Texas is messing with us!

We have installed a 'black box' in our electrical circuit that continually tests the electrical voltage coming into our motor home. We did this because we previously had problems with a defective umbilical cord and thought we were going to have a fire. Well, the other night our power would not stay on and it surprised us as we had a 50 amp circuit available and we weren't using that much electricity. Of course, it was raining and every time the power would go out and I would go outside to check for a blown breaker, the rain would pelt down in earnest. Picture holding a test meter in one hand, a flashlight in another and trying to keep the box lid up and putting the probe wires into the outlet to test and read the voltage all at the same time AND in the rain! It was a losing proposition. The Surge Guard would sample the power for a few seconds and shut off. We spent the night using mostly battery power as the AC would not stay connected for any length of time even though it continually kept trying to connect throughout the night. We figured our expensive meter had conked out but now, two days later, it has performed flawlessly for two days at a different park and the power has not cycled off one time. We now think the Surge Guard was just doing its job and that we were getting high and low voltage fluctuations, power surges and problems with the neutral line. It wasn't fun without electrical power but no power is much better than BAD power. Fortunately it wasn't one of the hotter evenings and we didn't need the air conditioner, just fans.

Yesterday we drove about half way across Texas and are now in Wichita Falls. We had wind and rain for almost 300 miles. Somewhere out there the front brakes suddenly developed a grinding noise that we had looked into and discovered that a front brake pad had come apart and was now metal to metal on one side. Fortunately we found a shop willing to take us this morning and had our front brakes replaced and it only cost us a one day delay. We're ready to park the motor home for a few months! We'll try and get across the rest of Texas tomorrow.