New POG Member & Monday New Prevost Owner

[rff105]

We leave tomorrow from PA in our 1998 40' Vogue 5000 w/o slide for FL to pick up our new (used) 2006 Featherlite Vantare H3-45 S1. I have been looking for all the info I could find on the net about H3s and found this site. I have been reviewing and searching the current posts here to try and avoid the same newbie questions that have been asked 1000 times. Look forward to finding the answers here to all our questions here.

Guess I should learn how to spell Prevost, lol, editor will not let you change tread title, oh well.

[truk4u]

Welcome aboard, you have some exciding times ahead. Keep us posted on how things go and then post pictures and tell us all about the Vantare. I have a few relatives in Altoona and was born in Lewistown. There are quite a few H owners on the board, so lots of help if you need it.:p

[Denny]

Welcome rff105. It is good to have another member from this part of the country; we live just off I80 at the OH/PA line, Hubbard, OH. There are several H3 members so fire away with the questions. At some point we may be able to have a regional mini rally since the number of members from this part of the country are growing.

[rff105]

http://images.danthompson.net/gallery/3282821#182142195

Here is a link to the new family coach.

[Joe Cannarozzi]

We would be proud to camp in that. Very nice. Have a safe trip and have lots of fun.

[jello_jeep]

Welcome aboard, hope you enjoy your new ride, it looks great. :D

[Loc]

Richard,

Welcome aboard. I have seen the pictures of your coach on the internet - great looking coach. Are they going to modify the back end for a stateroom?

[rff105]

I can tell by reading the posts here we are not the typical Prevost owners.

No we are not going to modify the stateroom, actually this is exactly what we have been looking for. The coach is owned by my family (my parents, ants, & uncles) (4 brothers, 2 sisters) (62 in the family including 2nd, 3rd, & 4th generation) and we use it primarily for entertaining (football, baseball, NASCAR, & concerts). I am generally the only one that uses it for tips and we usually have 6 people on those trips anyhow, so all the sofa sleepers will work great for weekend getaways with the kids.

I also am the one generally in charge of maintenance, systems, and electronics. When one of the other family members takes the coach without me I usually can expect a call to trouble shoot something (usually satellite related).

My late grandparents were involved in the Vogue Country Club for years and did many cross country treks and rallies. They loved motor homes, motor home people, and campgrounds, and we hope to carry on some of that tradition.

[MangoMike]

H Brother,

Welcome to POG and ignore any comments relating to lack of stainless, as they know not of what they speak.

Nice Bus!

Mike

[Jon Wehrenberg]

Mike is trying to gather others around him when we start pointing out his coach is built just like the fiberglass ones. Plastic, and glued together.

Richard, we won't pick on you if you promise to hang with those of us that like metal and rivets.

Welcome aboard. Join us at our rallies and above all don't hesitate to join in the insanity on this forum. Ask away. If I don't know the answer I'll make one up.

[phorner]

Nice bus!!

But I don't think you'll be doing anything even remotely related to "camping" in that beautiful home on wheels.

Now, if you could just rivet on some stainless panels to dress it up a bit....

[rff105]

Leaving for FL from PA in about 30 mins. Any one on have a vote for which rout to take? (70 to 81 to 77 to 95) or (70 to 95) both routes are within 8 miles of each other and Sunday night in fall beach traffic should not be an issue. Driving straight through with 4 drivers.

[lewpopp]

Just heard this morning that ODR at PSL has another resident joining POG.

An extremly nice couple with a cute little dog that Casey will get to know better. I guess they will post as Hilda and ron. The way I remember their names is "Hither and Yon.

He calls his coach JADE I.

They are leaving Wednesday so I cannot harrass them too much on this stay. They'll be back around Thanksgiving. Aas soon as I get some good "POOP" on them I'll let you know so we can go after them. Not really.
.

[rff105]

Well we made it back Tuesday morning with the H3. We were very impressed with the handling over our Vogue. The Prevost goes where you point it and stick with very little adjustment needed from the driver. With the Vogue you were always sawing at the wheel to keep it going straight, especially when the big trucks got by you. I feels slower accelerating on ramps to merge with traffic and pulls the hills about 10mph slower than the Vogue. I guess the 60 extra hp is not enough to compensate for the extra 20k lbs. Sill working on figuring out the braking and retarder, but you defiantly need to leave yourself more room than with the Vogue with the Jake.

We only had one mishap on the way home where we got to test out our city driving and new 13’ – 4 ½” height. We were headed up 95N from Richmond at 5:30 AM and traffic was starting to pick up into Washington, so we were riding the express HOV lanes. Well I was copilot and my brother was driving and we missed the exit to get out of the HOV lanes to get the beltway 495 to get to 70. We ended up taking 395 right into downtown Washington where we lit up one of those signs that says “You are over 13’-0” – EXIT NOW”. So we exited and that put us right in the middle of the Smithsonian Museums. We got to see the Washington Monument as well. We then decided to make our way across town to Int 66 which turned out to be a “No Truck” route. (On a side note are we allowed on a no truck route and will it be posted for height even though trucks are not to be there?) All of the police guarding all the government building were looking at us kind of funny and at this point we are starting to hope we do get pulled over so we can get a police escort back out of town. So we had to make our way back to 395, remember this is at about 6:15 AM and the traffic is starting to pick up. We backtracked 395S to 495 and headed north the way we should have gone in the first place.

We learned that you need to have a good copilot reading the height signs and other trucker signs that you usually ignore while driving a car or even the Vogue for that matter. The driver has his hands full just watching the traffic and changing lanes when you get into those cities with 100 signs every 100 ft.

Everyone loves the H3 and we are working on modifying our garage to fit this thing in, it only had a 13’ door. It will still be a tight squeeze at 47’-6” the H3 actually measures 46’-4” from the tip of the generator exhaust to the front of the passenger side mirror. I will have to post a picture of our garage when we get it in. It is like beauty and the beast with the Vantare H3-45 motor home and the Schwing KVM 34X concrete pump sharing a room.

[rickdesilva]

I travel a few times a year from NJ to Florida and the most stressful part of the drive is the DC beltway. With the 5 year construction project and the traffic, it seems like there is never a good time to drive thru. Enjoy your coach!