Newmar – Julia A. Keirns – Author, Blogger, Writer

October 12, 2023 – Traveling with Rich & Julie

So what do they mean?

Traveling around the country as we do, we have noticed some of the other people in RVs that tow Jeeps behind have their Jeep windshield dashes covered with little yellow rubber ducks.

I’ve never asked anyone about it before, but often wondered what the reason and significance of it is.

We had to make a trip to the Newmar Parts and Service Center the other day and I immediately saw these little rubber ducks for sale all over the store.

We don’t have a Jeep, but I wanted one anyway, mostly because it says Newmar on it. I have a Newmar. If you are going to collect something as you travel, why not cute little yellow rubber ducks?

I decided to research and find out more about this strange infatuation.

Duck, Duck, Jeep

According to an article at parade.com, Jeep Ducking was started by one woman in Canada in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. She just wanted to spread some kindness and put a smile on a stranger’s face.

She placed a cute little rubber duck on the hood of their Jeep with a note that said, “Nice Jeep,” sat in her car, and watched their reaction. Sure enough, they smiled, took the duck, placed it on the dash, and drove away.

She did it again, and again, and before she knew it, other Jeep owners were doing it too. It took off like wildfire.

They began “ducking” other Jeeps and also spread the word through Facebook and Instagram. The trend took off like wildfire and now there are over 68,000 members in her Jeep ducking Facebook group. The trend has spread now all throughout Canada, all 50 states, and even countries like Spain and Australia. It just shows how easy it is to get on board with a simple act of kindness! — parade.com

You’ve been ducked

Evidently, Jeep owners are a tight community and are “ducking” other Jeep owners. Some have their own “duck pond” on their dash. They keep all the ducks they get and buy new ones to give away.

Do a Google search for “Duck, Duck, Jeep” and you’ll get more than 20 million results!

And it isn’t just Jeep owners anymore. Everyone else got jealous and wanted to collect cute little rubber duckies on their dashes too. According to Car Talk, ducking has become very popular and widespread.

The trend has spread well beyond Jeeps. Drivers of other marques, looking to get in on the fun, have started ducking each other. We have seen examples of Bronco ducking, Mustang ducking, and some particularly inventive Toyota-loving wags are selling green rubber ducks with pointy ears for — what else — Ducking Yotas.

I found several great articles that helped explain the simple concept of Jeep Ducking to me. Car Talk, Readers Digest, and Parade are just a few among the millions.

So, if you drive a Jeep, don’t be surprised if someone “ducks” you.

What a great way to spread kindness in a world that needs it. Kindness is a ripple effect. It spreads from one person to another, and soon it can change the world.

Thanks for reading and coming along with us on our travels.

October 11, 2023 – Traveling with Rich & Julie

To the RV repair store

It was a beautiful sunny morning and I secretly wished we could go venturing out and about. I had surgery on my knee a few weeks ago, and we had to come home to Ohio for the months of September and October. I originally planned on being somewhere else by now.

I am biting at the bullet to get going somewhere, anywhere. The nights are getting chilly in Ohio, and we have had frost warnings with temperatures down in the 30s.

Lately, we have simply been bombarded and swamped with repairs on the RV. It is a great motorhome and I love it to death, but we are both getting sick and tired of things going wrong one after another. It is twenty years old now and it makes me doubt our plans to hit the road and take off. Will we break down again after only 500 miles of travel?

Let’s stay positive and hope not.

Anyhoo —

The last time we put the bedroom slide out, the bottom seal broke loose, and we knew it needed replaced, but it wasn’t a vital fix. We have had several expensive vital fixes lately, and I figured the seal could wait.

I said something to Rich on Monday that when the slide went out and the seal broke, I heard a bang. He heard it too. But something told me we better try to put the slide back in just to make sure it would close ok without a new seal. Good thing I did.

Nothing.

We pushed the button, and nothing happened. There was no click, no motor sound, no movement. Just nothing. WTF?

Uh, oh.

We checked the front slide…nothing there either. Surely both motors couldn’t have gone bad at the same time. We did find one blown fuse, but all we got was a clicking sound that was coming from the slide-out controller box.

We called the Newmar Parts and Service department and found out that a new slide-out controller box was going to cost us $170.00. And while we were at it, I asked about a new seal for the rear slide and that price came to $30.00. Damn, another $200 bucks with no guarantees that it would fix the issue. Once you plug the wires into the new controller it is non-returnable. But at least the new seal was only $30.

The Newmar Parts and Service store is located in Nappanee, Indiana. We could be there in 90 minutes. We hopped in the car and went for a drive to buy our parts.

I was pleased with the service we received and how nice the partsman was. He even gave us an in-store discount for coming to get our own parts, but with tax, and the cute little rubber ducky I purchased, it still came to $200.

We got home and plugged in the new controller box, and it blew another fuse. !@#$%^&. We go through those fuses like crazy. Once we got another new fuse put in, the front slide began working, but the rear one still just clicked.

Ok, a half-fix is better than a no-fix. We always try to start with the cheapest fix and work our way up. Kind of like in August when we just had the throttle body cleaned for less than $100, but then two weeks later had to replace it anyway for $700. 🙁

Eventually, Rich figured out that the rear motor burned up and a new one is going to cost $535. No, thank you, Newmar. Can’t we just manually crank that sucker in?

He found one on Amazon for only $349, but I am still not happy with that price either. At least not today. I’m just so frustrated at the cost of repairs lately eating up our traveling funds.

So today we are attempting to replace the bottom seal on the rear slide. Not a fun or an easy job. I keep telling him there is probably a Mickey Mouse easy way to do this that we aren’t getting, and we are trying to do it the hard way. YouTube Videos were not much help here.

But that’s how we learn.

Five hours later, Rich hollers — “I think I figured it out!”

I love living the dream, even on the days when repairs suck the happiness out of both of our smiles. It isn’t all glamour and fun like most people think it is. But it does have its moments.

PS — I bought a Powerball ticket. Can’t win unless you play.

Thanks for reading.