6.03.2013

seriously?!?

No undertaking is ever without problems and here are a few of the ones I've encountered so far.

The day before I left I received an email from the manufacturers of my composite see through propane tank. In short the US-DOT issued a recall after allegedly discovering some unsafe mfg practices. What those are I don't know since there wasn't any detail on that. I had one day to find a place that would drain it, remove the valve for me, and then pickup a replacement tank. This was on top of working a full day, picking up the trailer, and then load my stuff so I could leave that same day. As you might recall, my roommate talked me into delaying my departure by 12 hours which took the pressure off. I have to ship the recalled tank back but am waiting until I arrive in CA to do that. It seems the Lite Cylinder company has taken their website offline and replaced it with an under construction sign. I can't login to update my return ship address since I'd purchased it when I lived in San Antonio. I also seem to be getting to voice mail only when I call so this doesn't look good so far. I'll update if/when this is resolved.

The second day into my trip I was pulling out of a supermarket driveway in one of the small towns I stopped in and heard a loud scrape/clunk sound. This is normal when certain driveways are a bit on the low side. The rear bumper of the trailer has two V shaped bars beneath them keep it from bottoming out. Unfortunately this isn't what I'd heard. It wasn't until I arrived at the RV park and was trying to unhook that I learned what the problem was. The hitch jack pad (even though it was completely up) had caught on the street and twisted a little to the side. This made cranking it down almost impossible. I kind of panicked for a second and thought this was going to cost me a fortune to fix. It doesn't, and it didn't cost me anything to fix in the end. A replacement jack runs about $50 and is easily replaced by removing only three bolts. The reason it was free was the proprietor of the RV park was able to crank the tube back into position using only a pipe wrench.

Manual climate control and the current weather conditions of differing geographical locations. My first night I turned off the AC only to wake in a pool of sweat in the middle of the night. The temp there was in the high 77º at 4am. The second night I let the AC run and woke up freezing at about 5am. The temp was 48º. I will get this right and do my research before I arrive at my next stop!

3 comments:

  1. These challenges mean you're doing it right. Yay! You're on the road!

    ReplyDelete
  2. You're finally on your way! I am late coming to this as you have already reached your destination but I am so happy for you, mate!

    ReplyDelete