~Monday, July 19, 2021~
Day 400
It’s time to add another sticker to the map. When I made the initial video we got up to ? states to Illinois. Since then, we’ve added Tennessee, North Carolina, Virginia, Indiana, and most recently Michigan. There was even a spot on the map for the U.P. (Upper Peninsula), which does feel like its own state.
With the laundry overflowing, I decided to get that task done, especially with the convenience of having 4 washers/4 dryers right at the campground. And only $1.25/load. What a bargain! Since I needed quarters, I headed to the rustic tiny cabin office where I met the owner Marge, a very sweet, older lady, and you can tell she runs the show. I told her how much we’re enjoying our stay and asked about the property. She and her husband purchased it, already an established 25-acre campground, about 10 years ago, but her husband passed away about 4 years ago, leaving her to run things on her own. Since that time, she’s purchased a few pontoon boats and hired some great help, jokingly referring them to be pain in the $^&%#. Funny. At the laundry, I also met a fellow RV’er, Haley, from Texas. She and her family of 5 have been full-timing it for 2 years and absolutely love it. They had a summer job at a campground in Germfask, being camphosts. Usually camp hosts are paid a low wage, but are provided a free campsite and utilities in exchange for their work. She was told it would be a 20 hr./week job, quickly turning into 50-60 hours/week, and completely unappreciated. The owner was a jerk. They parted ways, but now Haley and her family are scrambling trying to find lodging for the rest of the summer. Summer is so difficult in finding anything so she’s finding herself on the phone non-stop trying to get in by cancellations.
More projects to be done. With all of the traveling, things do come loose eventually. We’ve been having trouble with loose burners on our stovetop. But the problem is some of the screws to hold the burners in place have gone missing. Who would think finding replacements would be so difficult, especially when we can send a man to the moon. Jeff’s solution was to use the remaining screws, add an extra binding glue to them, called LocTite, and see if that does the trick. Kind of interesting how you can use a glue on a hot burner without melting, but it’s actually made for engine parts, so it should work. Unfortunately, the way the stovetop was designed makes it difficult to get to the screws. So what he thought would take 30 minutes, turned into a 1-½ hour project. Isn’t that always the case?
We’ve also had trouble with our cable when trying to connect to any resort’s cable box. There are a few tricks we learned thanks to ASA Electronics (they’re the ones that handle all Jensen products-the #1 manufacturer for RV stereos and tv’s). Erin is my girl, and I was lucky enough to get her customer service today as she walked me through the necessary steps which are easy to miss. So for those of you who own an RV trying to connect cable, here ya go:
Step 1: Connect a coaxial cable from the campground’s box to your rig. Make sure everything’s tight. A loose cable likely won’t give you the proper signal.
Step 2: Turn on your t.v. Press the “Source” button and make sure it is set to TV not HDMI (mistake we made)
Step 3: Press “Menu” and scroll to Channel. Once you press “channel”, you’ll see 2 things: “Cable System” and “Scan channels”. First, make sure the “Cable System” is set to “auto” then do your channel scan (many people miss the channel scan step, thinking it’s unnecessary when connecting to cable).
Step 4 and the most important step: If your unit comes with a wall plate behind the t.v. there is a button on that, that should be in the “off” mode when you’re using cable. You use the “on” mode ONLY when you are using your antenna, and not cable. The “on” mode tells the T.V. to use the antenna booster. So for cable, make sure it’s “off”.
Step 5: Sit back and relax!