After several postponements, we finally embarked (and finished) an RV trip! It was not, however, without incident.
The day we left, the electric steps wouldn’t drop. No problem, I thought, they probably need lubricated and I can do that when we stopped for the night. I got the step-stool out so Karen could get in the motorhome and off we went.
While on the road, we lost power to Karen’s seat. The footrest, which worked earlier, wouldn’t come up. I figured a fuse had blown.
Great. Two things to fix now!
We have traveled I-8 many times to San Diego, California, usually at night to avoid the heat of the desert. Along the way, there is a place in Arizona called Dateland. Their claim to fame are date shakes made with dates grown in the area. After all these years, we finally had the opportunity to try one. I was skeptical that I’d like it, I must confess it was pretty good!
We had started our trip from our cabin in northern Arizona, and it was too far to make our destination in one day. I planned to stop in Yuma, Arizona, another hour down the road. Instead, we decided to stay the night at an RV park in Datelined.
I spent a couple of hours trying to get both the seat and steps to work. We could get by with the seat not working, but not the steps; Karen would be unable to get in an out unless I pulled the step-stool out of storage each time she wanted to leave the RV. Since it was only about 2 hours back to Phoenix, we decided to head back as I knew I could get an RV mechanic to look at the steps first thing in the morning. Also, if the problem couldn’t be fixed quickly, we would cancel the trip and unload everything at home.
We spent the night at home, with the RV parked in front of the house. I was at the RV mechanics when they opened. While they couldn’t fix the step problem completely, I did learn what to tap with a hammer while someone opened and closed the door to activate the sensor to drop the steps. It was a work-around that let us continue our trip!
We made it to the RV resort along the San Diego Bay as the sun was setting!
We had dinner with a nephew and his significant other during the week, did a little shopping but generally relaxed at the RV resort until Jonathan and Sarah showed up for the weekend late Friday night.
Saturday morning, Jonathan blew out one of the electrical circuits when he plugged in a hair dryer. There was already a load on the circuit; a toaster, and a heaving-duty charger charging the two 12-volt batteries for Karen’s scooter. I couldn’t get the GFI outlet to reset and the breaker wasn’t blown, so I figured the GFI outlet had fried. I replaced it later that morning, but I still had no power.
For the rest of the trip, we cooked our toast in the bedroom where there was still a live circuit, and ran an extension cord to the kitchen when we wanted to use the tea maker. Could that be considered ‘roughing it?’ Ha ha!
My nephew and S/O joined us later that afternoon. Earlier in the week, we had tried the restaurant at the marina next to the RV resort and enjoyed the food and patio dining so much that we spent much of the afternoon there before we headed to Petco Park where we watched the San Diego Padres defeat the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Jonathan and Sarah left for home Sunday afternoon. We left the next day, heading for northern Arizona. Our plan was to stop for the night at Buckskin Mountain State Park, a place where we had camped in cooler weather many times before in years past. Unfortunately they only had 30 amp service, which meant that we could only run one of the air-conditioners in the RV. To run both AC units, we needed 50 amp service. Since it was 112° there along the Colorado River, one AC unit couldn’t cool an RV as large as ours.
So, a couple of hours after we arrived, we left, heading to Kingman, Arizona where it was much cooler. After spending the night there, we spent a couple of nights in the cool pines of Williams, Arizona. There, we toured Bearizona (a drive-through zoo), explored some of the shops, and had dinner at two restaurants, Rod’s Steakhouse and Red Raven Restaurant, that were rated in the top 25 in Arizona Highways Magazine. Both were outstanding!
Our last night was just outside Winslow, Arizona, at Homolovi State Park, home to several ancient Hopi village ruins and petroglyphs. We saw the ruins, but not the petroglyphs as those had to be scheduled for a hiking tour and stay was short. Karen would not have been able to join the tour in any event with her scooter, but would have wanted me to enjoy the hike and take pictures for her.
For our last night on the road, we had dinner in the restored La Posada Hotel in the hotel’s restaurant, The Turquoise Room, another top 25 restaurant in Arizona Highways Magazine. Again, dinner was wonderful!
We spent a few days at the cabin, doing laundry and joining friends for dinner who were camping in the woods not too far from us before heading home to the desert heat.
Upon arriving home, we found our pool an ugly color of green. My youngest son, who had joined us in San Diego for a couple of days, had neglected the pool while we were gone. Having a pool himself, he knew better. Needless to say, we were rather disappointed. It took nearly a week to get it cleared up.
The RV is in the shop, and hopefully, the problems will be resolved soon.
But it was great doing some traveling again!