Squirrel!
Let me tell you my theory…
Back in February of 2017 we purchased a new to us motor
home. We noticed a few things slightly out of the ordinary after living in it
for a few weeks. One day while lying on the bed awaiting my turn in the shower
I noticed something inside one of the A/C vents. I removed the vent to expose
the shell of an acorn nut. Upon checking the other A/C vents throughout the RV
I found other nut shells and assumed since the coach had low miles and one area
of slight water damage that the coach had been kept outside in a wet region of
the country before we purchased it. My suspicions were more viable after we
found out the coach was from Utah when we were tracking down the original title
to the coach. Shortly after that I went to dim the overhead lights one evening
and found that the dimmer switch also controlled the overhead exhaust fan which
I thought odd. I surmised that a squirrel had somehow made this coach home and
was eating the wiring for dessert after having stored his acorns for winter and
whomever rewired the bad wiring had just chosen a hot wire for the fan and it
happened to be the dimmer switch. RV dealer shops are not known for being the
most thorough or having the brightest employees so I figured my suspicions were
right on the money. This, in the tradition of my daughter, Mallory, we named our coach
Squirrel!
Now, on with the blog…
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| Draft of our intended route |
Sunday, June 11, 2017
We left Yucaipa headed for Meadview, AZ by way of Primm, NV. We
always stop at Primm the first night and boondocked in the Buffalo Bill Casino parking lot. This gives us a chance to have a dinner out and shopping. That
night after leaving Yucaipa our local friends there in the park who always walk
their dog, Molly, past our coach stopped on their usual rounds because I always
met Molly out front with a dog treat. Thus the picture of Molly looking at our deserted
spot wondering where her dog treat was.
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| Molly wondering where her treat is! |
Monday, June 12, 2017
After a restful night outside the casino we rose and were
told by our traveling companions (Michael & Sara) we had made a mistake. We
thought we would be able to go across the new road at the Hoover Dam but were
told by Sara she had heard we would have to sit thru an extensive vehicle
inspection and because time was a bit of a factor we opted to back up and go across
Nipton Rd which made our trip much further than expected. We actually had to go
over thru Serachlight, NV and down to Laughlin, NV before heading across to
Needles, AZ and back North again to Meadview. Meadview is situated about 10
minutes from Lake Mead and about 20 minutes from the Grand Canyon Skywalk. It has
a population of only a few hundred by looking at the amount of dwellings in the
area and is mostly vacation homes for those who want to be close to Lake Mead. We
were invited to spend a few nights in Meadview by a friend who had property in
the area and we could take the boat and other water toys out to play. We found
our way to our friends house, got backed in and even had hookups. Good thing
because we certainly needed the A/C. The last time Kathy and I were at the
Skywalk was with my daughter, Mallory and we had to traverse a lot of dirt
roads to get there. Now it is all beautifully paved.
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| Lake Mead |
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| Lake Mead in the distance |
Tuesday, June 13, 2017
I just realized by typing the date for today why our day
went the way it did. Our friend John thought we should take his boat out on
Lake Mead for the day. We got our ice chests and day bags all ready to go,
hooked up to the boat and headed for the lake. The surrounding area around the
lake is gorgeous rock strewn hills and spires. I am always amazed after having
grown up and spent most of my adult life in the desert how beautiful it always looks
to me every time I see a different part of it than I have before. I think that’s
the biggest reason I got into the off-roading so I could explore all those
areas I could see. John, Michael, Sara and Kathy jumped in the boat and
launched while I took the trailer and truck up to the parking lot. Then I
proceeded out to the end of the dock where I was picked up. No sooner did we
make our way out past the 5mph zone John went to open up and go when the engine
sputtered and tried to die. We found out later we could have putted all over
the lake at 5-10mph but nothing faster. The boat had 2 fuel pumps and the one
that supplied fuel at speeds was non-functional. A costly fix for John and the
end to our boat ride so back to the dock where I retrieved the truck and
trailer, we loaded up the boat and home we went.
