One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

A nice sunset last night, a boring night of local TV running off of a small inverter, along with our computers all running on 12v, no need for the generator even though our neighbors were a long way away from us.  Went to bed before 11 pm, which is early for us.  I actually fell asleep around 10:15 on the chair.  Only awoke once during the night, got up to turn on heater around 5:30, up at 6:15 and first thing I need is coffee…which for us, takes a generator.  Us RV’ers know the procedure…push down button until it lights up, push the other way to crank the starter.  If it does not start within eight seconds or so you stop, and then start the procedure again.  Ours typically starts during the second procedure.  It has taken three shots at it before, and it has started during the first if it had been going sometime early that day…but normally it takes two.  Today the first attempt went normal…but the second one results in no crank, and the light flashes and flashes during the attempt.  I have to wonder, “Did we use too much electricity?” I don’t think so, but what else could it be?   Oh, I need coffee…and in case you did not hear about it, last week a study gives men a good, let’s say a “real good reason” to enjoy not one, but two cups of coffee each day.  (Caution, that link is rated “R”….oh, what am I thinking, it isn’t anything more than what is on TV commercials each and every day, all day long.)

So thinking it still might be, just a slight chance be, a low battery, I head north towards coffee…which we find in Wheatland about 12 miles north.  Coffee in hand, I take a few sips, and go back out and open the door to the battery compartment, and put my trusty little OHM meter on it, and NOTHING.  That cannot be.  So I open the engine hood, engine running, and put OHM meter to the battery and NOTHING!  Ok, perhaps I need new batteries for the OHM meter.  So next I open the door to the generator, and open the access panel exposing the on/off button connected to the generator…looks and acts just like the one inside.  I try it, and after the light comes on and move it the other way, I hear a CLICK.  Try that three times, same CLICK.  Ok, looks like we lost the starter or the solenoid to the starter.  I think it is time to take two steps back to my sister’s house and call this attempt a “False Start”…which is why there is a new picture of us sitting in the backyard at Arny and Sandy’s house.  Arny too thinks it is a starter or the solenoid…but his money is on the solenoid…my money is one just getting it fixed.  And that OHM meter, well, new batter did not do the trick, and it is now history…to-do-list: get new OHM meter.

NOTE:  To Karen and Tony who responded to last nights blog said that they might be able to hook up in Oregon, well, it does not look good…perhaps when we get into Washington, depends on how long this fix takes.  

To Cheryl who quoted Lao Tzu:  "The journey of a 1,000 miles begins with a single step." My personal quote is, “Sometimes a long journey requires one step forward, two steps back before one gets anywhere.”    

To Nancy:  I think I read your entire Alaska blog posts, and I did remember you talking about that, and it is on our “must be aware of” list as we travel.  As Floridians, our glass coverage, by law, is non-deductible…hoping we don’t have to use it, but if we do, we are covered. 

And to John:  I know this is not your first time in Alaska, as for now, we just hope we make it up there!!!!

P.S.:  Better to breakdown now, than in the middle of the Yukon!