October 9, 2014

October 3, 2014

We left Nehalem Bay State Park on the morning of the 1st and after a stop at the Wildhorse Resort and Casino for one night, we are now parked at Gowen Field National Guard Base in Boise, ID.

Last night we had supper with Bob and Teresa Shaw who are here in Boise for an Elks Lodge board meeting.  Today we plan to do some shopping and visit with Chick and Brenda Anderson.  Chick was the 22nd Air Force C-130 Chief Flight Engineer at Travis.

October 3, 2014

We had lunch with Chick yesterday and the visited with him and Brenda yesterday.  It was great to see them again.

After getting some shopping done, we stopped at the hotel where Bob and Teresa Shaw were staying.  After visiting with them and other folks who were there for the Elks board meeting, we made the drive out to Kuna, ID to have something to eat.

Bob had been telling us all about the El Gallo Giro Mexican Restaurant and we were sure glad that we went.  The place is short on atmosphere but let me tell you, the food was amazing.  I have to rate Giro’s in the top five Mexican restaurants that we have been to.

Joyce and I have had our Internet through Verizon Wireless since day one of our full-timing adventure started and have been fairly satisfied with the service so far.  At one time we had unlimited data usage but a couple of years ago, we switched to one of their 4g Jetpack’s to get the higher speed.  Since we had to start another contract, we unfortunately lost our unlimited plan and we had to select one of Verizon’s “limited” data plans.  We settled for 10 gigs a billing period but as you can imagine, that didn’t last long so we almost always had to call and bump that up 2 gigs at a time for $10.

I was reading on the Escapee’s Forums web site yesterday that Verizon (and a couple of other companies) have changed their data plans to increase the the amount you are allotted for a very small increase in fees.

I immediately got on the phone with Verizon and in very short order made a great deal.  Here is the old plan, and new one compared:

Unlimited talk and text.  Remained the same.
Old data plan:  15 gigs (they were giving us 1 a 1 gig freebie for a year).  New one:  30 gigs and they sill are honoring the 1 gig freebie.
No change in our 2 year contract.
They backdated the offer to the beginning of our billing cycle.
All of this and our bill only increased by $10.

Yeah, we still don’t have unlimited data usage but 31 gigs is still enough for us right now.

October 8, 2014

On Saturday the 4th, we drove to the Jerome, ID Elks Lodge where we spent one night.  The lodge opened at 3 PM so we enjoyed some adult refreshments and socialized for a couple of hours.

Sunday morning we headed out to Hill AFB in Roy, UT where we are parked right now.  Hill has a very nice Famcamp with forty-one parking sites and we snagged on of the nice pull-through’s with 50 amp service on a level cement pad.

Before leaving Nehalem Bay we discovered that the large living room slide-out was stalling when retracting.  If one of us pushed on it during that cycle, it came in as usual.  I called Ray Citte RV here in Roy and talked to one of their technicians and just as expected, he thought that the problem was either the motor or a power problem.  The service department made an appointment to have the problem checked out.

So, on Monday we took the rig in and after some troubleshooting, the technician said that we had weak batteries and that they needed replacement.  But, he also discovered that our automatic transfer switch, which transfers power between the generator and shore power, was fried.  He recommended that we not hookup up any power to the motor home and of course, replace the switch.

As full-time RV’er, this was very bad news since we would be without our home during the repairs.  So, while to folks in the parts department got to work finding the switch, Joyce and I went out to the the Billeting Office on Hill where we got a one-bedroom apartment in the family quarters.

We then drove back to the RV dealership and were told that in all probability they could have the rig ready the next day providing if they didn’t run into any problems.  That was really good news and a ray of sunshine in an otherwise gloomy day.

Yesterday we headed back over to the shop where we were informed that all of the work would be completed that afternoon.  That was really great news!

So what caused the issue in the first place.  Well, as for the slide stalling out, the motor just wasn’t getting enough juice for the batteries.  Easy fix.  We had Les Schwab install new batteries which cost us $600.

As for the transfer switch problem?  Not sure but here is what I think may have happened:  During a power outage at Nehalem Bay, I started the generator to get us some juice.  I got distracted and forgot to disconnect the shore power to prevent two sources of power getting to the rig.  The transfer switch should do that automatically when transferring from genset power to shore power but I always manually do it “just in case”.  Well, when shore power came back on, the transfer switch failed to do it’s job so a total of 240 volts was slammed into the coach.  That ain’t a good thing!  Not only did that ruin the ATS, it’s a miracle that we didn’t have a fire.

Joyce and I would be remiss if we didn’t thank some folks that helped us out.  First, to Nick Russell for writing the “Gypsy Journal’s Guide T RV Good Guys” book where we found Ray Citte RV.  If you are an RVer, you need to get that book.  I highly recommend just getting the Seven In One Deal.  http://gypsyjournal.net/gypsy_journal_book_store.htm

Second, we have to thank the folks at Ray Citte RV for all of their help.  Most dealerships would have told us that they were just too busy and to take a hike.  Not this one.

So, all total this little lesson cost us over $1000.  Such is the life of full-time RV’ers!

See ya on down the road somewhere!