My Man's Sportin' Wood
Capricorn
HDF Supporter
Hallett Hottie
 
Flathead Lake Montana/Lake Havasu City
Posts: 3,500
APPD 0.45
Post Rank: 20
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Posted: Aug. 04 2009,7:56 pm |
Post # 4 |
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So . . .
CE knows most of this story already 
Jeff couldn't go because he's using his vacation time for the Vegas to Reno race in a couple weeks and Katrina took a plane to Montana on July 8, so it was just me, Cody and Dixie (the dog).
The night before we leave, I plug in the camper to the house to make sure it's all charged up before we head out. The dog has a little bit of the runs, but she did last year on the trip, so I figure she's just excited about going somewhere (camper's on the truck, she's not dumb).
We head out about 5 in the morning, hit very little traffic as we take the 210 all the way to the 5 hugging the mountains and avoiding the city. We pass Bakersfeild area and find a gas station to get some snacks and let Dixie out. She goes to do her business and has blood in her stool. So I'm freaked thinking I'm going to have to possibly put my dog down on this trip. Cody gets in the camper and says, "Mom, there's no power." I say, "Dad probably forgot to hook the battery up." So I go to hook it up . . . no battery. It's at home on the charger.  So I think, "No problem, I'll just go an buy a battery." I call Jeff and ask if I can just go to a Wal-Mart. He says he'd rather me not as their batteries aren't very good. So I punch in "Camping World" on the blackberry and find one that's a little out of our way on a different route than I'd planned to get to the Redwoods, but not much further. So we take off just before Sacramento to head west on a two lane highway that they are doing roadwork on so there's no shoulder with about 50-60 mph gusts with trucks coming the opposite way. There was so much wind in this area they had windmills. We rode this road for 25 miles until we get to the "Camping World", or what used to be a Camping World. The sun-bleached sign that used to say Camping World was there, but it had closed. So I say "F-it" and punch in "Napa" and find one not too far away.
The folks at Napa are very nice, don't charge me a core charge, put the battery in the compartment for me and tell me which side is the ground. So I take the black wire from the camper and screw it on the ground, then the white wire and put it on the positive, check the lights, they work! So we drive another 3 hours (giving up the Redwoods) to camp just south of Red Bluff. BTW, Dixie has more blood in her stool all the time.
We find a campground and begin to settle in. Cody again gets in the camper and says, "Mom, no power."  I thought well, the connections were a little crusty, probably just a bad connection. Cody then realizes that there is a sticker on the top of the battery compartment door that reads, "Black is postive, white is negative."      
So we disconnect it, check the circuit breakers and fuses in the camper, plug into the shore power, no power. Thinking we've ruined the whole electrical system in the camper, killed a brand new battery, sick dog etc. we begin to think maybe we should just give it up and head home. Then I wonder why the whole thing didn't catch fire and I think about the truck fuses. Find the correct one and sure enough, it's burned up and possible saved our lives. We reconnect the battery properly and have power in the camper.  Still can't believe it didn't kill the battery.
Next morning, I head to a Napa (thanks to my trusty blackberry) and pick up a fuse. After talking to Jeff, he said I might have ruined the charging system in the truck and with two batteries and no charging gauge, might not have known. What to do? I type in "Ford" to the BB and it reads 252 feet.  I turn around and see the big blue oval right behind the shopping center I'm parked in. It was about 9 am and they checked the system for about 40 bucks and an hour of my time. We were on the road again, but the dog was still sick 
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11-24-2024 Three Word Post.....The Next Generation.... (Rep.#19,435) from: BigDog
Had a great trip. Little rocky in the beginning, but me and the boy got it worked out 
