Not Worthy of a Gold Medal

The day had come. We had moved our stuff back into our fifth wheel and we were ready to hit the road. But luck wasn't smiling down on us yesterday. Oh no. Far from it.

We have  a commitment in Plant City, Florida to work the Strawberry Festival again. Not as car parkers, but as tram drivers this year. We had moved out of our fifth wheel in October of last year and put it into storage. Actually it was just sitting in a field about 6 miles away in the back of a trailer park. It was cheap and convenient. We unloaded our stuff and closed it up and I turned the battery disconnect on it knowing that it was going to sit for awhile.

5 months later it was time to move back in and hit the road. Loaded and ready to go, I went to our hydraulic jack panel and turned it on. Nothing. Crap. I knew we would have a low voltage on the battery from sitting that long so I plugged it into the truck. Waited a little bit and turned it on again. Nothing. Crap again. Well I have the generator so maybe I will turn that on and plug the camper into that. So I empty out the back of the truck and get to the generator, start it and plug it in. Nothing again. Crap. Lets wait. Turn it on again and there is a faint little glow. Thats positive. Wait longer then. Nothing. Crap storm.

It must be the battery. It is old and maybe we are due for another one. I pull that out and run to Wallyworld because it was close. Toss the guy behind the counter a Hondo and head back to install it. I turn it on and it works! Praise the Maker! So I go to raise up the jacks and guess what? Nothing! The keypad is on but now only some of the buttons are working. Light bulb! The key pad is bad. Lets go to LeMasa RV. It's close. We jump in the truck and head over there. "We can get that for you in as little as a week". Crappity crap crap. Lets go back and make some calls to look for a mobile RV tech.

Stinky little culprit.

Lisa called the dealer in MN where we bought it from and asked some questions. He told us about a Youtube video that would show us how to manually raise our jacks. Awesome sauce! We watched the video and it worked swimmingly well. We got hooked up and headed to Plant City and got there only about 3 hours later than we were hoping for. We manually worked the jacks again to unhook and set up. Life was good again and we learned a lot more about our RV.

We messaged the people who made the video and thanked them for saving our butts and it was funny because they said that they were happy to get a reply like that. First order of business today was to go to some RV dealers looking to find that control panel in stock. First place we went to had it. 3 hondos lighter, I installed it and everything is working again.

So it wasn't our best start to a travel day but it ended up being a good learning experience after all.

Headless Chickens

I got the doctors okay to travel on the 6th of February and travel we did. 1800 miles back to Florida. It took us 3 days because we didn't want to push ourselves too hard and we were timing our route so that we would be in between 2 storm systems making their way across middle America. We finally got temperatures above freezing when we hit the Tennessee state line. It didn't really warm up until Florida and it felt so good. When we left Minnesota it was 16 below zero, and 85 above in Florida.

Also the death marches have resumed so I am going to be looking at hip replacements in the near future I'm sure. I am so jealous of all the people riding scooters around at Disney and I make sure to point it out to Lisa.

We got to Florida and we have many irons in the fire right now. The probate time ended in Florida for Lisa's dad's estate so now we are running like chickens with our heads cut off to get that settled and we are seeing some good progress. We sold "Big Red" back to the dealer from which LaRay bought it from. That was a little sad because that car was his and he loved it and it was also such a big reminder of him.

All of his accounts now are being changed over into Lisa and her sisters name. This is quite the legal mess to go through but at least we are seeing an end do it.

We have a short window of time before we are committed to the Strawberry Festival. So that means we are squeezing in some Disney days also. We got Florida resident passes and those are really nice to have. That way we don't feel like we have to ride every ride and be there from when the park opens until it closes.

We got a call from the Tram people and they wanted us to do some training at the Florida State Fair in Tampa. Well the training turned into working and we worked both Saturday and Sunday last weekend. We made some good tips so that was nice.

The Tram is easy to drive and fun. Around and around you go in circles. The Strawberry Festival starts next week already, so we are moving back into our fifth wheel. It almost feels like we are starting over in a way, because we actually moved out and put it into storage. Maybe we will start calling ourselves the "Class of 2018" instead of the "Class of 2014".

We are looking forward to hitting the road again. I have routed our travels and I am sure it will change a bit. 

I also didn't put any dates on there to keep the stalkers guessing. Also the McCormacks. So our time in Debary is quickly coming to an end. So look out for us on the road.