Workin' our way South
MA to AL... a bit of a journey!
Once again, this is a bit of a longer post, with lots of pictures.
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It’s been a while since we posted an update.
Life has been busy, work-wise and all the rest. I kept meaning to post an update but then time slipped away and other priorities intruded, including some challenges.
Melissa and I talked it through and decided to do a “catch-up” post instead.
This will be a different format. This post will catch you all up to mid-November, where we find ourselves in Gulf Shores State Park in Alabama, enjoying 75+ degree weather and views of the water from our back patio.
We will post more about this stay after Thanksgiving!
For now, blessings to you all and be sure to be Thankful as you stuff turkey and pie in your faces! (I know I will!… be thankful… and stuff my face too!)
Campgrounds
After we left MA and all the family there, we drove to Bar Harbor RV Park in Maryland, staying there for 4 nights. We then drove to Big Meadows Campground in Shenandoah, VA and had 3 nights there, boondocking (dry camping… no hookups). Next was Grandfather Campground in Banner Elk, NC for a week, where it was cold, grey, and rainy almost the whole week. Bleh. Then a week at Emberglow RV Resort in Mill Spring, NC, which was quiet and nice, except that our trailer got infested with ladybugs. Finally, we spent a week at Spring Villa Campground near Opelika, AL. Super quiet campground, very nice, but they left ALL the lights on around the campground so you had to sleep with the shades drawn. No sunrises for us.
Here’s a smattering of photos from these places. Enjoy!
Bar Harbor RV
Big Meadows Campground
Grandfather Campground
Emberglow RV Resort
Chimney Rock State Park
I wanted to highlight this particular state park we visited on a Saturday. It is quite unique, including the 400+ stairs we had to climb (and then descend!) because the elevator to the top, which is built into the mountain, only allows “service animals”. I’m pretty sure Penny is in service to our physical and mental and emotional well-being just as much as any official dog… but ok, we’ll take the stairs!
Spring Villa Campground
Challenges
Penny Dog!
So in the category of “fun things” you really don’t think are fun, we had two things happen this past month.
The first was that Penny, our beloved dog and companion, had an early morning seizure, which totally freaked us out. I’ve frequently told our kids that the best life advice is: “Don’t Panic”, but it’s a bit hard to hold to that advice while clinging to your dog as she has a full-on flail-seizure.
We did find a wonderful vet in the area and they did a thorough check on Penny and the conclusion was… -shrug-. Just one of those things, I guess. Her blood-work was fine. Her liver was fine. Her vitals all seemed fine. Diet was fine. Body weight was fine. Everything was fine. Why the seizure? Who knows? We are trusting in the Lord and believing that this was only a one-off, and that Penny is fine. We will continue to pray for Penny and continue to trust that she’ll be ok… for a good, good long time to come (our lips to God’s ears).
Water Leak?
We were staying at Spring Villa and it got down to 20 degrees one night. The next day, as we walked around the campground, I noticed a small travel trailer that was leaking water from the back corner, where the water line comes in. There was no vehicle near the trailer, so I assume someone left it there for a while… but perhaps they didn’t realize it was going to get below freezing.
“Man, that would stink to be them!” I thought… feeling good about my trailer and how unlikely that would be for us. “We have a Brinkley! We’re better than the rest” I thought.
Time for a lesson in humility… (you can see where this is going, right?)
A couple of days later, I finish a meeting and get up to go stretch my legs. I step outside and hear water running. Whaaaaa?
I look and a waterfall of water is coming out of the underside of the entry-side slide-out. The one with the fridge.
Oh man! Don’t Panic. Don’t Panic.
We shut off the water, confirmed that it wasn’t anything else, and then with some Googling, found the water-line-to-the-fridge shut-off valve. So we now are back in business with water, except for the fridge. No more auto-ice maker. No more filtered fill-up-your-water-bottle spout. (First world problems, I know).
But also, a serious lesson in pride, humility, and being grateful.
Long story short: we are going to be working with a mobile RV tech (our second so far!) to get this resolved while we are down here in Gulf Shores, Alabama. We’ll see how that goes.
Water Pressure
Another issue that has been a challenge: water pressure. Some campgrounds have plenty, some don’t. We’ve had to switch to the fresh water tank + water pump more than once because the “city water” (when you are hooked up to an external water source) doesn’t have enough PSI to work everything… like the clothes washer or the on-demand water heater. Cold showers… brrrr!
Today we were trying to figure out what to do… water pressure was just too low, both city water and pump. Ug. More problems.
Then this guy… Tony… walks up to our trailer. “I heard you were having water pressure issues” he starts off. I’m thinking, “was he spying on us? Did my voice carry that far??” But anyway, he cuts to the chase: “when did you last change your water filters? ‘Cause I’ve found that when they start to get full of sediment, they drop the PSI. Perhaps it’s time to change your filters?” -insert-face-palm-emoji-here-
So now we are trying to source some 3-stage water filters… and hoping and praying that they are the “ticket” to getting our PSI back up, which means hot showers and laundry again.
Black Tank Valve
This continues to not work. But we are rolling with it because we have a manual valve at the end. It’s annoying, but not too bad. I’m going to try a MacGyver solution sometime soon: take one of the busted plastic pieces, super-glue it together as it should be, then coat it with a JB-Weld liquid metal coat.
My thought is: the internal valve rod must extends just a smidge too far and stresses the plastic enough that it cracks. So if I can reinforce the plastic with some metal coating, perhaps it won’t crack.
The only other solution: replace the whole valve. That does NOT sound like a fun (nor easy) job! So we’ll try it my way first.
