A rocky start to our Rockies adventures
Our Airbnb stay was coming to an end and our trailer would be ready for pickup later that day. When repairs are part of the plan, things can go awry quickly, and so we're always hesitant to book anything big right before or after service appointments. The last thing we want is to need to cancel campground stays without refunds because we've been delayed in getting our trailer back.
As the week wore on, though, we were getting word from Complete Trailers that the service techs were making good time and we should be good to pick it up on schedule. We had a couple weeks to kill before we were due to be down in Albuquerque, which meant we could venture anywhere in eastern Colorado down to New Mexico. I had a distant dream for months that, if everything worked out with timing and repairs, that we could possibly end up in the Rocky Mountains for foliage season. To our good fortune, it was looking like we might be able to make that dream a reality. We took a risk and booked a non-refundable site at an RV park in Estes Park - the only available site that fit our size rig, not just in the park, but in the whole city. We can probably thank a cancellation for that one.
We were happy to have a plan in place, especially one that would check off another national park and award us some incredible adventures after our week of displacement. At the end of the week in our Airbnb, we packed up and left in the morning before checkout. Our trailer wouldn't be ready until mid-afternoon, and so we needed to find some way to kill time.
Oh, we found a way. We were all packed and ready to go, when we tried to turn on the truck, and it wouldn't start. We had been having trouble for a few weeks where our truck would take a few tries before starting, but Anthony took it to be serviced during our Airbnb week, just 3 days prior. The folks at GMC said that everything looked fine, but that it was possible poor quality gasoline was causing an issue. Apparently Wyoming gas had been having too much water in it, and South Dakota gas too much ethanol. We figured we would keep an eye on the issue, and now that we're in better fuel territory, maybe we'd stop having problems.
Clearly, we didn't. We could get the truck to run on accessory, and whenever we tried to start the ignition, we'd hear some clicking and humming, but nothing would happen except the check engine light coming on.
So there we were, stuck in the driveway of our Airbnb. We had already messaged the hosts to let them know we were checked out, and so we messaged them again to let them know, false alarm! We tried everything we could to diagnose the problem, but if we couldn't get the engine to start, we'd need to call in reinforcements.
The irony of this whole situation is, we have a jump pack, only Anthony had left it in our trailer instead of the truck. We'd like to say it's because we thought we might need it to jump our generator if our trailer batteries started acting up again, but no, not the case. Anthony just stored the jump pack in the trailer for no good reason, instead of having it stay with the vehicle that has an engine.
Nothing we could do about that now, and so Anthony started making calls, first to the GMC dealer to let them know that we were still having the ignition issue, and then to AAA. Now, we were in the foothills of the Rockies, at about 8000ft at the top of a steep driveway. Getting AAA up there to jump us would be a challenge enough, but if we needed to be towed, it would be a hassle, for sure. We'd need to connect backwards and then make it down the driveway, plus the several other steep hills that make up the neighborhood roads. We were anticipating lots of drama.
But, as Anthony talked to the guy at AAA, I kept trying to start the truck, and as luck would have it, I got it running. I didn't do anything special except let it rest and make sure nothing was plugged into any of the USB or electrical ports. It took a few seconds of revving, but it started. We told the AAA guy that we think we're okay, and GMC was already waiting for us, so we messaged the Airbnb hosts again and got the show on the road. We left the driveway at 9:59AM. Check-out was at 10AM. It's as if Clyde knew!
At this point, we assumed we were having a battery issue. So much else had been checked earlier in the week, and even though our battery wasn't old yet, the truck did already have over 50,000 miles on it. I also pointed out that we had our first cold night, below 40°F, the night before, so if the battery was already acting up, that could put it over the edge. Also, let's face it, batteries were on our mind. All our trailer batteries decided they had had enough of the extreme temperatures and air quality, so why not the truck battery too?
