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…

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.

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.

Lake Mead

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.

Getting the boat ready to go in the water

Kathy, Sara & Michael on Lake Mead

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 5^th and 4^th 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.

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!

 

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!