The Shakedown Part II
If you read my last post, you know that I’m in a bit of a predicament. One of my slides is stuck out and I cannot get it back in. I’m moving sites and I need to dump my tanks. We have no water onboard and cannot connect to our water source. Joe (an RV handyman) is there trying to help me. He tries to push the slide in, it won’t budge. It goes in crooked with one side ahead of the other and then stops.
The stuck slide is on the left
Joe unscrews something and puts a screwdriver where the slide mechanism is. He tells me to go in and try the slide again. I push the button, holding my breath. The slide comes in and doesn’t stop until it’s fully retracted. I breathe a sigh of relief and thank Joe. I am so grateful he was there to help us out. He promises to come back in a few days to finish up working on the damaged vehicle and Perl’s bruise.
I back Perl out and all is good. No crunching, cracking or scraping of metal. We head on over to our new location. A fellow solo female RV’er sees me coming and helps to direct me into my new site. After all I’ve been through, I am so relieved. Everything goes well. I level the coach and extend my slides. Joe told me to extend the trouble slide as far as it will go. It goes out with no problem. I’m keeping my fingers crossed it will come in the same way.
I hook up to sewer, water and electric. My neighbor helps me with everything including dumping my tanks for the first time. The neighbors on this side of the park are so nice. We meet Tom next door who lives in a permanent home. He invites us over to enjoy his fire and we talk for a bit. This side of the park has better mojo. I’m feeling pretty good.
At 4 a.m. I wake up to a beeping noise. My inverter is not happy. I look and see an error code. I have no clue what it means, let alone what an inverter does. I go to the fuse box and see if anything is tripped. All looks well. I turn the inverter off and go back to bed. In the morning I look at the surge protector going into my electrical outlet. It seems there is some kind of error code on that as well. I unplug it from the surge protector and plug it directly into the box. I’m wondering if my new surge protector has already gone bad.
Later that day, the microwave goes on and off several times. It’s almost as if someone is unplugging it and then plugging it back in, strange. Here and there, it cuts off completely. I never realized how sucky life could be without that one simple appliance. Some leftovers just don’t heat up well on the stovetop. That night, it sounds like we have gremlins running around under the coach. I hear clunking noises. What in the world can that be?
Saw this car in Bradenton, FL. Love it!
I mention my problems to the neighbor. She recommends I have Jim, a resident of the park who does RV repair, come take a look. He comes over and helps me troubleshoot a bit. He recommends having the office send someone to take a look at the electric box. On Monday, with microwave issues and gremlins still eluding me, I head over to the office. I mention my concern and I’m told they’ll send someone.
When I get back from the store, I notice the microwave is on. I’m not receiving any faulty codes from the inverter. Everything looks great. There must have been an issue at the electrical box. However, some of my outlets and neither television are working. Jim pays another visit and finds my main GFI (ground fault interrupter thingamajig). He pushes the button and it resets the outlets. Finally, all is right with the world and my coach.
My dent is getting worked on and the neighbors car is repaired. They never had to move it from their driveway. And this wonderful repair man only charged me $300! He was polite, kind and had everything taken care of in four days. If you are ever in need of RV or car repair while in the Tampa area, I highly recommend Joe Crider.
Next it’s off to the beach. There hasn’t been much fun in the sun with all the RV/car issues we’ve had. Several days have been spent waiting on repair work or trying to figure out our RV issues. For now things have settled down. Soon we’ll be off to Clermont, hanging out with friends and visiting the infamous mouse at, you guessed it, Disney World. The kids haven’t been for over 5 years. The time has come!
Fun at the resort pool