We drove the 40 minutes over to GMC, where we then realized, we were homeless! Buggy was still in the shop, Clyde was now heading into a service bay, and our Airbnb was no longer ours. We just stood there, wondering what to do next. This service department is situated between two major highways, on a main road, so there was nowhere to walk safely, especially with the pets. We kind of meandered for a while around the dealer lots. Thank goodness it was a beautiful day. But eventually, we asked the service people if we could bring the pets into the waiting room. Thus began hours of waiting, keeping our hunger at bay with vending machine snacks and entertaining ourselves with Mrs. Doubtfire on the TV.
We ended up spending 3 hours waiting for our truck, and our instincts were correct: We had an almost dead battery. The battery test showed a low state of health, and we were glad for this because with all our issues, we really just wanted to replace the battery and not need to worry anymore. Thankfully, the service department had a new battery in stock, and we got it installed right then and there.
That was the best outcome we could have hoped for, but after getting back in the truck, we still had a long day ahead of us. We grabbed lunch and waited around until it was time to pick up the trailer. When we got to Complete Trailers, we were reminded just how much of a mess we had left things, because we needed to take everything out from under the bed, plus we moved a lot around in order to pack for the Airbnb. Then add the dirt from the workers coming in and out. We had a lot of cleaning and organizing to do.
As if that wasn't bad enough, at some point a breaker had tripped and our fridge shut off. This was the first service appointment where we technically didn't need to worry about our fridge because the solar would keep the batteries charged enough to keep the fridge running. We still took all our perishables out and brought them to the Airbnb, but we were expecting to be able to put all our items back into a cold fridge as soon as we got the trailer back. No can do. At that point, our food had been stored in insulated bags with ice packs for over 5 hours, and it would take another couple of hours for the fridge to get cold again. We knew we'd likely be throwing out most of our food.
Fridge aside, we got to see the fruits of Complete's labor. Our bed platform was replaced (again), and our rear trim was shiny and new again! That was a lot of trauma erased, but it looks so much better than all the surrounding trim, it almost looks like it belongs on a different trailer! Buggy hasn't been that clean looking since the day we picked him up. I could literally see my reflection in the trim now.
Rear trim is all shiny and new!
The workers checked our black tank valve and said they weren't worried about how much it was sticking. At some point, our valve handle started sticking more but going in the whole way. The workers made sure it wasn't leaking, and it's not, but we just hope the handle won't get so stuck that it breaks. We already had it bend once. Time will tell on that one.
The other repairs weren't visible, but we're rolling along and keeping an eye on all the fixes.
We took some time to get the trailer ready for travel. We wanted to organize it more, but we were running out of daylight. By that point, we would have just enough time to make it the hour and a half to our RV park before the sun went down. We piled all our belongings and crossed our fingers that nothing would shift too much during the drive, and we made our way north, up to Estes Park.
Setting up at our campsite was a lot different than usual. We couldn't just hook up and put stuff away. We had outdoor stuff still inside the trailer. We had no room to move around. Lily couldn't even access her litter box until we made a pathway for her. We worked into the night, trying to get as much cleaned and put away as possible, finally calling it a night at 11PM.
Part-way through cleaning our mess. Lots more to tackle in the morning.
Then, early the next morning, we got back to it. I don't think we've had that much work to do since we first moved into the RV! The silver lining, though, is that we already had all our fall decorations out from under the bed, and so it was very easy to swap out our decor and usher in the new season. We did the same thing last year; after we brought our rig to the ATC manufacturer in Indiana, we settled back in, cleaned, and decorated for fall. It made everything feel so cozy, and this year again was perfect timing to come back to the RV, clean, and welcome the autumn vibes.
Anthony finishing organizing the under-bed storage...and me not getting in the way at all!
Fall decorations are up!
Displacement is always really stressful, but once we're back in the RV and everything is back to normal, we're reminded of how awesome it is to travel with all our stuff, in a place we feel comfortable. We were home, and even better, now our home was parked just outside Rocky Mountain National Park. We had finally made it.