Travels With Miranda

I just renewed for a third night here at Dakota Magic. If I really just wasn’t in the mood to drive, I would have gone anyway because I know that that’s just an excuse for not wanting to face the border crossing.

But I’m being really productive and making good use of my FHU, so I can justify another night. This morning, I defrosted the freezer and washed it and the fridge, then made an inventory of the food on board. I found bacon! It will be demolished shortly when I go make lunch.

It looks like it might rain, but if it doesn’t, the next project is the cab.

Besides that, I need to put away yesterday’s laundry (almost dry, YAY), wash out Neelix’s litter box, and then I’ll be good to go. There’s really nothing to do now to prepare for the border besides making sure I don’t have any illegal food on board, have a full alcohol inventory (one Texas beer that I am saving for the first crazy hot summer day), and that I know how much I need to declare.

I hope internet in Saskatchewan will be decent (although I will settle for existent). I get a very low signal in North Dakota, so I keep getting disconnected. I might not have found the connection in San Antonio to be so bad had I remembered my online experience in North Dakota last spring.

Since leaving the beach, I had problems with my fridge set to the AC (shore/120V power), both on 30A at an RV park and 15A in a driveway.

I was really short on propane in Shawnee and was growing weary of just how quickly I go through the gas when the fridge is running off it, so I decided it was time to do something about it.

I started by going back over some of my electrical posts from the beach because I had a niggle at the back of my mind. And then I found my post about the salt water corrosion on my battery terminals.

Doh. I went out and cleaned the fridge terminals and connections with a scrubbie pad and an eraser, then turned the fridge on to shore power. No problem in Shawnee on 30A. And no problem in Wichita on 15A. My fridge is also running colder on a lower setting than it was before.

Salt water is evil!

Last night, I managed to blow the breaker in the house. I was barely using any power. I had tested the outlet prior to plugging in and knew Ms. Cinnamon never had any trouble with it when her rig was plugged in.

All I had done was switch the fridge to AC. So it looks like my fridge woes while on FHU at Hidden Valley were not a one-time thing. My fridge is no longer happy about running on AC.

I’m so tired of troubleshooting that I’m tempted to just ignore this problem. But if I’m having trouble on AC, trouble on propane is sure to follow…. I’ll wait until I have easy access to the a breaker before I start doing a bunch of tests. I did pull out my manual and none of the troubleshooting tips look too promising. I’m seeing a lot of ‘not user serviceable’ mentions…

My fridge kept kicking off yesterday, both on the AC and propane setting. On AC, I was getting the scary all lights flashing ‘you’re in deep trouble’ warning and on propane I was getting a ‘there’s a problem with the power supply’ warning.

I thought that we were getting brownouts because of everyone running their ACs, but by 11PM, the rig was sitting at a steady 120V and the fridge continued to cut out.

I turned off the converter, switched the fridge to propane, and it was muuuuuuuuch happier. It ran fine all night. I’ve got the converter back on this morning and the fridge seems to be okay on AC. It’s a cool morning, so I’m sure there are no ACs running, which supports my brownout theory.

Let’s hope that this is a one-time thing…

Five years of full-timing and I only learn about this now? Yes, I have these, too!