Saturday, Jan. 11, 2020 – Lots of Jobs Completed

Dearest Roy,
Today I decided to tackle a lot of long-standing jobs that needed doing, as well as a few new things that popped up. Last night as I was getting ready for bed, I jumped in the shower to take my usual rinse-down when I discovered I had no hot water. When I looked this morning, there were several wires fried down by the hot water tank, so I started to fix it when Karl came by, so I let him do the rest. Meanwhile, I finally pounded the ladder back into shape, so now it’s nice and safe for the climb up to the attic/hay loft. That being the case, I climbed up to bring some stuff down, beginning with the heavy skirting that goes around the RV. I found three pieces that will enclose the gooseneck and put those up, and left the rest in the box, which I have to find a place to store around Jeff’s house, which shouldn’t be too hard.
We tried to fix that intermittent problem we were having with the electrics, you know that little switch on the chassis behind the battery box, but it was practically impossible to get out the battery like that, so we cut open the battery box instead in order to get it out. We did some cleaning of the contacts and connections, made sure no wires were grounding out and put it all back together again. Naturally, we had a problem then, because I had told Karl not to disconnect anything until I put labels on all the wires (you know how much trouble we had getting that system right!) But he didn’t listen and disconnected everything before I got back with labels two minutes later. So naturally, he rewired it wrong when he put it back together, and I was only getting a reading of 6 volts on the invertor, and after screwing around for 15 minutes, he finally realized he put one of the wires on the wrong terminal, exactly as I was hoping to avoid with the labels! Well, eventually we got it right and everything was back to normal, and hopefully I won’t have that electrical problem again.
Then we took off the batteries from the Open Range, because even though I’ve tried to charge them all week, they’re still not working right, so I went down to Advance Auto to replace them. Unfortunately, the guy there was a bit of a hard case, and wouldn’t let me have a discount, even though I told him I would have ordered them online except I wanted to make sure they were bad before I did that. Instead of just giving me the discount, he insisted I order them online, on my phone, so that I could then “pick them up” with the discount. What a load of crap! What I did on my phone instead was confirm I could get a couple of batteries at Walmart cheaper, and left that store, since I had to go to Walmart for some other stuff anyway. His loss, for being so ridiculous. Anyway, I filled up three propane tanks at Jupiter Hardware (best price in town), did my other running around, getting back late afternoon. Jeff and neighbor James were heading out to the mud bog (which was canceled, surprise, surprise), and then off to dinner at the Mexican place, but I have so many leftovers in the refrigerator, I declined to go. Karl put the new batteries on the Open Range, and hallelujah! The slides finally came out! Hopefully we’ll soon be able to learn why the unit isn’t recharging the batteries when shore power is on, but that’s a chore for another day. At least now I can get the carpet cleaners in so I can put it on the market. Spent the evening eating some of those leftovers, and bingeing on Suits and Cheers. After taking a nice hot shower (well, more lukewarm, only because it’s still warm outside), I’m heading off to bed. Good night, my love!