BusBuilding

Mark calls himself the DIYGuy, and he appears to be entirely justified using this moniker.

Take a look at the incredible inlaid flooring job he’s doing in advance of delivery of his new Spacecraft 5er.

We bus converters have a long, lonely road sometimes. Well, all the time, it seems. It’s one thing to design and build things yourself that are in your control, but when one has to start interfacing with component manufacturers and RV dealers, the road can become rather trying. It seems that the entire RV industry is geared toward the supply chain. Manufacturers make stuff, sell it to a distributor, which sells it to a dealer, which sells & installs it for the end customer. And many customers don’t even get the chance to figure out if what they’re being sold is right for them.

…the entire RV industry is geared toward the supply pipeline…

Neither manufacturers nor dealers give the customer much to go on to specify their products, and I guess most dealers figure out how to install stuff as they go along. With the research I’d already done, I knew more than the dealers I talked to about the very products they were trying to sell me!

So in my frustrated Googling I came across Chris’ Bryant RV site, which has a motherlode of Service Manuals covering many of the major manufacturers’ products from Awnings to Reefers, from Air Conditioners to Furnaces. There’s also an only slightly smaller section for RV appliance Owners Manuals.

Hats off to Chris, who also has some great tips on his companion RX4RV RV Service and Opinions Blog. I’d actually discovered his blog awhile back when I decided to grit my teeth and wade into rv.net’s Open Roads Tech Issues Forum to try to find some answers that still remain somewhat elusive.

Thanks, Chris!

Record across-the-board RV wholesale shipments in 2005 capped the RV industry’s best four-year stretch since the mid-1970s, as highlighted in the Recreation Vehicle Industry Association’s (RVIA) 2005 Annual Review.

Manufacturers shipped a total of 384,000 units, an increase of 3.9% from 2004’s record total, led by a nearly 25% increase in conventional travel trailer shipments.

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OK, so it’s not a bus, but I don’t think anyone can deny that this example of workmanship isn’t worthy of appreciating. Rich and Eleanor are enjoying wonderful weather and seeing lots of examples of craftsmanship while attending an Airstream Rally in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

“So what if the public’s experience is affected?” these beltway divas are telling each other. “They won’t be voting for us again.”

The excellent New West Travel and Outdoors has a followup column about cuts in the National Park Service operating budgets.

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Some parks to cut services for visitors as summer approaches.

The Bush administration has ordered America’s national parks to show they can function at 80% or less of their operating budgets. According to a Knight Ridder Newspapers report, park officials in the field said the initiative was forcing “gut-wrenching” decisions that visitors would notice. The Park Service has more than 270 million visitors annually.

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