Today was 103°F and with the humidity, it said it felt like 115°F. We tried not to spend too much time outside, but that was impossible. There might also be thunder storms tonight.
It's been a while since my last blog and a lot has happened.
The trailer had a few problems. The satellite connection didn't work, the cable connection didn't work, the microwave vented downward to the stove instead of outside, and the shower wall bowed out. We decided to get them fixed before we went any farther into the trip. On Wednesday, we headed back to Arlington. The RV dealer said we could hook up the trailer in their parking lot on Wednesday night so they could start working early on Thursday morning. No water and it was next to a freeway, but at least it was free.
Wednesday, hurricane Laura hit the coast. It was still clear when we left at 4:30pm. That didn't last very long. About a half hour into the trip, the first part of the storm hit us. It poured so hard that traffic slowed down to about 45mph. We passed through it by the time we hit highway 35. It was still clear until Stetson started barking. Once he starts barking, we have to stop to let him go potty. We stopped at a truck stop just north of Denton. Of course, that was when it started raining. Not very hard rain yet. We got back on the highway and once we actually hit Denton, it started pouring. This time, traffic slowed down to 35mph. It rained all the way to Fort Worth. Luckily, it stopped before we got to the RV dealer and had to set up the trailer. The noise that night was very loud. We didn't get a lot of sleep. That section of highway is used for drag racing in the middle of the night.
I need to back up. We had our second visitors (Kim and Destiny were the first). Mary and Roger Scott drove up from Frisco, TX to meet us. Jan and I both worked with Mary at Blue Shield and we've known her for years. They came to the trailer and we talked for a while and then we went to lunch at a place called Arroyo's. It was a good lunch and a good talk.
Now back to the hurricane. On Thursday morning, they started working on the trailer. It was mostly a waste of time. They can't fix the shower wall because the RV manufacturer said it would invalidate the warrantee. You can't do anything to put holes in the shower siding Next, there was nothing wrong with the microwave set up. It was supposed to be vented downward and not outside. If we have something smoking on the stove, we have to turn on the ceiling fan. They said they fixed the cable input, but it still doesn't work. They didn't have anything to test it with so they just used their electrical tester and said that a signal went through. A tester signal may go through, but a cable signal does not. The only thing they actually fixed was the satellite connection. I set up the portable satellite dish to make sure it worked. I'm not sure it was worth the drive for the just the satellite connection.
They finished about noon and we left to go back to Lake Texoma. The weather was fine until about Denton again. From there, it rained most of the way back.
Friday morning started out fine, at least until Jan opened the refrigerator and it was warm. 70°F according to the thermometer. The fridge was dead. The lights work but it wasn't cooling. We called the RV dealer again but they couldn't touch it because it is a residential fridge and not an RV fridge. We called Hisense (the manufacture) customer service and opened a warrantee ticket. It is now Saturday, and we still haven't heard back from them yet. Friday was panic day. The fridge was dead and Jan found a leak in the bathroom sink.
Customer service said to unplug the fridge for one minute. The fridge is built into the trailer so I can't unplug it. I ended up turning off all the electricity to the trailer. That did something. The freezer started working but the fridge part wasn't getting much cooler. I got my beer fridge out of the trailer cellar and put it under the table. It wasn't cool and probably wouldn't get cool until Friday afternoon. Oh well. We decided to run to Walmart and get a couple of Styrofoam ice chests. The road outside the RV park is in the process of being paved (of course). After waiting for the flagger, I couldn't take a left turn to get to Sherman because of the asphalt trucks, so I had to take the long way around (that adds 15 minutes to the trip). I stopped first at Home Depot to get some supplies to fix the leaky pipe and got back on the highway. I didn't get very far before traffic stopped. A truck and blown out 2 tires and was being repaired in one of the lanes. I think it took me 2 hours to get some plastic pipe fittings, 2 ice chests and some ice. That was our Friday.
Jan read a suggestion online to unplug the fridge for 5 minutes. I turned off all the power again this time for closer to 10 minutes. That actually worked. We have a fridge again! There may not have been anything actually wrong with it. The trailer has an inverter (a device to convert battery power from 12 volts DC to 120 volts AC). It is supposed to be turned on when you are traveling to keep the fridge running. It turns itself off after about 3 hours to save the battery. The inverter manual is useless and we think we didn't turn it off completely so during the Wednesday trip, it turned the fridge off. It stayed off until I turned off all the trailer power for 10 minutes. Live and learn. We had to learn all this on our own. Hisense still hasn't responded yet.
Saturday has to be better, right?
We were infested with ants overnight. We spent the morning killing ants. We didn't have any ant spray so while I was squishing ants, Jan found a suggestion to use water and vinegar to deter the ants. It doesn't kill them, just keeps them away. I went outside and found where they were getting in. They were climbing up the front leveling jack. The vinegar actually worked. The ants stopped climbing up the jack. That, unfortunately, left all the ants in the trailer with no way to leave. I squished several hundred more ants and then went to get ant spray. Problem solved.
On the bright side, the fridge was finally cold enough to put all the stuff in the ice chests back into the fridge. We lost a bunch of meat, anything mayo based, eggs, and anything milk based.
Things are back to normal so we got back to chores. We swapped out the closet rods for new rods that pull out. The closet is skinny so the rods went front to back and not side to side. I fixed the water drip. I installed a speaker bar so the TV sounds much better. More importantly, we got caught up with the laundry.
The closet rod installation involved cutting some wood so naturally I cut myself. A project is not a good project unless blood is spilled.
Of course all these trailer problems mean that our schedule has slipped again. I added 3 more days here at Lake Texoma to make sure the fridge situation is sorted out. Sallisaw, OK is now off the schedule. We will go straight to Little Rock, AR for the Labor Day weekend. Still nothing scheduled after that.
By the way, we have been at Lake Texoma for a week and we still haven't seen the actual lake.
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