We had a little problem about an hour and a half away where almost everything shut off, except the engine (for some reason the Xbox had gone off but came back on, but I used that opportunity to make the boys turn it off). Chuck kept driving and we were going through all the things we could check - breaker, fuse, reset the inverter. When we pulled into the campground and he turned it off, there was a loud beep that wouldn't stop. He went and checked in and when he came back, it hit me that I had been storing my tall SmartWater bottle in front of the battery disconnect switch that turns off everything. Whoops. Problem solved!
I also realized the beeping was because Chuck had turned on the headlights, which he hadn't been doing, so it was just warning us they were on. Another problem solved!
Alas, our luck was not to last. We were setting up camp, putting the long slide out when we heard a noise and realized it wasn't going out all the way. We went outside to check it out, and noticed the slide topper (which is a little awning that rolls out with the slide) was buckled up in the middle and popped out of its casing.
Chuck got on the roof to check it out, and when he took the end of the casing out, it turns out those things are spring loaded! So there was no rolling it back in. It was so windy - I think it was steady 20-30 mph with gusts of 50+. We had a rock brigade handing him rocks to weight it down. Of course there was a chance the wind would blow them off, but we really didn't know what else we could do.
The next morning Chuck called the Coachmen roadside assistance number. They found an RV mechanic who said he could come out on Wed. On Tues., we ended up taking the rocks that hadn't been blown off yet off and Chuck was able to slide the whole thing off. We got it rolled up and stored underneath us so it wouldn't blow away. I'm not even joking when I say the wind was still that bad. The mechanic made it out and agreed it was not fixable, cleared that with the company, and hauled it away.
Our campground was in a wide open space on the side of the mountain, so there was no wind protection at all. It was basically just a parking lot, but it did have incredible views of the sand dunes. There was also no wi-fi, no cable, and no antenna channels, but we did have cell service. The wind was so bad we couldn't eat outside, put out our chairs, or anything. And my mouth tasted dusty the entire time. The dust is also making us all sneezy.
The last night there we had a storm, just to keep our rain streak alive. We were heading out and saw a very black cloud overhead so we quickly changed our minds and stayed in. There was a lot of very loud thunder and a double rainbow but only a little rain. After the storm the wind actually died down!
My next post - the good stuff about this stop!
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