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| Getting the boat ready to go in the water |
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| Kathy, Sara & Michael on Lake Mead |
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| Returning to the dock after our failed attempt |
Wednesday, June 14, 2017
Wednesday was a travel day. We left Meadview and headed towards
Williams, AZ where we planned to stay for about 10 days exploring the area and holding
our summer camping event. On our way we stopped just outside Kingman, AZ to top
off fuel to hold us over until we were ready to leave for the next stage of our
trip. As we get back on the freeway after getting fuel I notice my transmission
temperature is very high. I slow down and downshift to bring the temp back down
and notice my coolant temp for the engine is also high. At first, I attributed
the high temps to traveling in the middle of the day and the steep mountains so
I kept my transmission down in 5th and 4th gear to keep
the temps around 210 but it soon became apparent we had other issues. We pulled
to the side of the road and I went to the rear to check things out. There are 4
half-inch hoses going from various places within the engine compartment to the
overflow canister and one of them was routed in such a manner it was lying on
top of the A/C compressor which had melted a very small pinhole in the hose
which over the miles had puked out all our antifreeze. Thank the heavenly stars
we were in a motor home. We had 3 gallons of antifreeze and a full tank of
water onboard. I also carry Rescue Tape. That stuff is gold! I’ve used it on
many repairs and the only time it didn’t work was on one of my high pressure
hydraulic hoses on my jeep. I wrapped the hose with the tape and Michael and I
proceeded to add the 3 gallons of antifreeze as well as 10 more gallons of
water from the outside shower to the radiator overflow until it was full. That
got us all the way to Williams where we found an auto repair that had
everything we needed to make our repairs.
Thursday, June 15, 2017
Thursday was a fairly uneventful day. We spent the day
exploring the various campsites in our area looking to find something better
than where we were located and a trip to the local Safeway market for supplies.
Friday, June 16, 2017
Friday was spent working around camp. We cleared tall grass
from under the trees so we have a shady place to hang out and moving large
rocks so others can get in and park their RV’s without too much trouble. One of
our camping friends from Phoenix direction arrived early to hang out with us.
She had a bad motor on her stabilizer under her trailer that needed work and we
spent a few hours working on that. In the evening Michael BBQ’d chicken and
bratwurst (for me because I really hate chicken) and we had a picnic outside
with sides of salad and sweet potatoes. We ended up sitting around under the
tree until it was almost too dark to see our RV’s before retiring to the coach
to watch a little TV and go to bed.
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| Michael pulling weeds and grass around camp |
Saturday, June 17, 2017
A sad awakening. Awoke to a voicemail from a past co-worker
his wife had passed away that morning. I spent some time on the phone trying to
console him long-distance and helping him cope with the ordeal. It was very
apparent he was in quite a bit of shock. We talked off and on throughout the
day. The afternoon was spent by Kathy trying to spend some time on a web site
trying to make sure our insurance was correct for our vehicles. For those of
you who don’t travel like we do it isn’t easy having decent Internet service.
Since we have no stationary home we travel with a Verizon Mi-Fi and our phones.
The Mi-Fi works but not nearly as well as your home Internet provider. We can
have 4 bars and 4g service and still wait for pages to load. Sometimes and
often more than not, the browser times out before the pages can get loaded. For
the life of me I can’t figure out how we can be sitting with 2 and sometimes
more cell towers all around us and still not have decent service.
Sunday, June 18, 2017 (Father’s Day!)
Today was a pretty darn good day. My daughters called me to
wish me a Happy Father’s Day, my dad was home so I got to chat with him awhile
and Kathy and Sara took Michael and I out to a very nice dinner at the Red
Raven restaurant in Williams, AZ. The food was upscale and delicious however
our waiter was a young man who was very inattentive and seemed more infatuated
with himself rather than his job but we made it through dinner anyway. Michael
was so incensed with the waiters indifference to us he wrote a bad review on
his bill and on Yelp for whatever good it might do…lol!
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| Pics of my daughter Mallory with me on our Lake Powell trip years ago. Pics were included in her Father's Day message to me this year! I'll never forget how she fished her behind off to catch the most fish out of everybody. She never got to go swimming with that giant cast on her leg. I owe her a trip! |
Monday, June 19, 2017
As I sit here writing this blog it is raining outside. We
have a forest fire burning about 17 miles away over towards the Grand Canyon
and the monsoon weather is making things cool right now but watch out for the
humidity in another hour after it quits. We spend our time watching some TV or
reading books. At 6800 feet in elevation it quite nice, very quiet, cool and relaxing.
Until next week!
