Summer adventures in the RV

Given our relatively cool and wet summer, neither my wife nor I have felt like making any extensive road trips in the RV. However, last week, we did venture off to Anchor Point to pick up items that had belonged to my wife’s mother and to visit her father’s grave site.

We had planned to drive down on Wednesday and return on Friday, giving me a rest between driving the approximately 280 miles one-way to Homer from our house in Big Lake. As they say, “the best laid plans of mice and men…” struck with a vengeance on the way down.

First, a little background. Last year, we took the RV to the Nancy Lake area for a day trip. I found an interesting side road to travel. As things turned out, the road was so rough that the RV was jostled around even though I could have walked faster than the speed I was driving to get on a smoother surface.

When we arrived home, I checked the RV and found the 12-volt DC power system was completely nonfunctional in the housing unit. As I recall, the 120-volt AC power also was not working. I called a local RV dealer and scheduled an appointment to get the problem corrected.

After an inspection, the electrician could find nothing wrong with the unit. Somehow the 12-volt power had come back on and everything was functioning normally. The electrician speculated that perhaps the rough ride had somehow tripped the master 12-volt solenoid for the house unit and it had apparently reset itself and began functioning.

We ran into the same exact problem while driving to Homer, and we never got off the highway! There are rough spots on the Seward Highway as it passes around Turnagain Arm and that was enough to trigger a 12-volt power failure in the “house unit.” We had stopped at Turnagain Pass for a rest break, to walk the dogs, and get some lunch. When I went to turn on the water pump, there was nothing!

The refrigerator was no longer working, even though I had it running on propane. The fridge still requires 12-volt power to operate correctly on propane. We had no lights, fridge, water, functional toilet, or furnace. I was not a happy camper (pun intended) at this point.

We continued with the trip because the folks holding my wife’s stuff were expecting us and we needed to get the stuff out of their shop. As it turned out, we survived the night just fine and made do with a Styrofoam cooler and a bag of ice for the food and a couple of gallon jugs of water for the other stuff. A flashlight handled what little lighting we needed after sunset.

However, this unfortunate turn of events prompted us to drive home on Thursday rather than spend an extra day in the Homer area.

On Friday, I called the dealership where we had purchased the RV and spoke with the service manager. We scheduled a service appointment to get the 12-volt solenoid replaced and the electrical checked out in the housing section. The manager agreed that the problem was, most likely, a faulty solenoid. Unfortunately, he had to order the part, so the work won’t be completed until sometime this coming week.

We’ve had this RV for nine years now and have had remarkably few problems with it. The other “major situation” happened a few years ago after we had traveled to the 20-Mile River area to dipnet hooligan. The weather was blowing hard with a steady rain – not real pleasant for dipping fish. My wife had been dipping for about two hours and was tired. We had around a hundred fish and decided that was enough for the day.

We left the area and drove toward Portage, looking for a Forest Service campground campsite. We planned to spend the night, return the next day to finish dipnetting on the incoming tide and return home. After turning around on a road in the valley by the visitors’ center, the wind shifted from being a headwind to becoming a tailwind.

I had the roof vents open slightly but the tailwind literally ripped both vent covers completely off the roof. We now had two 14-inch square holes in the roof with a hard rain coming down.

The trip home was uneventful. Little rain got in the unit and the repairs were made the next day.

RVing in Alaska is never dull!