Woke up this morning to a beautiful day. Departed the KOA (next to noisy railroad tracks) in Strasburg, 30 miles east of Denver. Arrived at the RV store that was going to install the parts for the refrigerator affected by the recall.
While that was going on Abby and I looked around the parts department. I found some low voltage light bulbs I needed and Abby found a life jacket for the kayak on sale, freon horn, and sun glasses. So while the recall install was free, the tour of the parts department was not!
An hour later we departed for Rawlins, Wyoming. About 20 miles outside of Laramie we heard a the refrigerator beeping loudly (not a good sign) and Abby went back to see if a door was ajar. She reported reading a message on the fridge that it was not running on propane because of "no flow". In the 4 years we have owned the RV, we have never seen this message. Clearly fixing a non-problem has created a problem. I pulled over and attempted to trouble shoot the problem. No go. I cranked up the generator and shifted the fridge to electrical and off we headed to Rawlins.
Earlier, the winds had been picking up and as we headed down the hill towards Laramie they started gusting really hard. An electric road sign just outside of Laramie had a warning of winds between Laramie and Rawlins gusting to 65 mph. With the refrigerator problem and now dangerous winds, that was enough for us. Time to pack it in for the day. Abby was on her Iphone looking for a RV repair facility and I was looking for the nearest railroad tracks. Sure enough! I found the Laramie KOA.
No problem renting a site for the night. They even had the name of a RV refrigerator repairman that would come to the site. I told the young, multi-pierced clerk, we needed a site at least 65 feet long and he said no problem. He did say there was some minor road grading going on in the park. He assigned us spot 79 and off we went. When we got to site 79 there was a pile of gravel on it so we proceeded to another site in the same row. It looked pretty tight so I pulled in and parked but didn't shut down the engine. Ever stay at a Motel 6? You know the deal. Your feet are sticking over the end of the bed and your head is against the wall. That's what we looked like in this spot.
I walked back to the office to inquire about a different row as this clearly was not going to work. I stepped in the office. Apparently the shift had changed and instead of the young man, there now were 2 multi-pierced young women (what's with all the piercings?) working behind the counter. I asked the manager if I could change rows and she proceeded to tell me how to measure the size of the lot. I explained to her that when the nose of the RV was in the lane, and the rear of the jeep was sticking out into the other lane, the site was too SHORT no matter how you measure it. She gave me a different site.
We pulled into the site and it was clear the designer of the site was dyslexic. The power pedestal and water hook ups were at the wrong end of the site and would require a very long stretch to connect. You could turn the RV around and enter from the other side but then you would have to crawl under the RV to get to the hook ups.
Carefully positioning the RV while at the same time, dodging the road graders and dump trucks, enabled us to hook up.
Once we were set up we turned our attention to the refrigerator problem. During our trip in Canada and Alaska we intend to dry camp (no electrical, water or sewer hookups) a fair amount. We need to have the refrigerator working properly on propane and not have to rely on the generator.
Switching the fridge back and forth from electrical and propane seems to have fixed the problem. Keeping our fingers crossed.
Due to the "shovel ready" minor road work going on, we will not be using the BBQ tonight as I prefer my steaks "without grit".
Tomorrow we plan on heading to either Riverton or Dubois, Wyoming. That would put us within 1 days travel to Yellowstone. The rivers are very high and there are reports of flooding from the late snow melt, so we will see what happens. It's happy hour!!!!!!
