29 April – 3 May 2019 Junction City, KS

Well, it was a stressful week of dealing with repairs, missing parts, last minute issues, punctuated by periods of severe boredom! We awoke early Monday so we could get out of the Wanderer so they could begin working on it. We had forgotten how much fun it was to park in an industrial site with forklifts racing around, shift horns going off at 6:25 in the morning, employees coming into work, etc. In other words it gets noisy early everyday! As we got ourselves organized to leave for the day, David went in and found the New Horizon’s Service Manager, Ken, to find out the plan for the day. First bit of bad news was that the awnings, which were supposed to have arrived at the plant last Friday, had not arrived. As this was the major portion of the work to be done, the schedule was out the window. We later found out they had been shipped to the company that does the painting of the RVs, and not to the main plant. We were assured they would arrive Wednesday and be installed Thursday. Next bit of bad news was that the window we had damaged pulling the slide in with it open, was too badly damaged to be repaired and would have to be replaced. But they did not have any in stock, but a shipment was due on Friday. Luckily we had decided to stay an extra day, just in case, and were not planning to leave until Saturday. The schedule was getting tighter. After some additional coordination on the items that needed to be fixed,  we gathered up Etta and left the Wanderer to the professionals to do the repairs that they could without the new parts. This includes replacing the Anderson Valve, which controls the fresh water system. It had been giving us problems since we picked the Wanderer up in August 2017. We are not alone in having issues with this valve as many other RV owners, including other New Horizon RVs, have had issues with the design since they changes the O-ring formulation due to EPA regulations. Eventually, the company redesigned the valve based more on a ball valve design that they use with their oil field valves. 

I will tell you folks, there is not a lot of entertaining things to do in Junction City Kansas! Especially when you have a dog with you. Fortunately, it was cool enough the first few days we could leave her in the truck safely. We decided to head over to Manhattan Kansas to do some shopping. Then we took a drive around the area. This part of Kansas is called the Flint Hills. It’s named after the abundant flint rock in the area. Being spring, the wild flowers and tall prairie grasses were green and blooming over the rolling hills. It reminded me of the green rolling hills of England in many ways. Quaint little towns here and there. Along the way, we stopped to explore Milford State Park. On the shores of Lake Milford, it has quite a few camping sites and some new RV sites with full hookups we wanted to check out. The lake was about 12 feet above flood stage so some of the lakeshore camping sites were under water as well as some of the roads. The new RV sites could work for the Wanderer in a pinch, but they were all back in’s with not a lot of room to maneuver. We wandered back to New Horizons around three PM and hung out in the “customer lounge” until they pulled our rig back outside. They had gotten the Anderson Valve changes and fixed the trim and electrical problems we had identified and they actually found some trim problems we had not noticed and fixed them also. Ken caught us and told us to plan on sleeping in on Tuesday since they had gotten most of the work done they could until parts showed up. But David was taking the truck over first thing in the morning to get some maintenance done while we had the chance. So Tuesday morning, David was up early and drove over to the Ford dealer for an oil change, fuel and air filter replacements, brake and tire inspection and a full chassis lube. While he waited in the “customer lounge” he caught up on work stuff and telecons. He had wanted to get the adaptive cruise control checked out since it has kicked out on us multiple times but their diesel mechanic was not on duty to be able to do the required checks. So he made an appointment to go in Thursday morning to get it done. Then it was back to New Horizons. We asked them several times over the next couple of days about adjusting the window blinds so they would not shoot up and were told they would get to them. More on this later.

Wednesday we decided to head over to Topeka for the day. On researching Topeka, we found a few things to go do, but it is not a hot tourist spot! Once again Wednesday morning we handed the Wanderer over to the New Horizon Techs, gathered up Etta, and hit the road. Topeka is about an hour east of Junction City. First, we stopped at Stacy’s Dinner (Exit 299) for breakfast (a recommendation from Ken). They have great biscuits and gravy! A great way to start the day! Then it was on to the Evel Knievil Museum. An icon from the 1960s, Evel’s daring jumps were a part of childhood. The museum is in a Harley Davidson dealership since the owners of the dealership pulled together the museum with their own funds. It was an interesting walk through time. He performed 168 jumps, crashed on 19 of them and broke over 400 bones including every one of his ribs, some multiple times. They had the test rocket “cycle” that was used to test out the jump over the Snake River before Evel did it himself. The test shot failed as did Evel two weeks later. Its amazing the man survived! Following Evel, we went to ‘TruckHenge”. So what is “TruckHenge” you ask? We were wondering the same thing. The map directions took us out to the fringes of Topeka and some questionable roads. On arrival, we pulled into what appeared to be a junk yard. But as we peered closer, we could see that this “junk” was actually modern Junk Art. As we climbed out of the truck, we were overrun by dogs and peacocks! A man was just in the process of leaving and told us the owner would be out shortly. Sure enough, out comes Ron Lassen to give us a personal tour of his menagerie. Ron was a bit eccentric and his art very eclectic. He is a self taught artist who bought the 63 acres on the bend of the river and turned it into personal art studio. He had done paintings on various materials (including bed sheets), carved figures into logs with hammer and chisel as well as with a chainsaw, and of course his truckhenge and boathenge. He talked so fast we had a hard time understanding him at times. The truckhenge consisted of several trucks/busses that he had stuck in the ground after the county officials told him he had to “pickup” his property to keep them from floating down the river in a flood. His way of doing that was to stick them in the ground pointed up. Needless to say, the county officials did not like his approach. When they told him to “pick up” the derelict boats on his property, well you can guess what happened. Ron kind of grew on us as he lead us around and we appreciated his sense of humor and eye for art. But if you decide to go, beware, it is a bit unusual. 

