Last evening we drove right up to dusk and then ended up in a truck stop parking lot. We needed gas and air and this would be a good place to start out from the following morning. After dinner we returned to the motor home and turned on the heat. There was a loud noise and then the sound of the heater blower, a little noisier than usual. The next time the heater came on there was way too much noise and the third time it came on it sounded like it was going to fly apart. Needless to say it was quickly turned off in spite of the near freezing weather. A quick review of the ridiculously poor documentation that came with the motor home revealed that the blower was powered by a couple of squirrel cage fans. Squirrel cage...what's a squirrel cage? You may know the little circular treadmill that is in a hamster cage? Instead of wires, put fan blades on the side rails and spin it fast inside a shroud and it delivers prodigious amounts of air. Well, it was obvious that the squirrels were out of the cage!
We spent a cold night with no heat, waking up at dawn and walking to the local diner for breakfast. We ate, then got our air, fuel and off we went waiting for the sun to warm the air so the heater problem could be more comfortably investigated. Isn't this interesting? After having watched a You Tube video on heaters I took the cover off the heater and probed around finding a loose plastic ring in the air shroud making intimate contact with the squirrel cage. That wasn't right. I fished the sucker out and started the heater and the noise was gone. A call to the manufacturer trying to locate a replacement part resulted in "...oh, we don't use that part anymore. Throw it away." I love jobs that are fixed before they ever get on the TO DO list. The squirrels are safely back in the cage and there will be heat tonight.
Today we drove about 170 miles south on I-15 in Utah. We are not too far from Zion National Park but we stopped early. After shivering all last night we need our sleep! It's a beautiful sunshiny day and the mountains are spectacular scenery. We have a nice spot in a KOA park with 50 amps, water and sewer. Life doesn't get better than this when you live in a wobble box!
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Laughed when reading your blog. I could really empathize with the odd problems that arise with owning an RV. We have not had the squirrel problem but enough others to know how you were feeling. Hope we can eventually meet. We are leaving St. David, Arizona on Wednesday (cannot believe we picked the busiest travel day of the year to head back to Washington!). First, we are stopping in Las Vegas so David can see a friend that lives there, and then we are heading to Oregon House, California before we land in Portland to watch our granddaughter run in her cross country meet. We have to be back in Washington by the 8th for some routine doctor appointments. Anyway, that is our schedule for the next few months. What is yours?
Enjoy your blog. Peace out. Pat Jeter
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