Trip12

The cat is such a help. We’re so glad to have him along. He helps us make the bed every morning. He saves a place for us on the seat every time we get up. He greets us at the door when we get home. Every morning when I stretch on the floor, he is right there to help, or show off. It gives me something to aspire to.

I think I might have a problem. I get haircuts regularly at home. I didn’t time them very well, before I left though. I was supposed to get another just before I left, but didn’t manage to fit it in. Now, not only am I way past due, but we’re on a trip. You know what that means. Trip hair! Just wanted to warn you. If the email goes suddenly silent, it means I’ve been spotted by the hair police and they’ve got me.

Drove around. Looked around. Signed up for several more days.

Spotted the first Lazy Daze of the trip.

I’ve been thinking about birds. And the bird list. It’s hard to find new birds now. And I know why it’s hard to find new birds. We go to the same bird habitats every year and look at the same ones over and over. We bird the Texas coast. We bird the Florida coast. We bird the Texas coast again. Maybe we’re destined to peak at 285. Better that than quit going to the places we love to go.

We have a propane crisis. It’s not about the gauge. The gauge is correct. We still have half a tank. It’s about getting propane to the appliances and the furnaces. It quit last night. We were sitting around and noticed that the furnace fans were cycling on and off, but they were never blowing warm. We pushed the indicator on the dash and it wouldn’t light up. The propane leak detector was still lit. It said everything was just fine. It didn’t matter for hot water that we didn’t have propane. We’re plugged in and have an electric hot water heater. The refrigerator runs on electricity when we’re plugged in to shore power. We have a gas grill to cook on. It only mattered for the furnaces, and that didn’t really matter much. It’s not so cold at night that we can’t sleep without the furnace. It was a little chilly in the morning, but we have an electric space heater, so we got to take the chill off with that.

Something quit working somewhere and disabled the propane system. Fuse we figured. Know what? There are a lot of fuses in this motorhome. We spent an hour finding fuses and checking them. There is a nice fuse panel in the back where you can find the fuse you need. Except for all the other fuses scattered around the rig. There is a master propane shutoff on the outside, back where you fill the tank. There are fuses in the battery control box in the outside cabinet on the other side. There are fuses up in front by where the engine would be if the engine were in front like in most vehicles. There are fuses in a box under the dash behind the accelerator pedal. No luck.

It got better this morning. Judy found Jim, the mobile RV guy. He came out this afternoon and spent two hours crawling around under and through our Bounder. He had a cell phone. He called for help. Nothing helped. There are no bad fuses. Everything works. Except the propane. Finally, he bypassed all the power and fuses from the battery, and hooked up his own power to the back of the switch panel. That worked. The systems all work. They just won’t all work at the same time. Jim went home to think about it. He’s going to call the factory tomorrow and have a chat with them. When he gets it figured out, he’ll come back and fix it. In the meantime, he jury-rigged power to the propane from a live outlet on the dash board. All systems are good to go until the real solution arrives.