Roving Reports by Doug P: 2019-5 Live Oak Florida, The Good, The Bad and the Ugly

2019-5

Blue Springs, Madison Florida

Live Oak Florida meeting up with Elaine and John K

Campground: Gibson County Park. About a half dozen sites with 30 amp electric and water. All back in sites. $22 per night. Along the Suwanee River, steep boat ramp to river. No over the air TV, no Verizon signal at the campground

Gibson Country Park, about 6-8 campsites

The Good, The Bad and the Ugly

The Good

Well now, the good news is as you may remember from last week, the new axle arrived early and was installed in time for me to head out and meet up with my good Rv friends Elaine and John.

On Thursday morning, I looked out from my stunning Gulf of Mexico site, watching the fishing boats head out for another day of fine fishing. I did my normal packing up, closing the bedroom slide, then the Kitchen slide and wait, what’s this, the big dining room slide won’t close? All the DC power was NON existent.

last views of the Gulf of Mexico and fishermen going out for the day

With a lot of effort I manually closed the big slide using a flex connecting rod with a power drill. My two batteries for the electric drill quit way too early with the slide only closed about 1 foot in. I had asked a local fisherman if he could help me with the manual slide. As it turns out, someone has to hold the slide button in the “IN” position while the second person climbs up on top the slide and begins using the drill to slowwwwly close the slide. Said fisherman came through a second time in that he had an electric drill with a powerful battery in his vehicle which completed the job. Last slide closed.

More good news, before heading out to meet up with John and Elaine, I thought I’d do a google search for Rv maintenance. Luck was on my side and I found a small Rv dealer in Perry Florida which is along the route I’d be taking today… and come to find out he claimed to be an expert regarding electric systems.

An hour later he’s checking out my electrical problem, quickly identifying a bad breaker switch.

The Bad and the Ugly:

I had pulled into Rv service shop with very crowed parking lot, filled with a dozen Rv’s and a couple employee trucks. He mentioned a couple of times that I needed to back out of the lot and re-enter backing in a remaining spot between two other Rv-s. I asked if one of his employee’s could preform the moving and backing in procedure as I didn’t feel comfortable doing it. The owner decided to perform the move procedure and I forgot about the quirky issue with my Chevy truck, that being that the rear-view mirrors automatically tilt down when in the reverse mode. It’s a very annoying feature that I need to have turned off the next time I check with a Chevy dealer.

Long story short, it set the shop owner off but good. Talk about a temper tantrum! I don’t recall ever seeing someone get that upset , yelling, screaming and cussing at the top of his lungs. His face got all blotchy red and angry eyes shooting daggers. Keep in mind he is behind the steering wheel of my truck. As calmly as I could I asked him to step out of my truck. He not only got out of the truck and quickly increased his rhetoric against Chevy trucks, a piece of s. etc. You get the idea. Then added, “I can’t take it, get the h#$% off my property”. No problemo I left as quickly as I could, with one of his employees quietly apologizing for his bosses actions. Sure glad I didn’t have to work with him, yuck.

Now you would think I’d be really upset as well. A bit frazzled for sure, but headed out to lunch and another hours drive I arrived at my next campground, Gibson Park.

refrigerator wouldn’t work (even though in runs on a/c or propane the control panel runs on DC power), led lights didn’t work, and of course I couldn’t open the slides.

Climbing around the camper with closed slides was quite the acrobat feat. Fortunately I had easy access to the rest room and bedroom.

After sort of settling in, I started to make a number of phone calls to Mobile Rv services. Found about 4 or 5, called all of them leaving messages requesting a call back. The next day bright and early one called back and arrived to fix the DC power problem not an hour later. A couple of hours later, the errant breaker switch was replaced and all systems are go. A Side note, everyone I had called the previous day called me back asking if they could help. Thanked all of them for their call backs.

circuit breakers being replaced

completing the repairs, the slides are Open!

Back to the Fun Stuff:

In between all of this I enjoyed a wonderful evening with Elaine and John who had me over their place for a grouper dinner, yum.

Steven Foster State Park.

