I have not posted in a few days, so to let you know I am still around, I want to explain what has happened over the last week. I was in Lake Louise, Canada until the morning of September 13, but what I did not post about was the motorhome trouble I had been having. I had been taking shuttles to the actual Lake Louise and Moraine Lake, and to the little shopping area for groceries and postcards and such. On Friday, Sept 13, I had made a reservation to go up to the Columbia Ice Fields, about 80 miles north, towards Jasper. But of course, I could not go all the way to Jasper because they had had a big fire a few months ago and the national park and most of the town was closed while they fixed things. In fact, it will be closed until next spring, and I got five nights reservations in Jasper cancelled.
Anyway, as I was making the 80 mile incredibly scenic drive to the ice fields, my motorhome engine started to miss badly and the check engine light came on. Not only did it come on and stay on, but it would flash going up mountains, and that entire drive is mountains, up and down!! So, I did see the ice fields and made it back to the campground in Lake Louise.
I was originally going to drive to Waterton National Park for a few days, but decided that with my badly missing engine, I had better skip it and get into a larger town in the U.S. where there were more repair places and where I had a specialized road service company called CoachNet. CoachNet is worth every penny I pay for it, and they have saved me many times when I have had RV problems.
So, I limped slowly back to the border, staying one more night in Canada just before I got there. (I was afraid of damaging my engine, so I was driving about 50 mph, which no doubt irritated a lot of drivers.) Stocked up on groceries and gas, just in case. (By the way, U.S. customs took my lemons, tomatoes, and eggs. Eggs would have been OK, but I had bought these in Ontario, which apparently has a bird flu problem. The lady who inspected my fruit and vegetables was extremely nice, by the way.) I made another stop to replace those items because I really needed them.
After a few hours drive on Sunday, I arrived in Athol, Idaho, and lucked out in finding a terrific full-hookup campground that was almost empty, and extremely nice. I was worn out, so on Monday, I mostly just crashed and caught up on sleep. On Tuesday, I started making calls to truck service places to no avail. Basically, my motorhome is 32' long and built on a Ford e-450 chassis, which is what most medium duty delivery trucks are built on. Getting it worked on is always a problem. Ford truck dealers will often not touch motorhomes, and other service places for trucks will only work on diesel trucks. Athol, by the way, is about 15 miles north of Coeur d'Alene and about 40 miles from Spokane.
Finally, I gave up and called my trusty CoachNet, which while it is a towing company, it also offers technical advice on the phone, and if needed and your vehicle is driveable, it will find someone who will work on it immediately and will set up an appointment for you. Within a couple of hours, they found a place only 10 miles away for late the next morning, so I could drive that distance, I was told.
Lucked out again, because the service place had only agreed to diagnose the problem and could not do the work until the following week, but a mechanic unexpectedly finished a job early, so he not only diagnosed my problem, but was able to remove the bad coil that was causing all my problems. Not only that, but three hours of labor and one new coil later, I was on the road with a non-missing engine and a much smaller bill than I had expected. Plus, I was able to sit in my rig inside the garage while he worked on my rig!! Not bad to have your own recliner, refrigerator, bathroom, and cell/internet service while waiting for a repair!!
Here is the view from my recliner!!
So, since I am very comfortable in this RV park, I decided to get some overdue tasks done. Since RV dealers are typically booked up for weeks for service, I have called a mobile RV technician who will be coming on Wednesday morning to try to fix what he can. I have had several things inside my motorhome that need to be fixed, and how long they have been broken:
- Front furnace does not ignite. I just discovered this because I have not used it over the summer and since last winter. It should be an easy fix. Using rear furnace and a small electric heater at night in the meantime.
- Only one burner of my three-burner stoves is working. The one I use most often in the front seems to have the knob gummed up with grease. I am going to try to fix this myself by taking off the top of the stove and seeing if I can clean it. (Right back burner has been not working for a year, but front burner has been causing problems for only about a week.)
- I have storage under my bed that is accessed my lifting up the bed. The mattress is heavy, so there are two little gas struts, one on each side, that assist in lifting it up, but one or more is not working. This just happened about a week ago. I have some 2' long boards I use to park on to level my vehicle, so I got one out, scrubbed it off outside, dried in and am temporarily using it as a prop when I need to get someone out. In the meantime, I took photos of the struts and have been calling all over trying to get replacement parts because it will take the mobile repair guy too long to order them. Left message with Camping World, and they are checking parts. Will call them back tomorrow.
- Huge problem!!! My front TV is not working. The satellite dish equipment, the receiver, and the back TVs are fine, but the big front one is not getting power for last few days. I crawled up on the front bunk where all the wiring is and cannot find any broken wires or things not plugged in, so I am hoping technician can solve problem. Might need to buy new TV.
So, what have I been doing while waiting for the mobile service guy to come? I have been putting things away, cooking, doing a bit of cleaning, defrosted my freezer, paid some bills and mailed them away, ordered prescriptions refilled, and worked on some tasks I have as an executor for my aunt's estate. Also, I found out that this RV park lets you wash your vehicle, so I got out my bucket and extending brush and spent a couple of hours washing it--not easy when your vehicle is over 12' high, 32' long, and you are only 5' tall with a bad left shoulder, but I managed with a couple of rest breaks. Tomorrow, I will go out with some mineral spirits and get some of the sticky road grease off some lower panels, but it looks 100% better!!
Tomorrow, I am also going to try to replace my front thermostat. It is an exact replacement I bought about 6 years ago when my old one was acting funny. It seemed to work fine after that, so I have been carrying it around all these years. Might as well put it in. Hopefully, it is not too hard.
I also need to go to the post office tomorrow to pick up my mail and to try to get a haircut somewhere. Plus, time to back up the photos I have taken over the last three months. I back things up on a couple of external hard drives I have, and then keep one stored in a safety deposit box so I never lose all my files. I have to be at my next RV park by Friday, Sept 27 and then on two days later to another one I plan to stay at for two weeks, so I am hoping to get as many of my undone things done by then.
Much of the country has been extremely hot, but in Canada and here in the Pacific Northwest, it has been cold, cold, cold. Daytimes here have been in upper 60s and lower 70s, but last night, it dropped down to 39 degrees. As I move south, it is supposed to get a bit warmer, but I am glad it is a little cool here, especially at night. Got two little heaters running right now.
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