Our RV Adventures

Well, it wasn’t too back last night with no A/C so we lucked out.

I called first thing about the blown EMS and left a message.  It took about an hour for him to call me back, but he told me how to bypass the unit and that he would send me out a new board on Monday.

The bypass only took a few seconds and I could now get power into the coach.  So, except for needing a new board for the EMS, my shore power problem was fixed.  Although I still don’t know what caused my EMS to blow up.  Sometimes it’s just bad luck.

But I still don’t know what the problem is with the generator.  I’ll have to work on it later.

We finally left the park about 12:30 pm heading up I-64 W 110 miles to Louisa, VA,  just southeast of Charlottesville, VA.  We want to visit Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s home, and Appomattox, site of the end of the Civil War.

We wanted  to stop off in Richmond to eat lunch at Famous Dave’s, one of our favorite BBQ places, and also pick up some Aunt Gussie’s Sugar Free cookies at Whole Foods that we like.

About an hour and a half after we left Richmond, we pulled into our site at Small Country Campground in Louisa.

More tomorrow…

Today was our last full day in Williamsburg, VA and we wanted to tour the Jamestown Settlement of 1607, you know, Captain John Smith, Pocahantas and all that.

And we also wanted to tour the Yorktown Battlefield, one of the last big battles of the Revolutionary War.

But first, we had to move our coach. 

When we made our reservations we knew we might have to move into an overflow site for our last day, since they were full.  We were hoping they would have a cancellation so we wouldn’t have to move, but no such luck.

The overflow site had 30 amp power and water, but no sewer.   No problem for just one day.

We moved with no problems, until I tried to plug into the power connection.  As soon as my EMS (Electrical Management System) tried to put power to the coach, it shut down because the voltage dropped to 98 volts.  I went to the office and told them about the problem and they said they’d look at it while we were gone.  So we headed out to the Jamestown Settlement about 10 miles down the road. 

They have a very nice complex here, consisting of a museum/exhibit building,

Jamestown Settlement Museum

a replica Powhatan Indian village,

Replica Powhatan Indian Village

Powhatan Hut Interior

replicas of the 3 ships that the colonists used to come to Jamestown,

The "Susan Constant"

The "Godspeed" and the "Discovery"

 and a replica of the settlement fort itself.

Jamestown Settlement

Jamestown Settlement Buildings

 The biggest building in the place was the church, which was also the community meeting area.

Jamestown Church

I can only imagine that the pews were so hard and uncomfortable to keep you from falling asleep during the services.

Jamestown Church Pew

Jamestown Dedication

After lunch at the Red City Chinese Buffet we headed out to the Yorktown Battlefield.

And then we discovered a slight problem.  There are two Yorktowns.

One is called Yorktown Victory Center.  This is the one that is advertised everywhere, and that we had bought tickets to when we bought our Williamsburg and Jamestown tickets.

But when we got to the area we found that the actual Yorktown Battlefield was not the Victory Center, but was a National Park run by the National Park Service.  And of course, had a separate admission fee.

But it was really worth it, walking the grounds, climbing the earthworks, and looking out over the actual battlefield.

Yorktown Battlefield

Yorktown Battlefield 2

Here Washington, Lafayette, and the French Navy offshore surrounded the British Army under Gen. Cornwallis, and pounded them to pieces with cannons and mortars, and then attacked the British lines until Cornwallis surrendered his 8,000 troops on Oct. 19, 1781.

This was the last big battle of the Revolutionary War, although the War itself dragged on for another 2 years.

We did have an interesting talk from a guide about living and dying during the Revolutionary War.  He talked about the clothing the soldiers wore, the food they are, the weapons they use, and the medical card they got, but probably wished they hadn’t.

Yorktown Seminar

While we listened to the guide, a small, furry visitor came out of the bushes beside us.  The large groundhog looked around and then started grazing on the grasses.  He didn’t seem too worried until about a dozen screaming kids went running for him, then he skedattled back into the thick bushes.

Yorktown Groundhog

Groundhog 2

And finally, we drove the 7 mile loop that circles all the different positions and battle areas.

After this we headed over the Yorktown Victory Center, which turned out to be basically a museum complex about the Battle of Yorktown, but not really near the battleground.

They did have a interesting timeline display covering the leadup to the Revolutionary War.  The other thing they had was a replica of the town of Yorktown.

Yorktown 1

Yorktown 2

Yorktown 3

After we finished up at the 2nd Yorktown, we headed back to the coach, stopping off at Hooters for another hot wing fix.

Arriving back at the coach we found we still had power problems.  They apparently hadn’t sent anyone to look at the problem. After I talked with the office, they said they’d send someone.

In the meantime I started to try to improvise something by pulling power thru an extension cord from a nearby empy sight.

But while I was doing that, I started up the generator to run the A/C’s because the coach was pretty hot.  I hadn’t done it earlier because the people in the next site were in a tent and my generator exhaust was pointed right into their tent.  But they had gone out for the evening so it was OK.

The first plug I tried wouldn’t work because it had a reversed hot/neutral and my EMS wouldn’t accept it.

The 2nd plug I tried seemed to work, for a few minutes, and then suddenly my EMS unit went ‘WHOOOMP”! and just died.

Great!  Now I couldn’t get any power to the coach from the shore power.

And now the generator sounded different.  In checking I found that I had lost half the feed from the generator, so some outlets wouldn’ work, and only the front A/C was getting power.   This just gets better and better!

I had heard there was a way to easily bypass the EMS, but I didn’t know how and it was too late (10 pm) to call anyone.  And of course the neighbors next door showed up, so I had to shut down the generator.

So we would have to try to make it thru the night using just the vent fans to keep us cool.  Luckily it was supposed to fairly nice so hopefully it wouldn’t be a problem.

I still don’t know what happened to the EMS, but I’ll try to find out more tomorrow.