 

Even Museum

Rocket Cycle test craft used for Snake River Jump

Artist Ron Lassen with one of his Peacocks

TruckHenge

BusHenge

Log art

Another portion of TruckHenge

Following “TruckHenge”, we looked up the Happy Basset Brewing Company and stopped in for a couple local brews before heading back to the Wanderer. On arrival, we ran into Ken and he informed us the awnings still had not arrived but that they would arrive on Thursday for certain. We also heard back from the Ford Dealer that they had failed their Corporate Ford inspection and lost their certification to work on Ford Diesels. So, we could sleep in Thursday. But once again, they had not gotten to work on the window blinds. They were very busy trying to get work done on another RV so those owners could depart for the New Horizon rally in Texas (we later learned that they had a entire wheel come off on their way!). They did get the inspections we requested completed and most of the other work items. So the new plan was to put the awnings on Friday, install the new window Friday, fix the window shades Friday and have the paint guy come out Friday Night. Sigh, we had left plenty of time to get this work done and it was all coming down to the last minute. 

With all the noise of a busy factory, there was no sleeping late. Thursday we hung out in the Wanderer. David had work to do, and Leslie was trying to get caught up as well, so it was slow day. The other RV they had been working on pulled out in the morning and another rig was pulled in. This one was suppose to be a sell off of a new fiver but the future owners found so many problems with it, they refused delivery. It was so bad, they shut down the production line and had an all hands meeting of the production workers! So they had people crawling all over their rig trying to fix issues. On top of all this, it has been raining hard off and on since Monday, so it has been dreary. The good news is the awnings finally arrived!

Friday morning we were out of the Wanderer early, so they could get to work. We decided to head back to Stacy’s for breakfast. We had considered going to Fort Riley, the Army Base next to Junction City since they had three museums on base that are open to the public, but we learned they were closed for major renovations through 2019. Fort Riley is home to the Army’s First Division, the Big Red One, and is the largest US Army post in the lower 48 states. Our next plan was to go to the Milford Nature Center. It was not very far from the Milford State Park and we actually enjoyed looking at the bird, fish and nature exhibits and the fish hatchery. Then we went back to Manhattan to pick up a prescription and to check out another local brewery, Tallgrass Tap House. Then it was back to New Horizons. We could see they were finishing up the awnings as we pulled in. After an inspection by David, they had to adjust one of the slide out awnings because it interfered with the shade awing that comes out over the door. As two guys were doing that, three more were working on the window shades. They finally decided they could not fix the ones that were giving us trouble and they would have to replace them. After a frantic search, they could only find one replacement. Sigh! As we were going through this, the delivery truck that was supposed to have the replacement window pulled in only for us to find out, there was no window! Double Sigh!! As we worked through these issues, they moved the wanderer back into the service garage so the paint issues could be fixed. When David went to inspect the repair they had made for a crack in the fiberglass, we found that the repair had cracked as well from the stresses on the fiberglass shell at that joint. After some discussion, NH basically said they could not fix it. About then, the paint guy shows up and we had to leave so he could get the painting work done. By this point we were ready to get the hell out of there! We went over to Munson’s steak house and basically took over a booth for three hours before heading back. When we got back, David inspected the paint work and found they had not addressed the over spray issue on the rear cap, they quickly fixed that. The rest of the paintwork was what it was going to be. It was not perfect, but would be acceptable. After talking with Ken, he ordered replacement shades and the new window and they would send them to me, where ever we happen to be when they come in, and Leslie and I would have to install them. Triple Sigh!!!

 

Bald Eagle at Milford Nature Center

Don’t get us wrong, we love our Wanderer, but I am concerned with the declining quality we’re seeing in New Horizons. The service technicians we had working with us were great guys, but all the snafus with parts, and scheduling, and the problems the other owners, we met while there this week, were having, even with a brand new unit, really make me concerned.