We got 99 problems, continued
Continued from our last post. Haven't read it yet? Read it first here!
Our second stay at Las Vegas Bay Campground was turning out much different than expected, and we found ourselves trying to keep up with an ever-growing pile of problems.
- When we got to the campground, we discovered two issues with our solar power. Our inverter kept overheating, and our panels weren't drawing adequate power. We solved the inverter issue but were still days into troubleshooting our panels.
- We made a bad problem worse when we tried to fix our toilet's foot pedal, only to break it even more.
- We warded off desert critters by cutting a transitional piece to fit over a gap in our floor.
- Our campsite graced us with a flood every few days, which we could do nothing about and decided instead to call it our "desert oasis."
Let this be a lesson to Nicole, who just a couple weeks earlier said, "Things are going too easy this year. When is something going to go wrong?" We thought replacing our stairs was it. Little did we know just how much bad karma Nicole sent into the universe. Thanks, Nicole!
When we left off in the last post, we had just picked up our new connectors for the wiring of our solar panels, hoping replacing them would bring more power into the panels. This was basically part of our "try everything" approach with hopes that something would work.
Finally, a breakthrough! The solar panel connectors arrived, and Anthony noticed more wattage coming through after replacing them. Still not as much as we'd expect from such sunny days, and so we made a hail-Mary attempt to clean the solar panels yet again, even though we had already cleaned them just days before. The desert dust is incessant. We took one look at our truck which was now beige instead of black-brown, and we realized if that's what could happen to the truck, we could only imagine the dust embedded into our panels. Earlier, we had only sprayed them off, so this time, Anthony rubbed them down with a wet microfiber cloth. Again, a little more power coming through, and we even saw our highest wattage since we had arrived to the campground. This was a good sign, but we wouldn't know for sure until the next day. The sun was moving behind some wispy clouds, and then it would be setting. Time to be patient yet again.
Praise the Sun Gods, that the following day was clear and sunny, and we actually got appropriate wattage coming into our panels! We were thrilled that we didn't have a faulty panel because that would have been a total derailment of our plans. Our best guess is that one of the connectors wasn't working properly and that the panels really did need an extra-deep clean. After 4 days of basking in the sun on the roof, now Anthony could take a break and let the panels bask on their own.
Next up was the toilet. The replacement parts had come into the Amazon locker, and so we headed out together to pick them up and run a few errands, which included getting some groceries and stopping for gas. Anthony wanted to fill our gas can so we could replenish our generator tank, which was running lower than we'd like after all our extra generator use. Should be an easy task, right?
You may recall that these tanks are already a bane to their own existence, but they are useful for us on the road...usually. This time, not so much. Right after filling the can, it burst at the seam and started leaking all over the ground at the gas station. Unfortunately, we had already filled the truck, so we couldn't quickly pour the can's gas into our truck. Anthony ran inside the station to see if they had any way of disposing of gasoline. The woman working there couldn't have cared less if the ground had 5 gallons of flammable, hazardous fuel all over the place. Finally, a more empathetic worker gave Anthony a trash bag, but we needed to haul the leaking can out ourselves. So much for being good Samaritans and alerting them to the issue. We hurried back to the campground so that Anthony could pour the non-spilled fuel into our generator tank, but on the way back, our tire pressure monitor alerted us to a problem.
The front passenger tire was reading low and was getting worse with every mile we drove. We thought, it couldn't be! Nothing felt flat, we didn't hear or feel flopping, and we're so used to our trailer sensors malfunctioning that we thought maybe it was just a sensor problem. We weren't far from the campground, and we had gasoline stinking up our truck bed, so we continued on. We parked at our campsite, got out, and saw that no, it was not just a tire sensor problem. We had a flat tire. Our first flat tire since hitting the road!
We were so happy that our first flat wouldn't be on a travel day, stranding us on the side of a busy highway. Clyde was parked safely at our campsite, and we had made it back safely too. Now, here's the problem with our first flat being on the truck. We don't have a jack. We have a small jack for our trailer because the dual axles allow us to drive one wheel up while the other hangs off. Not possible with the truck. We needed to call AAA.
The guy showed up about an hour later, and as though our week hadn't been memorable enough, we proceeded to enter into a fascinating situation of mutual learning. Our dude, a very nice young man, had "just started" this job. That's fine by us, as long as he knew how to change a tire. We "knew" how to change one, logistically, but we had never done it before. We had every intention to do a test demo before we hit the road, but Murphy's Law visited us then too. We figured eventually we'd get a flat, and therefore get our demo. Now was the time. Our young dude didn't, however, know how to get the spare out from under our truck. We all proceeded to look up YouTube videos and manuals on the matter. Funny how we tried to learn as much as possible about our trailer before we went full-time, and even had our dealer show us how to get the spare out. We kind of forgot to learn about our truck the same way. So there we were, three noobs, just trying to navigate through our mechanical impasse.
It took a few tries, but finally, the spare was lowered and the dude changed our tire. He was a man of few words but did take the time to tell us that 1, it was a learning experience for him too, and 2, he thinks we would have been able to change it but needed him just for the jack. We appreciated his vote of confidence, and we hand it right back to him. He might be new, but he got the job done. We gave him one of our cards, so if you're reading this AAA dude whose name we didn't get, thanks for your help!
