Tribulations as we proceed

[aadler]

Susan and I started traveling again just after the middle of January. That wasn’t quite soon enough, though; the polar vortex that hit the country was more severe for us than for the areas further south (though they weren’t happy, either). We had a heated hose — and, at our park at the time, a protective heat collar around the faucet — but our water line froze regardless. Then we were stuck in Mississippi, just over the line from Memphis, for an extra four days and it was almost as cold there, which meant we didn’t thaw. In fact, it got so cold I couldn’t even drain the black tank because the outlet was frozen.

Things got somewhat better when we paused in Alabama, but once the weather finally stayed ‘warm’ long enough for things to unfreeze … well, we had leaks. In fact, when I connected to city water, there was an unending leak that started at the rear passenger-side corner and kept going till it exited just before the RV door. To make things a bit more unwieldy, we couldn’t even fill the fresh water tank and use stored water (via the water pump) to keep us going, because the tank apparently wouldn’t hold water. So we cut off water entirely and made do for a bit, relying on the facilities at the parks where we stayed.

Because Susan and I are both retired, our check deposits come on a regular basis: second Wednesday of the month for me, fourth Wednesday for her. That means I can get mine no earlier than the 8th of the month, no later than the 14th. For her, it’s 22nd and 28th. And, since her retirement pay is bigger, most of it generally goes to pay the LARGE bills that come due at the beginning of the following month, then we use mine (once it arrives) for lesser expenses.

February, of course, hit the maximums; my deposit got in today, and I’d been watching the balance to make sure nothing surprised us and overdrew our joint account. With that in mind, we’d already made an appointment for repairs. We were ready for something bad, hoping for a few blown seals but aware that we might find that all our pipes were cracked. When the RV tech showed up, however, he checked all possibilities and found something very simple and very easy to fix: a single broken valve in the water pump.

The bill wasn’t trivial; any time you have somebody come to your rig to fix things, you WILL pay for it. (And, while he was there, he also did minor repairs on the ‘kitchen’ faucet and the ceiling grille for the A/C.) It was much, much less than we were prepared for, though, which frees us up for other stuff.

We’re currently in Georgia, basically next door to the former Fort Benning (now Fort Moore), and were planning to proceed further east till we hit the edge of Florida. We decided to stay an extra couple of weeks here, though, and there are so many national parks nearby, at least two of which have been highly recommended, I think we’ll try out one or more of those. And we’ll probably go on and sign up for Harvest Hosts and Boondockers Welcome, which will allow us even more leeway for overnight stays when we travel.

We won’t keep this up forever; Susan really does want to retire overseas, and I’m fine with that when the time comes. For now, though, we’ll continue to do what we’re doing, and see how that goes.

Comments

[aadler]

We’ve been pretty lucky so far, especially given that we’re still so new to the lifestyle. And all the techs we’ve dealt with have been really nice (one even diagnosed me over the phone and told me what to do free of charge, though I’d used him a couple of times before and so we had a relationship). Anything can happen, but we haven’t been hit hard yet. ** fingers crossed **