Our RV Adventures

Continuing with yesterday, La Posta de Mesilla, located in the Old Mesilla section of Las Cruces, has been around in one form or the other since the 1840’s. In the 1850’s it was the hub of a local passenger and freight line to other nearby cities.

After the Civil War it was an major stop on the Butterfield Stage Line, and in later years it hosted the Corn Exchange Hotel, one of the finest ones in the Southwest. The site continued with various hotels and restaurants until the early 1900’s. Then in 1939 La Posta de Mesilla was born, and continues until this day.

I first ate at La Posta in January 1981 when I was out at the White Sands Missile Range helping to prep the Space Shuttle’s backup landing site for the first launch in March.

I told Jan how great the food was and that we’d have to go sometime. And only took us 26 years to get back there.

We first visited La Posta together on our first RV trip in March 2007 in our rental CruiseAmerica Class C, and we’ve eaten here every time through since then.

We always get one of the House Specialty’s, partly because they’re delicious and partly because they come with dessert.

I had the Specialty Combination #1,

while Jan had the La Posta Chica.

Both as delicious as always, and  the reason we keep coming back, time after time.

And of course, we finished up with our Empanada desserts, with mine apple, and Jan’s favorite, Pumpkin.

One thing we both like is the New Mexico take on Mexican food. I guess it’s New Mex-Mex, rather than our usual Tex-Mex, with more pork and green chilies in the dishes. Really good  and  really spicy.

Today was a nice sleep in, rest up day with nothing much on the agenda. We headed out for lunch around 1pm, off to our other favorite Las Cruces Mexican Place, Cha Chi’s, over by the University.

We were told about Cha Chi’s when we were here in 2012 having our rig worked on. The Rush Truck Center manager recommended the place, and we were not disappointed.

Again more New Mex-Mex with great green chili salsas and pork chili con carne.

Then it was on to a nearby Ace Hardware for some brass screws for my permanent trim strip repair, and an O’Reilly Auto Parts

Back at the rig, I took a look at a house battery problem I had noticed the last couple of days. And I quickly found the cause.

One of the cables connecting the two battery banks had almost completely broken off, not by corrosion, but by flexing from vibration. And strangely, this same cable did the same thing about 5 years ago.

And when I made up a new cable at a local marine supply place in Seabrook, TX I made a spare. So my spare got installed and everything should be OK now.

Tomorrow we’ve got a 230 mile trip over to Cochise Terrace RV Park in Benson, AZ, where we’ll be for 4 days until we move over to Voyager RV Park in Tucson for the Escapees Escapade.

And along the way we’ll make our usual lunch stop in Lordsburg, NM at Kranberry’s, a really good restaurant with RV parking in the back.

Thought for the Day:

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Today was a day of repairs, with two known and one popping up at the last minute. But since we only had a 3 hour trip to Las Cruces today, I had plenty to time to work through a couple of them.

First up was a problem I put on the back burner for a couple of days. Last night when we left the coach to go eat next door at the Van Horn Steakhouse, a loud clatter came from the rig’s step as it extended. And then again as it retracted.  Sounds like a broken gear in the drive motor.

I replaced that gear about 5 years ago in the original steps. But now we have a entirely new step system due to our blow-out in May 2015. So now it looks like I’ll need to do it again. But since it’s still working I’ll probably wait until Benson to investigate further.

The most pressing problem was that the trim strip over the rig door that covers the joint between the roof and the sidewall had come loose and started to peel back due to the wind while we were traveling.

So I had to drag the big step ladder from the back of the truck and climb up there. Found that the rivets had pulled out along the strip. I didn’t have any Pop-Rivets of the right size, so I used some galvanized sheet metal screws to tighten it back in place for now. Then just in case I put a piece of clear Gorilla Tape over the end to keep the wind from catching under it again.

So finally about 11:00am we were pulling out of the park and on our way.

For about a quarter of a mile.

That’s when I realized I had another problem.Luckily I found a nice place to pull over and check it out.

And a quick look confirmed my suspicions. Although the front airbags were inflated, the rear ones were not. And from past experience I was pretty sure what had happened.

So taking a flashlight and putting down a pad over the gravel, I stuck my head underneath the rear of the rig right behind the rear tires on the driver’s side.

And this is what I saw.

The rod that runs from the airbag proportioning valve to the frame had come loose. This valve ‘proportions’ the air supply between the front and rear airbags to keep the coach level. And when the rod comes loose, no air gets to the rear bags.

But to get to the problem I had to put the coach up on the rear levelers so I could get under there. So I cranked back up and raised the rear of the coach as high as it would go. Then with screwdriver in hand I crawled under the rig.

Now before everyone starts telling me I shouldn’t be under the rig when it’s supported only by the hydraulic levelers, the only dangerous part is the few seconds it took me to crawl under the outside edge of the coach. Once I was fully under there the coach could have come all the way back down and I would have been safe, since there was plenty of room for me.

Of course I would be stuck there until the coach was lifted back up, but hey, nice time for a nap.

The last time this happened it was the grommet itself that had deteriorated and come apart. So when I replaced that one , I bought a couple of spares.

But this time it looked like the rod had just pulled out of the grommet.

So it was pretty quick work to loosen the small hose clamp, insert the rod until it bottomed out, and tighten the clamp back down, really tight this time.

Back in the rig, I cranked up and raised the levelers, letting the rig come up on the airbags, before I went back out to check, and found everything back to normal.

So 40 minutes later we were back on our way, and had no more problems with it.

Several people suggested taking the Transmountain Expressway around El Paso, but since it was Sunday noon when we were going through, we decided to take the route straight through town.

And it worked out fine. We did 60mph the entire way, never slowing down at all. Just whizzed right on through with no problems or construction.

Since we got back the hour we lost to Daylight Savings Time when we entered the Mountain Time Zone, we got into Las Cruces and were parked at the Coachlight RV Park by about 1:30.

I’m going to wrap this up now, and continue with our dinner at La Posta de Mesilla in tomorrow’s blog.