

That allows us to keep our gray tank use way down. Our black tank does fill over a two to three week period and, if we do not have a trip planned, we need to find a dump station.

We have two choices: use the station at our local KOA where they charge us $35 to dump our tanks, or drive about 30 kilometres (18 miles) to a Flying J where they charge us $5 to dump our tanks.

Last night the choice was easy. We needed to top up our fuel and add some air to one of the tires.

We also wanted the ride.

We love to travel in the coach. It really is a unique experience and it is so much fun. We take about 45 minutes or so to get the coach ready for travel. When I got home from work, Lorraine and I got busy with preparing the Castaway for the trip.

I have become quite comfortable with manoeuvring the coach so backing out of our site and navigating down the long, narrow and winding drive is almost second nature.

We had a beautiful evening to enjoy the short drive out to the Flying J and back.

There was another motorcoach beside us when we pulled in to the Flying J. A 2003 Monaco Dynasty hauling a massive toy hauler that weighed about 18,000 pounds. A 2003 Dynasty, despite being 13 years old, still commands about $150,000 CAD in the used market. Very nice looking coach.

I asked the owner if he was comfortable hauling 18,000 pounds on a hitch that is rated for 10,000 pounds. He seemed fine with it. I wouldn’t take the chance. Our coach can haul 15,000 pounds.

He spends most of his time travelling to racing events — he had a car in his toy hauler — and he told me that I had to take my rig out to a NASCAR event.

And I thought to myself, that would be a cool ride.