The Steven Foster Museum

Elaine and John, front row

The next day after the repairs were taken care of Elaine, John and I were off to have a great lunch in Live Oak and then a short drive to White Springs to visit a few historic sites and the wonderful Steven Foster State Park. This state park hosts the Florida Folk Festival in May so if you are ever in the area your in for an awesome treat, with a dozen music stages presenting Folk and Bluegrass music continuously for 3 days. The park is a tribute to the song writer of so many memorable songs the classic being “Way Down Upon the Swanee River”. A river he never visited. Though the song portrayed all of our longing to go back to the home towns of our youth and good memories. Along the country lanes we enjoyed a plethora of wild flowers along the sides of the road including a number of farm fields filled with yellow and lavender flowers.

gift shop, checkers

local artists work

inside the carillon tower

many dioramas portraying the songs of
Steven Foster

he died a tragic young death

Continuing the conversation on camper breakdowns:

Now your first impression might be, what the heck is going on with all the stuff going wrong with Doug’s camper. Well, if you’re a full time Rv-er, which I am, the camper has a lot of miles put on it and of course that can take a toll on the whole unit. Repairs and upkeep are important. Taking care to make those repairs quickly will ensure more damage doesn’t occur. But at the same time I like to look at what’s been fixed and repaired as having a camper that’s back in the same good shape as when I purchased it new.

Axle replaced with a slightly beefier one making my travels that much safer
The issue with the solar charger not functioning. A tech support from Blue Sky walked me though diagnosing the problem and it’s now fixed and good as new
The flickering lights and issues with the DC power failing and not being able to open/close the slides resulted in finding the source of the problem which was due to a circuit breaker. Issue identified, replaced and knowledge learned to properly maintain the system.

Life is an adventure and I get to enjoy it from different locations all over the country. Now that’s living.

everything's working, slides are out
and the views are just fine

RV REPAIR TIPS:

Having had a number of repairs while traveling across the country here are a few tips I’ve learned along the way.

When in a remote area with the nearest service 30 to 50 miles on down the road. Discuss your Rv issues needing repairs with the locals in the area. They may know a local mechanic who can do the job in a pinch. At Horseshoe Beach, I talked to the folks at the local marina and found Little Buddy who is a shrimper and all around mechanic. Did an awesome job replacing my axle.
Use your Google Maps on your cell-phone or tablet search for Rv service/ repair shops.
Often Rv shops have a backlog of months before they can get you in. let them know you are on the road traveling and often they might be able to squeeze you in.
At Rv shop make sure they know you will be staying in your rig if possible. They will hook you up to water and electric and will be more diligent about getting to your repairs and on your way.
I find Mobile Rv Repair services to often be the best. While needing to get my DC power working quickly, I used Google maps search to find “Mobile RV Repairs”. I found about 4-5 within a 60 mile radius. Called and left messages with all of them. The first one to call me back got the job. Note: service calls costs are no more expensive than Rv sales/service centers and they come to you.
Finally, if you can learn the basic systems on your Rv, you might be able to do a number of repairs yourself. YouTube is a great resource for doing basic repairs yourself.

Fun Adventures Continued:

Elaine, John and Doug visit Madison Florida and Blue Springs

Elaine and John went on a great rails-to-trails bike ride and I joined them later in Madison. We had planned on checking out this small southern historic town, but as we entered the town, they were in the middle of a Heritage Festival. After an uneventful lunch we walked around the town square, meeting the locals, more than half appear to be African American in this decidedly “confederate” town. With it’s confederate statue in the center of the park as well as a statue of four angels depicting the 4 freedoms. Around the square were large antebellum homes as this was once cotton growing country. A few of the historic homes were truly impressive and wish we could have toured a couple of them. Among the craft vendors and food trucks there was a Democratic Party booth. Stopped by to wish them well and they told us, though they were not a large contingent they were strong and becoming more vocal, and making inroads.

Madison Florida, water tower next
to the country courthouse

enjoying some shade

Go Team Blue!

antique car show, part of Heritage Festival

1948 Packard

the four freedoms

after the watermelon contest

coconut palms in North Florida?

On our way back to our campsites, we stopped off at one of a couple Blue Springs State parks…. As there are a couple with the same names throughout Florida. Florida having the most natural springs anywhere in the world, many being magnitude one springs. Sure wish I had a bathing suit in the truck, the water really looked refreshing, at a constant 72 degrees. All the locals in Florida love to swim and paddle down our spring fed rivers, leaving the ocean beaches to the tourists.