Our RV Adventures

To set the record straight, Jan and I are NOT hanging up the keys. Nor are we anywhere close. We’re just somewhat taking a break this year only.

And even with the break, we’ll still be doing over 2000 miles later this year with our planned Gulf Shores- North Alabama trip

Although the weather forecast was for Sunny with a few clouds today, we woke up to fairly heavy rains for most of the morning, with the sun only coming out later in the afternoon. And that kept the temps and AC usage down, so we had no repeat of yesterday’s power outage.

After having trouble with our rig’s water pump the last two trips to and from Conroe, I decided to replace it rather then fooling with it any more. It either works, or it doesn’t work, with no in-between.

The 12v power is good, and tapping on the pump doesn’t help either. I disassembled the pump head but didn’t find any obvious problems so I just ordered this one.

Shurflo 3.0 GPM  RV Water Pump

The one that’s installed right now is 8 years old, so  it’s had a good life. I installed it during our first couple of months on the road after we started RV’ing in 2008. Based on the date code on it, I assume it was the original one from 1999. It should be here next week.

For dinner tonight, Jan and I put together another of our ‘make it up as we go’ meals. Saturday when we ate at Floyd’s Cajun Seafood and Steakhouse, we both had a lot of French Fries left over. So we got a take-home box to bring them home.

Now what to do with them.

Looking in the pantry and the fridge, we found Skyline Cincinnati Chili, Bush’s Bourbon and Brown Sugar Beans, Hot Dogs, and a large bag of Shredded Cheese. A group of ingredients that just called out for a variation of the Tater Tot Chili Cheese Hot Dog Casserole, but using French Fries instead of Tater Tots.

I mean, it’s all taters, right.

So here’s what we came up with it.

Check it out. It was really good.

French Fry Chili Cheese Hot Dog Casserole

To go with our meal Jan fixed up one of her delicious salads, using her version of the salad dressing recipe she got from our friend Lynn Cross.

The salad is Spring Mix & Baby Spinach, Cucumbers, Sliced Cherry Tomatoes, Shredded Cheese, and these Texas Toast Croutons. 

These come in several different flavors, and unlike other brands, which are teeth-cracking little rocks, these are large, crunchy, tasty nuggets.

Jan’s Version of Lynn Cross’ Salad Dressing

1 Tbsp. Olive Oil
3 Tbsp. Red Wine Vinegar
3 or 4 squirts of Lime or Lemon juice. We use the juice squeeze containers
3 squirts of Honey from the Squeeze Bear
1/4 tsp.of Crushed Garlic packed in water
Salt and Pepper to taste

Once Jan has this initial mix, she adds a little more of this and that until  she has it just right.

Karma’s on her way to being a grown-up kitty. At nine months she now weighs about 10 pounds. Certainly not in Mister’s weight class, but she’s a lot bigger than she was when we adopted her (or she adopted us) back in February.

Tomorrow we’re going to try the lunch buffet at Schobel’s down in Columbus and then make a Brookshire Bros. stop on the way back home.

Maybe.

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After a lot of discussion (days, months, etc.) and a bunch of procrastinatin’, Jan and I have come to decision, an epiphany, I guess.

We’re not going to travel much this year, at least not as much as we normally do. And almost certainly not up to the Escapade in Essex Junction, VT the end of July. Of course it’s always possible that we’ll dump out a new bowl of Jell-O, hopefully orange, my favorite, and decide to make the direct 2000 mile run up there in time.

But I wouldn’t bet on it.

In the last 8 years, we’ve traveled over 73,000 miles, so a little over 9,000 miles a year. But that’s kind of distorted by last year’s blowout-shortened 5,300 miles. So figuring that in, we’ve done almost 10,000 miles a year for the first seven years..

And in that time, we visited 47 of the 49 continental US states, somehow missing only Kansas and Nebraska in the middle. As far as Canada, we’ve visited the provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland, missing only Manitoba.

And as far as the Canadian territories, we visited the Yukon, and the Northwest Territories, missing only Nunavut.

So, all told, not a bad record for 8 years.

Of course, we won’t stick to just bouncing back and forth between Conroe and Columbus, but will probably do a week in Gulf Shores, AL at some point, combined with a detour up to north Alabama to check in on my relatives.

And really this is all my friend Nick Russell’s fault. I told him today that all his looking for a place in Florida to spend more time off the road had infected us by remote control.

But I know our ‘hitch itch’ has not been completely scratched, not even a little bit. I doubt there’s enough Calamine Lotion for that anywhere.

Unlike the last two days, today was a nice, quiet afternoon for us, until about 3:30pm when it got really quiet, as with a loud thump, the shore power went off.. But it wasn’t us this time, but the power was out on our ring, and the adjacent ring behind the dumpsters.

When our previous shutdowns kept reoccurring, due to voltages occasionally going 1 volt over 130 volts, or 1 volt under 103, I put our Progressive EMS into bypass mode, so we weren’t popping off 2 or 3 times a day.

Here’s what we ran most of the afternoon.

I don’t have a direct meter on the L-2 voltage, but when the rear AC comes, this front voltage actually goes UP to around 109-110 volts. This reinforces my thought that there is an open or high resistance neutral in the system, probably near the panel since it affects all the sites.

After about 15 minutes, and still no shore power, I cranked up the genset and got the AC’s back on. With the temps in the high 80’s, we didn’t want to let it go too long.

And in comparison, this is the output of our genset with both AC’s running.

About 45 minutes later, the park guy came by to say the power was back on, and that they had found a blown breaker somewhere up the line.

I wonder if when they upgraded these two inner rings to 50 amp so that they could put a couple of cottages here, that they might have done it on the cheap. The new pedestals only have a 50 amp connector, with no 30 amp or 20 amp connectors.

What I’ve seen done in the past is that rather than pull new heavier wires, capable of handling 50 amps on each leg, they do it on the cheap, and just pull one new wire. This new wire, paired with the 3 wires from the original 30 line, gives them the 4 wires they need for a 50 amp circuit. But of course vastly undersized for the load.

Tomorrow’s another stay at home day, hopefully with no more power interruptions.

But I wouldn’t bet on it.

Thought for the Day:

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