On the road with Buddy and Cally Cat too!!

It seems that this trip has been plagued by extremely HOT temperatures and it wasn’t much different on this leg, that took me from St. Louis, MO to Aberdeen, Miss where I got a campsite at Blue Bluff USACOE campground. I had stopped a couple of times to cool off, as I was having a problem with of all things at this time the front and rear air conditioners kept on tripping the circuit breakers, leaving me with only the center air conditioner to try to keep the ‘Bird cool inside, along with this was the ambient temperature was hovering around 110 degrees outside and that was causing the engine fan to run a lot and since I hadn’t replaced the gasket that, is in the area where the small dog house cover meets the large one, with the engine fan running this was forcing hot air in the drivers seat area and the sun was also shining through that huge windshield, making the temperature inside in the front area over 90 degrees. After cooling down I headed to the campground where I have spent two nights and will leave early Friday morning in hopes that this will help beat the heat.

The air conditioners didn’t trip the breakers when I was parked and motionless, it only did this when I was driving down the road and was on a rough road, so I thought, It is always the ground, it is always the ground, how many times have I heard this said about electrical problems on the Wanderlodge forum. So after spending the night at the campground with no problems and then turning off the shore power early in the morning while it was in the 70's outside, I removed the cover for the front air conditioner and started checking all of the wire connections that I could get to, but I couldn’t find any problems there, next I went the circuit breaker box and replaced the two affected breakers with new ones that I carried with me and then checked all of the wire connections in there and found some of them, just a little bit loose, so I tightened them all up.

I then remembered that I hadn’t checked the wall switches next to the drivers seat that actually turned the individual air conditioners on and off. I first removed the switch that controlled the front air conditioner and when I pulled it away from the switch box one of the wires slid out of the connector on the back of the switch, this would definitely cause the wire to loose it connection when a bump was hit in the road, thus tripping the breaker. I had one spare switch of that type so I replaced it and made sure that the wires were properly connected to the switch, the other switch for the rear air conditioner, did not appear to have any loose connections, so I just left it as it was. I will stop at a Hardware store and purchase three new switches and replace them all.

I left Aberdeen, Mississippi and stopped for fuel at a Wal Mart in Montgomery, Alabama and got caught in a extreme thunderstorm while I was fueling, this was an omen of sorts, as when headed further east and I approached Columbus, GA. I saw a very dark sky looming before me, so as I went around the north side of Columbus I checked the weather on my scanner and they were predicting severe thunderstorms with very high winds, lightening and heavy rain, so I looked for a place to pull in for the night, but had no luck. I drove on around Columbus and right into the HIGH WINDS and driving rain, but I kept on going but a greatly reduced speed 45-50 mph, as the traffic was almost non-existent at that time, maybe they knew something that I didn't, then the wind picked up, while I'm sure that the trailer helped in me getting buffeted around a lot, while I never felt out of control, the wind did push me over to the edge of the shoulder more than once, but then I didn't feel comfortable picking up the speed either and traffic going the other way was not breaking any speed records either and a lot of the trucks and new Bluebird school buses going west had their four way flashers on as I had mine on too.

I thought about stopping on the shoulder, but had visions of someone running into me, so I pressed on and eventually drove out of the storm, but only to find another one to drive back into and this storm was just as bad as the first one. I finally found a fuel stop to pull in to, but only long enough to make a cup of coffee in the microwave and make a trip to my rear bath and since the only place for me to park was also partially blocking their gas pumps, I pressed on with a light show going on outside that was very impressive with all of the sky lighting up from the bolts of lightening at times, while Buddy retreated to his safe spot under the kitchen table and Cally under the recliner.

I finally drove out of the storm just as I was entering Ft. Valley and headed to the “Nest’ at the Bluebird Wanderlodge factory. I stopped the 'Bird in the nest drive and left it running as I got out to survey a new spot for enough length to park both the 'Bird and trailer, but as I was checking things out the light show started again and this time it was too close for comfort making the hair stand up on my arms and if I had hair on top of my head it would have been standing too, so I just pulled straight into the same spot that I used back in June and left the generator running as the lightening was coming fast and furious and very close by too. I waited until the storm subsided, then I put on my rain gear and got everything hooked up after it felt safe to do so, but there was still some light rain coming down.

When I went to make another cup of coffee, I found that the microwave was not working, nor was the clock radio, external speakers for both TV's, nor was the coffee pot working either and these were all plugged into the inverter, that was still working and supplying power to both TV's, the computer and the satellite receiver, I tried plugging the toaster into the same outlets that the microwave and the other dead items were plugged into and the toaster worked just fine. Plugging these dead items into a shore powered outlet gives me no different results, so I suspect that one of the extremely close bolts of lightening caused the problem, but why it didn't take out everything else on the inverter circuit is a mystery to me. Later on I would find out that the inverter was only producing 86 volts instead of 120 volts, but that was enough to operate the TV’s and the computer charger, but I turned it off and plugged those items into the shore power outlets.

So now I'm left with preparing my food, without the microwave which I greatly depend on and that can be disastrous for me, so I may just not make it home due to starvation, without the aid of fast food restaurants, but as I have been told there is at least a fried chicken place here in Ft. Valley.

I rely on the microwave so much, that I have only one small pan, a tea pot, a stove-top skillet and an electric skillet in the 'Bird to cook, or warm up anything and all of my cookable food supplies are for the microwave, but I could loose some weight according to the doctor :o)

After settling in at the nest, the next day I went over to Customer Service to see if there was any way that I could get a tour of the plant, as I had heard rumors that the new owners were doing a lot of work to it and there was some speculation about that on the forum, so I had posted that I would try to clear things up. I was granted my wish and a complete guided tour was given to me by Allen Barbee from Bluebird Wanderlodge, he took me all over the plant, let me talk to people and see quite a bit of positive things that are being done there, so I came away very impressed, thatbthere was a lot of positive changes were being made there. You an see the photos nd my comments of what I saw, by going to http://www.pbase.com/iamflagman/image/84305982

I found an identical microwave to replace my damaged one, at Wal Mart in Warner Robbins, GA. So I installed it while I was at the NEST and took care of some of the other damaged items while I was there. Since I was close to Perry, Ga I drove over to Twin Oaks RV Park near there, to check on how the reservations for our upcoming Rally Across The Street (RATS) that will be held in November and found that all of the reserved sites for our rally are taken, so it should be a good one.

I decided that I would get up early and leave for home while it was still dark and got everything loaded up and left Ft. Valley only to drive into another thunderstorm, turned on the windshield wipers and wouldn’t you know it, they were stuck in the park position, those dried bugs work just like glue at times. I should have checked them and cleaned the windshield before I left, so here I was no wipers in a heavy downpour on a somewhat strange road (I had driven on it a few times in the day time) with cars coming at me and only the reflectors running down the center of the two lanes to see where I was going in the dark, needless to say I was looking for a place to safely pull over, but there was no place to do that for about seven miles and by then the wipers had freed themselves up, but in my old age I just don’t see all that well at night and especially in the rain, so I stopped for a while, before heading back out.

I arrived back in the Columbia area later that afternoon and settled in at Lowes in Lexington, SC so that later on I could meet up with friends for supper and then the next day I headed to the Flying J to top off my fuel tank and then finally home.

Overall I had a great trip, seeing many beautiful parts of the country and meeting many great people, even if it did start out on a negative encounter, it turned into a trip that I will always remember. I will be home for about a month before heading back out on and off again until the end of the year.