We left the Rio Grande Valley in Texas on March 3rd and arrived in Arlington Washington on March 21st. How’s that for a recap? JK
As usual, it was an interesting trip. We covered about 2700 miles without any truck problems or RV suspension problems. That visit to the trailer repair shop in Houston TX has paid off. I’m just now getting to the point where I’m not looking at each vehicle that passes us, checking to see if they’re pointing at something wrong behind me.
That’s not to say we didn’t have any issues at all. Our first stop was at an Army RV park in San Antonio. We’ve stayed there before. They have nice concrete pads and I’d planned on rotating the truck tires there instead of the gravel pad we had in the RGV. Apparently the truck tires are getting heavier or I’m getting older. That little task took a lot out of me and decided to extend our stay one extra night to rest a little more. When we left the RGV, I also noticed that the slide topper on the kitchen slide wasn’t rolling up smoothly when bringing in the slide. That’s the one that I recently replaced and pinned it incorrectly so the internal springs released all their tension. Carefree of Colorado has instructions on their website about how to re-tension the springs and I followed those to the letter but it wasn’t enough.
I’d been thinking about buying another taller ladder for some time so I took advantage of the extra day to do just that. I used my military discount at Lowe’s to get a 10 foot ladder ($25 off) and added an extra turn on the tension. It was a real pain with the topper still installed. And it turns out that wasn’t enough. So, I’ll remove the topper entirely over the summer and do it again from scratch. On the brighter side. the new ladder travels well on the truck racks that used to carry kayaks.
We continued westward with a couple of 1 night stays until we got to Tucson. I had planned 2 nights there before heading to Quartzsite but those plans quickly changed. We were only able to get a dry camp site. No power, no water, no sewer. I filled up the freshwater tank at their dump station and we started setting up on the site. I dragged our new generator out and got it fired up and connected. Mary started putting out the slides and we heard a terrible noise coming from the big living room slide. I’ve never heard that sound before but I’ve read countless posts on FB groups that told me it was most likely the gearbox. At that point it was Friday afternoon and I was tired and not looking forward to that repair, even though I had a spare gearbox and the proper tools. Mary started calling mobile RV repair shops. Besides the normal problems getting a tech quickly, we were once again on a military base. Some companies will not take calls on a military base simply because it’s a hassle for civilians to get cleared onto the base. The earliest appointment we could get was Tuesday morning. We agreed to that and told them we’d cancel if I got the work done prior to that. The next day we ran into a couple who had seen us in San Antonio a few days prior and the husband helped me get the slide fully extended. That was basically the 2 guys throwing themselves at the ends of the slideout while Mary held the ‘extend’ button. A few hours later I had the motor and gearbox replaced, the cables adjusted properly and the slideout operating normally. Again, I felt the effects of old age and extended our stay by 2 nights. Fortunately, our freshwater lasted the entire time. That was certainly helped by me taking showers in the nearby bath house.
It was a fairly short driving day from there to Quartzsite AZ. The plan was to stay in an RV park in town and just drive the truck into the desert to check on BLM camping sites. All of that happened as advertised. BLM camping in Quartzsite was an interesting sight. Everything from million dollar Prevost busses to tents and everything in between. We got the lay of the land and talked to a few people to figure out how they did things for an extended stay. We could’ve done it for a few nights but I’m not sure nearby campers would’ve appreciated our generator running 16 hours a day. Most folks who stay long term have solar panels and just use their gennys on cloudy days. We headed back into town for the RV park with all the amenities. And I realized that I had goofed on the reservations for our next stay at Nellis AFB in Las Vegas. They couldn’t change the reservation so we had to extend one more night in Q.
One of the reasons I picked this particular RV park in Q was because they are in the Passport America network. That’s a nationwide discount camping club. The participating parks all have their own conditions for using the discount. In this case, you could only use it for a 2 night stay, which is what I’d reserved. Now I needed to get one more night at their standard rate. Not a big deal except this park had a very strange policy. All the sites had an electric meter and you typically see those used for monthly stays. This park’s policy was that electric was include in your rate for a maximum of 2 days and if you stayed longer than that you would be charged for actual usage starting on your first day. When I booked the third night in the office, the lady explained all this. I told her I understood but it was the only time I’d seen a policy like that in 18 years of RVing all across the country. I saw their maintenance guy take the reading mid afternoon the day before we left. They were supposed to charge my card after we left for the actual usage but never got around to it.
In Las Vegas we were woken up in the middle of the night by the propane/carbon monoxide detector going off. It had reached the end of its useful life and was beeping to let us know. We were there on the weekend and I couldn’t find a nearby RV dealer with the correct replacement so I cut one of the wires to silence it for the rest of the trip. On our arrival in WA, I ordered a new one from Amazon and had it the next day.
Somewhere between NV and WA we also had a problem with our drop down lights over the dinette table (something like this https://www.amazon.com/Kitchen-Pendent-Brushed-Decorative-Dinette/dp/B073RQM81C/ref=asc_df_B073RQM81C/ ) One of them had come loose while traveling and swung into the other one, shattering the glass. I disconnected the one that came loose and stowed it in the truck for the remainder of the trip. After arrival in WA, I removed the one with the shattered glass and used a part from it to reinstall the other light. We’ll go light shopping at some point in the near future.
But wait! There’s more! When we stopped for the night at a Love’s RV Stop in Bliss ID, the bedroom slide started making noises. They didn’t sound exactly like the noises from the living room slide but were still concerning. The next morning I moved a picnic table under the bedroom slide and pushed on it while Mary was hitting the retract button. We got it fully retracted and decided not to use the bedroom slide again until we got to our final destination (only 2 days).
So, on March 21st we pulled into our home for the summer. It’s a fairly small park, but agreeably close to the Amazon fulfillment center where I’ll be working. We’re starting off on a water and electric site until a full hookup site opens up next month. All the slides are out and I have time to figure out the bedroom slide problem. The park has some donated totes which I’ve been using to empty the gray tanks into and pull to the dump station. We’re close enough to the dump station that I decided yesterday to buy a cheap 100 foot hose for dumping the gray tanks. I’ll still have to use the tote for the black tank although I hope to only have to do that chore once before we move.