~Friday, July 16, 2021~
Day 397
A day of new discoveries…...but not the good kind. It was just one of those days. While I was doing some writing this morning, I looked out one of our windows in the dinette area of our trailer (this would be the slide part). It appeared to be something I could just wipe off, but as I got closer, realized I’d seen this one before in our home. The seal is broken. Are you kidding me? And the trailer is just over a year old which means the basic warranty is up just by one month. Of course it is.😡 I get the working/motorized stuff breaking down since we’ve compressed 5 years worth of use into 1 with our full-timing it. But a window? Within minutes, I called my girl Raeshell at Lance (so nice to have a reliable person at headquarters). She called the manufacturer to see what they could do and found out they would not reimburse Lance for a new window since we passed the year warranty. We have a 7-year extended warranty, but you have to be careful with those, as you should only use it for a culmination of fix-it issues. (The deductible is charged for each visit, not each issue). The window alone is around $200, and then you have installation costs. So, we decided the cosmetic damage that is the size of a quarter is for now, tolerable.
Next, and this was a matter of time, the bathroom’s exhaust fan motor decided to retire itself. This was not a shock as we were slowly starting to have issues, with the last one being a wire connection. The motor is the size of a D battery and we worked it to death, in fact likely overused. With Jeff’s handy-dandiness, he took the old motor out, and did quite a bit of research to find the CORRECT replacement. In his research, he found there are many motors that LOOK the same, but unless you measure correctly, you might end up with the wrong one. He’s 95% sure he ordered the correct one, and only a $30 part, which we’re having shipped back to Hannah. Since we’ve had a lot of things shipped to them over the last few months, it will be like Christmas all over again when we get there.
Before I tell you about the third break-down item, I’ll tell you about Jeff’s failed trip into town. After 2 tries to get propane in St. Ignace (our previous location), he decided he’d just wait and get it once we were at our new location. The town is only 5-10 minutes from our campground. He arrived at 3:35, and was told, “The girl just left, always leaves at 3:30”, to which Jeff’s reply was, “O.k. Is there anyone else who can help me?” She said, “Nope, we only have one person that knows how to do it. Try back tomorrow.” Thank goodness it wasn’t a 30-minute drive to be told “no”. We should have enough propane for one more day, so let’s just hope she comes in tomorrow. Next, he made a stop for groceries at the Vos Village Market with its 5-star 3 person review. The plan was to get all of our ingredients to make spaghetti, but all he walked away with was Rose’s Lime and some onions. We’ve come to the conclusion that we are sort of in Timbuktu. Good thing we got the groceries we did in St. Ignace. Feeling completely deflated, Jeff decided to drive back, basically empty handed.
With what propane we had left, he was all set to cook our ravioli dinner outside, until the third item broke…...the campstove. Apparently there is a copper fitting that is deep inside the line that decided to break off, leaving it unfixable. Jeff has hated that campstove from the day we got it, even after reading positive reviews and thinking the quality was better with its pricepoint. He wasn’t too happy with the alternative of having to cook inside since it was absolutely perfect cooking weather. I hate to jinx us, but it appears Michigan is void of mosquitos. We haven’t seen one since we’ve been in the U.P. Maybe we’re too far north.
Prior to making dinner, we took a nice walk on a side trail next to the campground where we spotted a mama deer and her 2 fawns. Of course Sadie was completely calm (not), so we made a quick detour to the beach for a swim.
The lake was super calm, and the weather unusually warm; quite a difference from yesterday’s rough waters. One of the staff members was heading out for an evening of fishing and asked him about the boat rentals. ….$90/day, pontoon boats $200/day. It would be fun to just take it out for an evening excursion so will have to look into that. This is one of those places where there’s no need to go anywhere else. With its close proximity to the lake, you have the beach, boats, nice walking trails, laundry facilities, etc. We’re looking forward to the nice change to just “be”, get a few maintenance things done, and reboot. I’m sure “Hank” will enjoy the break too.