Fingers crossed!
Battery Upgrade
Last, I wanted to give an update on the battery upgrade (for those of you who are curious/interested).
In the last post, I talked about buying a 460 Ah battery (Temgot) so we could have more stored power for boondocking.
Well… I had some time at Bar Harbor RV Campground to install it. Here we go!
First, I knew this battery would be super heavy, and I didn’t want to risk it punching through the undercarriage, so I custom-cut a piece of 1x8 to fit into the space. Then I positioned it, wired up the 2-way switch (Note: it’s a “1” or “2” or “off”. It does NOT have a “1+2” like some do). Then shimmied in the divider barrier and got it all nice & neat:
So here’s where the fun begins.
The new battery works just fine. No problems. 480 Amp-hours. Excellent!
But when I switched the switch to “2”, things acted really weird. Lights flicker, some things kind-of worked, but not really. The monitor was inconclusive about battery capacity.
What gives?
I have no idea.
What’s even worse: when I switched the switch to “off”, things weren’t truly off. Still some residual power… low level lights. Hmmmm. Weird. Disconcerting. Annoying.
Anyway, I shrugged it off as we left Bar Harbor RV Park.
That’s a problem for Future Dan (man, I don’t envy that guy!)
I figured I’d screwed up the old battery somehow, but at least the new one was working just fine.
We got to Big Meadows Campground and were enjoying being up in the mountains. On day three, I went to “poke around” at these batteries to try and figure what’s up. After all, if I’ve hosed the original battery, why even have a switch anymore? I tried switching between them and nothing really worked as expected. I got the “seriously low battery” beep a couple of times. And, to top it off, the Temgot was getting low, so I needed to charge it, which meant running the generator.
I walked over to the young couple staying next to us, just to give them a heads up that I’m about to run the generator (I like to do that to be gracious to neighbors).
“Hey, just a heads up… I’m gonna be running the generator for a short bit to charge the battery. I hope that’s not gonna be an annoyance for you folks,” I said.
“Not at all,” says the guy (Chris was his name). “In fact, I noticed some beeps earlier. What’s going on? Having electrical issues? I’m a part-time electrician. I’d be happy to take a look.”
WOAH. (This… ladies and gents… is what favor looks like. In case you are wondering).
So Chris comes over and pokes around. “Nice wiring job here” he says at one point (I’m beaming).
“Everything looks fine,” he says. “In fact, while you were out on a walk, I downloaded the bluetooth app for your batteries, and I can see that they are both fine. No problems at all. Do you have a multi-meter? Just do a continuity test and see what’s happening with the wiring. You probably shorted out something along the way.”
Then he heads back to his campsite, a man FAR WISER than his age betrays.
You see… when installing the Temgot… and tightening all the bolts and such… I did… just once… crank it a bit too far to the left and the wrench touched the metal on the hydraulic system. Yes, there was a small, brief spark. Startling, yes. But no big deal, right? right?? right?!?
Turns out: that spark was a big deal… in fact, a $50 big deal. Shorted the 250Amp Class T fuse. A multi-meter continuity test… just as Chris suggested… found that the connection from battery terminal through the fuse to the cable was dead. Yup. The fuse blew.
So the battery was fine. 200 Amp hours, working 100% perfectly. But the fuse was gone, so no power when I switched to “connection 2”.
“But why the flickering lights, Dan?” you might ask. Great question! Here comes another “face-palm” moment…
You see… in testing all of this, I completely forgot to disconnect solar!
So yeah. Switch position 2 means no power because of blown fuse… but solar is active, which means some small, intermittent power directly from the solar panels.
In short (haha! puns are fun), the only thing I messed up (“blew?”) was the $50 fuse. Wiring is great, both batteries are fine. That’s it.
An Amazon purchase and delivery later… new fuse in place… and all is well.
I now have two, fine, switchable batteries: a 200Ah and a 460Ah. They are NOT in parallel (bad idea), but I can switch from one to the other if need be. That means I basically 3x’d my usable battery capacity when boondocking.
Perfect!
Lessons galore, and all’s well that ends well.
Final Thoughts
This has been a bit of a long post.
I do hope we can get back into a more regular posting schedule, maybe every 1-2 weeks. That’s what we are shooting for. But sometimes, life will intrude… things will get busy… other priorities will get in the way.
We are trying to make sure that our RV rhythm is not “forced”. We aren’t committing to some regular posting schedule. We aren’t trying to build a following. We are just enjoying life, one day at a time, as God guides us through this Crazy, Fun adventure!
We know that there will be new challenges, and opportunities to practice Not Panicking, and times where things aren’t as idyllic as we’d like. But it’s not an adventure if it’s boring, right? How can we have Crazy Fun without a dash of Crazy and dollop of Fun?
It’s good to be mindful of that, even as we are grateful for all that God provides.
Anyway, thanks for following along and joining us in this ride!
May your adventures be crazy… and fun… as well!
Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him. ~ James 1:12 (ESV)
Dan & Melissa & Penny… and Clifford & Brinkley, of course!
Oh My! So great to hear about your journey! I will keep this comment short because I am not sure you will get it. I may send an email later or maybe tomorrow. It sounds like you are getting the FULL experience! It is a big learning curve and always great to have neighbors who know more then you do about some stuff. I think I mentioned to you that RV folks are great people and always willing to help! I want to hear more about the lady bug infestation! We had that issue near Memphis TN! We have stayed at Gulf Shores State Park several times..it is a great place! The beach sand is perfect! Sometimes it "squeaks" when you walk on it! Have a blessed Thanksgiving. Always so much to be grateful for!
Kathy & Tom