The Roadtrip

Well, we’ve finally had our first setback in a couple months. Today we had a flat tire, but luckily we were able to identify it before we hit the highway for a full day of driving. Our new tire pressure sensors were very handy in quickly diagnosing and dealing with the problem. They were certainly worth the money.

Given how bumpy the start of our trip was I have been expecting the other shoe to drop given how smoothly things had been moving. In fact we’ve been making more upgrades and improvements than fixing new problems.

To put into perspective some of the road issues we had early on:

• the siding on the main slideout peeled away from the trailer in high wind at highway speeds
• we spun a bearing on one of our wheels in the Smoky Mountains
• We realized we had a bent axle at the beginning of our trip
• The Cabinets over the master bed collapsed on a bouncy road

Improvements we’ve recently made:

• We added a folding shelf to improve counter space
• We fixed the city water line so we can do full hookups
• we replaced the gas valve for the hot water heater so we finally have hot water after 4 months on the road
• we replaced the gas valve on the furnace so we have heat when we have a sufficient supply of 12v electricity. If we intend to use it we’ll either need a better battery supply or a generator
• installed a waste gate valve on our dump valve so that we can combine grey and black tanks into one giant black tank. This allowed us to boondock for 2 solid weeks, our new record.

Improvements to be made

• Fix a leak near the water pump that occurred after hooking up to city lines for the first time. We had a pressure regulator, but it seems the lines were so old they failed anyhow.
• stain & seal the new fold out counter shelf
• install an accumulator to level out water pressure. This should extend the life of the batteries and the water pump as the pump will run less frequently but in longer bursts.
• Install an outdoor shower. which should greatly improve quality of life as we’ll be able to shower more often without worrying about grey water storage.

This is a massive post to get all caught up to current status, and I will start posing more often with smaller updates.