The ever repeated mantra we heard over and over when we first purchased our rig, [just a couple months ago!] followed us around until Tuesday evening, when it's chance to mock us arrived. We entered the RV park after dark and proceeded to the back to bring the Fox out of their storage area. This was a large, grassy, unlit, fenced field. Lucky for us, the back of our truck has amazing lighting and for any other light, we need only to pull out our phones, which double as flashlights. Plus, there are various other appropriately placed LED lights on the outside of our rig that are available at the press of a button.
Everything was going well: the back jacks were up and the hitch was connected. Brad pushed the button to raise the front jacks. The lights dimmed and an error message appeared...low power. Great! What did we leave on?? We were both tired. It was late. Brad had worked a full day and then drove 4 hours. I had driven 5 hours the day before, camped out in the back of the truck, picked up our youngest grandson and then drove 5 hours back to then wait for Brad to get off work. This is my excuse for it taking us a few minutes to realize, "Hey, just plug it into the truck." A few minutes later we had enough juice to bring up the jacks. Time to get set up.
The rest of the evening went smooth, as did the following day. We began cooking early Thanksgiving Day. I could kick myself for not having any pictures of our feast. You will have to use your imagination to see what we managed to prepare in our cozy little kitchen. Brad started with the turkey; he removed the backbone and then smothered butter and seasonings under the skin. Then he poured butter over the top and added more seasonings. He said it was now a true 'butterball'. We also had a spiral cut ham, cheesy cauliflower casserole, shells and cheese, [you can't have too much cheese on a holiday], pecan and brown sugar butternut squash and cornbread and wild rice dressing with gravy. Of course, lets not forget dessert: pumpkin pie and glazed chocolate bundt cake. There was a lot of dancing around and bumping into each other but it made for a fun time.
If anyone is contemplating on whether to get a rig with an island or not, get it with one. It is well worth the space it takes up. I love ours! The added storage and work area are such big bonuses. The countertop extends past the drawers and has a barrel cabinet under it. A great added space for kitchen stuff. Also, I love the out of sight until you need it pull-up block of outlets on the top, perfect to plug in mixers and such without having cords dangle across walkways. We used it this day for prepping dinner and then later, for serving. Really, it is my favorite part of the rig...well, except for the fireplace.
This picture is from www.northwoodmfg.com but looks just like ours.
We enjoyed our meal with some new friends we met at the park and also with family that lives in town. I am so looking forward to doing more of this; sharing home cooked meals with people we meet along our way and with friends and family that are near by.
We were so confident of a good night's sleep, with all that turkey and food, it was pretty much a guarantee...but then, I woke up around 2 am to the sound of Brad's voice, 'do you hear that beeping?' Well, no. I hadn't heard the beeping because I was asleep, but, yes, now that I'm awake I hear it.
It was the fridge and it had an error code flashing. I looked up the code in our manual and it said to see a technician. Are you kidding me? Surely there has to be something we can do. About that time we noticed our lights were dim. We went outside to check the shore power. Brad used his meter and everything outside was good. In the meantime, I had gone back inside because it was raining. I googled it and watched a couple videos. This brought me to believe it had something to do with our power converter. However, we could not find ours. Possibly because it was now nearly 3 am and we did not have our brightest thinking caps on. I'm going to say it was that coupled with too much turkey. So, we crawled back into our warm bed and left it for morning.
We awoke to no lights except on the microwave. Brad removed a vented plate below a kitchen drawer and found what he thought was the converter although, it was much bigger and didn't look the same as the ones I was researching. He gave the dealer a quick call to verify and yes, it was the power converter. He also let us know that the microwave was still on because it was directly connected to shore power. I continued my search for a new converter. A bit later, I notice Brad pulling out a storage crate from under the sink, right next to the cupboard the converter is in. Then I hear, 'I think I got it.' and the lights come on... 'What did you do?', I ask. 'Plugged it back in.'.... Apparently, when the crate was put in or moved around, it unplugged it.
Just a couple of turkeys troubleshooting.
