A Heckuva Day

Travel Day: weather wonderful, destination: Ellsworth, ME, Patten Pond RV Park. High: 72, low: 52.   Site: 318, er, 508.

 Wel-l-l-l-l...somebody made a comment the other day about how much fun we have! Today, not so much. It was just one of those days....So here's how it went. We were getting ready to leave Moody Beach in Wells, ME, early this morning. Normally, when Eldy backs the truck up to hook up to the RV, he has LOTS of room to pull forward and line up the hitch on the fifth wheel to hook the truck and the RV together. Our RV site, although very shady and roomy on the sides, had very little room out front. There was a really nice landscaped double site directly in front of us, making his maneuvering a lot more difficult. To top it over, they were having a big family gathering and they all started watching us, which makes us nervous, which makes us not concentrate as well. Well, Sparky, anyway. Normally, we get the truck backed in and hitched up within three or four tries. Nope, not today. For some reason,  it took over ten times to get the right angle and not run over the lady's bushes at the front of her yard and still get lined up. Eldy and Sparky couldn't seem to get in sync with which direction she wanted Eldo to swing the truck to get lined up correctly. Back and forth we went, back and forth quite a few times. FINALLY!

our pull through site at Patten Pond

We get to Patten Pond and were given a specific site to go to. Sparky went on her bike ahead while Eldy waited in the office parking lot. Sometimes in hillier, tighter, older campgrounds, it's better to check out the site first, before you start wrangling around with your rig, so Sparky sometimes will hop on her bike and ride over to the site to make sure it's going to work. The one we were assigned to was going to be very difficult to back into and the electric cord was not going to reach the location of the electrical outlet pedestal, so back to the office she rode. Can you guys please find us another site? We looked at a couple more and finally, we got a really nice one mixed in where the work campers are, and it was a dandy...But not level. We have an automatic leveling system but if the ground is not level, or slopes really bad to one side or to the front or back, not all the leveling jacks will come down, or the tires will come off the ground on one side, which is what happened today.  You do NOT want to have ANY of your tires off the ground. It's not safe, it can wreak havoc with the axles and all four on the ground is the ideal. We retracted all the jacks and tried to level again. This time TWO tires out of four were off the ground. (Sparky, this is NOT working, we have to try something different, says E.) We subtracted wooden jack blocks instead of adding them. Some people don't put any wooden blocks down at all. But many people do. This is the neighbor's setup for his jacks. 

We got to talking about it, and we are not sure how we decided we needed wooden blocks in the first place, other than to not leave marks on cement pads in the nicer campgrounds we go to, because the jacks have additional pads on them already! (Those are the black pads you see at the bottom of the silver column). Maybe that's why we are currently having troubles getting level or it's just the latest campgrounds have unlevel sites. The third time was the charm.

We finally got the rig to where it was within less than -3 degrees of being level (that's acceptable), the tires were back on the ground and we were settled in, but the middle stabilizer jacks didn't come down (in the above photo). 

Next problem, hooking up the water connections....couldn't get the water hose connections to stop leaking. Sparky had screwed on the connections at one connecting end a little off, so the threads weren't lined up, then she couldn't UNHOOK the connections because there was too much water pressure in the lines. So Eldo says, here, let me try. He does have stronger wrist strength, so Sparky says go for it! He turns the water off at the spigot. Sparky goes to the spigot and starts to unscrew it and got completely sprayed with water. Uh, Eldo, thought you said it was turned off! He thought it was, he says!

Then we hook up the electric. We have a special surge protector, you plug it in first to the pedestal BEFORE you connect your rig power cord, and test the electrical outlet first by switching the power on inside the electrical box, to make sure you have enough power to power all your electrical stuff in the RV. Plug the protector in, wait for the light to click green (you are GO for electric), then you flip the switch off, plug your electric cord into your surge protector, then flip the switches on again for 50 amp. Our surge protector was extremely SL-O-O-W to turn green, which was not normal, but it did, so we thought the electric was fine. We go to turn on one AC, it's fine. We turn on the other AC in the bedroom of the RV and the breaker blows. That shouldn't happen, it's a 50 amp circuit. Off to the office Sparky goes.  They say they have an electrician who just happens to be on site today, and he's right up the road, he'll be right there. Here he comes, with supporting staff (his son who's learning on the job) and Fred, a terrific maintenance guy who helped us get this nice site. What's that old joke about how many guys it takes to screw in a lightbulb?

It turns out there was a bad breaker in the box. So they put in a new one and we were back with power on and no more electrical problems. Let's see, does that cover everything? Oh, not quite. So Sparky goes to get a roll of toilet paper out of the bathroom cabinet, and one of the rolls has been chewed almost all the way through. Probably by mice. Then she looks further, and an ACE bandage was decimated by some little critters. What's bad is it looks like they are using it for nesting material which means.......TROUBLE.....if they are still in the rig somewhere. There are a LOT of inaccessible places in an RV where they could be....sigh.....This is a lot worse than stinkbugs or Asian lady beetles, that's for sure. Mice chew wires and other electronics stuff, even Sparky's bars of soap she put in the bays to deter them have bite marks on them! Time for more serious traps and entrapment.

We shall see if we catch anything....

So we decide to treat ourselves to dinner (you know Sparky hates to cook, right? asks Eldo) to a Mexican restaurant in downtown Ellsworth. It was called Margaritas Mexican Restaurant. It was terrific and a great way to end a tough day. Eldy had his favorite, a burrito.....

And Sparky had steak fajitas...yummy! And she even asked and got her steak very rare! Which is rare...Many kitchens don't like to serve extra rare beef. Sparky didn't want to gross anybody out by showing a photo of bloody beef, so just know it was great! Cool vibe inside the restaurant.....

We will be here a week. We are in the work camper's section, so there are rigs and trucks for a view out every window. But that's ok, it's still a really nice park to be in, it's FREE with our membership, and the big pond for which the park is named, is calling Sparky to come kayaking.

And Walmart is calling for us to come get some mice traps....

Bye for now.....