The flat tire happened on Saturday, the day before we were supposed to leave. Only now, we needed to get to a tire place and had no idea if any would be open/able to see us on a Sunday. Back to recreation.gov we went, to extend our stay another two days. If you're trying to keep track, this is now the third time we've extended our stay, each by two days at a time. Thank goodness our beloved site was perpetually available! The campground had busy weekends but was mostly quiet due to being on the cusp of hot season.
Anthony was able to find a tire place that had time to see us on Sunday, so we planned for that. Now, it was finally time to repair the toilet, far later than we had hoped. The repair wasn't difficult, but the instructions and diagrams were a joke. Nicole had found a YouTube video of an entire Thetford rebuild that turned out to be our instructional holy grail, and so with Aaron Jones joining us in the bathroom, we hovered over our broken toilet and got to work. Why, what do you like to do on a Saturday night...in Vegas?
The most aggravating part of the install was that the components are small, cheap, and need to be lined up just so. Finally, we got the levers back together and the foot pedal back on. Only, it was still getting stuck. Oh, right...our original issue hadn't actually been solved. Nicole started working on it because the pedal wasn't moving smoothly, but then, all you-know-what hit the fan. Almost literally. Now that we had the broken piece replaced, what was causing all the grinding and sticking? We took the levers apart again and investigated. We eventually found a spring that had come loose, deep inside the fresh water valve. Oh no. We didn't buy a replacement fresh water valve. We did the best we could to dismantle it and put it back together with the original components, and yes! With the spring back in place, the foot pedal pressed smoothly. Anthony was able to bolt the toilet back to the floor and we were ready to call it a night.
Only, not so fast! Evidently our deep hole into the abyss of our black tank was even deeper than we anticipated. With the toilet reinstalled, Anthony tested the flush and then immediately cried out, "Shut off the pump!" We had a leak in the place where our fresh water valve connects to the toilet. Oh no. We didn't buy a replacement fresh water valve! But, Nicole was desperate to be able to attend to her, ahem, "lady issues" on her own toilet, and she needed to know the problem. Worst case scenario, it was probably the O ring that would need replacing because it got too loose in all the repairs. So Anthony dismantled the toilet again, took off the pedal, and examined the fresh water valve. The O ring looked intact, but we noticed it probably wasn't in a secure enough place. We repositioned it and crossed our fingers.
At about 11PM, the toilet was back upright and bolted once again, and we turned the pump back on and flushed. No leaks! We were so relieved but also not entirely trusting it, and so we kept a very close eye on the valve as we started using the flush again. We also immediately ordered a replacement fresh water valve because we're taking no chances.
We were thrilled to have our toilet back, but it certainly wasn't all roses. By that point, our black tank was so full from constant flush-tests, and with our toilet being unbolted and rebolted so many times from the floor, our bathroom was reeking something too foul to describe. The heat only makes it worse because the vapors expand and release. We obviously hadn't planned to boondock for this long or flush all these extra times, and so tank space conservation had really gone down the toilet. We would definitely be pushing our black tank space more than we ever had before, and it would not be pleasant.
Sunday rolled around and Anthony and Clyde went off to Pep Boys to get the tire looked at. Nicole received a call from a less-than-thrilled Anthony. "We need to get all new tires." The front passenger flat was most likely caused by a nail and created a pretty sizable puncture. Typically, if the hole isn't on the side of the tire, it can be repaired. Only our treads were wearing too low. Pep Boys also checked the other three tires and found that the rear passenger tire had a nail embedded into it! We're guessing that nail was the culprit on both tires and just remained in the rear. We're also blaming "no Fs given" Circle K for the nail in the first place, since they clearly didn't care what was on the ground of their gas station. But this is just theory. Nevertheless, our treads were worn too much for repairs on either tire, and since we're full-time on the road, we would be replacing our tires soon enough anyway. It made sense to get them all replaced at once, and even better, they could have four new tires in for us the following day.
Monday brought with us a severe case of the Mondays. We sat in bed that morning wondering a lot of things. Would the tires be good for all the driving we do? Would they actually come in that day? Would our tank space hold out another day? We already needed to fill our fresh water tank with our bladder and would soon run out again. Plus, looking at the weather for travel on Tuesday, the wind was coming in. Granted, it would also bring less-hot temperatures - meaning in the 80s instead of mid to high 90s. We knew we'd be in no mood to travel after all this stress and exhaustion, in the wind, without a known destination. We needed to buy ourselves a couple more days and already knew that Tuesday-Thursday was free at our site. And so, for the 4th and final time, we extended our stay at Las Vegas Bay Campground. We made plans to hitch up and head to the dump station that evening so we didn't need to push it any extra days. And we got the call that our tires were in, went to get them installed, and on the way back to camp got Clyde his very necessary and well-deserved wash.
If our mid-stay dump taught us anything, it was that we were very right to not try and travel Tuesday morning. We could barely get back into our site after dumping because we were so exhausted, stressed, and overheated. When we experienced Murphy's Law back in Massachusetts, we learned that delaying our departure in order to regroup is the safest choice. We were lucky to have no reservations that needed canceling, and so we just made Las Vegas Bay our home for a little bit longer. We weren't mad about it. Who wouldn't want to enjoy a place like this for as long as possible?
After everything that happened during our 5...no, 7...no, 9...no, 11...no, 13...days at Las Vegas Bay, you'd think we'd be totally modded-out. But the momentum was real, and since we were prioritizing making Buggy great again, we figured we might as well do a few voluntary modifications we had been meaning to get to. But we'll save those for next time, when we discuss all the repairs and modifications that we've made so far in our second year of RV travel.