Running Hard to Beat the Throw

Sunday October 12 though Monday October 13

We had some rain here in Elko and a lot of it turned to ice- yep it got cold last night. I had all utilities stowed away except for the power cord so it’s easy to head out in the morning.

All these gauges should be lit up

Jil brings the slide rooms in and stows the leveling jacks. I get behind the wheel and turn the key on and the instrument panel doesn’t appear normal- the gauges are not responding. Hmm, I turn the key to start position- nothing. Double hmmm. I do get an error message- “Check Brake Fuse”. I looked in the most logical places for the brake fuses and can’ find it- and all fuses are well marked. Now what…….

Jil asks about every half hour-“What’s the plan?” I say I’m diagnosing the problem and the more I do the less complicated the problem as the check brake fuse is no longer displaying- but the engine still won’t start. I have the generator running to supply electricity to the batteries and notice small changes.

OK, I’m going for the big guns. The fella next door left so I can drive our Subaru close to the RV starting battery compartment and use jumper cables from Subaru battery to RV starting batteries. That in itself wasn’t working so I used the auxiliary switch that connects house and chassis batteries together along with Subaru’s charging system and the RV’s diesel comes to life. And all the gauges are normal and “check brake fuse” message disappears. Whew, we had called Good Sam Road Assistance with no joy- I’m not sure that program is worth the money……..

So almost three hours of diagnosing and testing and outsmarting the RV’s battery system we are on you way. The delay in leaving Elko has made the decision easy for us- we’ll stop in Winnemucca for the night before we head for home. We decide to stay at the New Frontier RV Park once again. It was empty when we stayed there in August so we chose not to call for a reservation.

A three hour drive takes us to the RV park. We see that the site we would like is vacant- yipee! Jil goes in to register, comes out and says the site we like is taken- and the park has 40 more rigs coming in tonight! So we accept the site that is available and hunker down for the night. We meet some folks heading south for the winter-snow birds as they are called. Nice folks they are.

We spend a peaceful night and in the morning we’ll be getting ready to go home. I had gone into town and purchased a battery charger- just in case. Fingers crossed that the engine fires tomorrow…………………