Staying Cool -- Coming Back Next Year

(Avon Park, FL) Hi 82  lo 56 -- It was a great night with our windows open to let fresh air in. But it didn't take long for the RV to heat up this morning. Our air-conditioner's compressor quit working, so Jim went up on the roof to check it out. According to him, he removed the cover from the a/c unit and sat there and looked at all the "wires and stuff" for awhile, just like looking under the hood of a car. Nope, nothing looks broken. Seriously, he was told by a neighbor to check for obvious things like mud daubers or a lot of dirt in the works, or any loose or un-attached wires. But everything looked ok.

So he called Stewert's Mobile RV Repair, which is just a few miles south of the park. They have a good reputation for doing good work at a fair price. Amazingly they were able to come out within a couple of hours of our call. John arrived around 2pm and went up on the roof and got to work. He went through his troubleshooting routine, and it turned out to be a minor problem. Apparently something on the main circuit board go out of whack. He disconnected the wire from the main power supply and waited a couple of minutes then plugged it back in. Turns out that on Carrier air conditioners, this resets the whole system, like re-booting a computer. Who knew? We turned the unit on inside and the compressor came on just fine. We got lucky. Now Jim knows what to try if we have any more problems in the future.

Here's John on the roof.

Once we cooled down and we knew the A/C would stay on, we walked around the park and stopped by the office to reserve our site here next year. We're not sure how long we'll be here next winter, but we have our site reserved for 6 months (1 Nov thru 30 April). It didn't cost much more to reserve it for 6 months than it did for 4 or 5, so now we have the flexibility of arriving and departing any time during that period. We really like this park, this area, and the good friends we've made so far. Most of them own park models and come here every year.

We visited with Rick, Elaine, Debbie and Ken for awhile, then Jim went to move his truck from the back part of the park to the clubhouse near us. The battery was dead again and I had to drive my car over so he could jump it. When he tried moving it last week he had to jump it because of our tire pressure monitors being plugged in and running the battery down. We're not sure if the batteries (there are two batteries in a diesel) are shot, or he just didn't run it enough last week to provide a full charge. We're busy the rest of this week, but next week he'll check it out and if it needs jumping again he's going to town to have the batteries checked. So the air conditioner quits, and the truck batteries act up, all in the same week. Even in this great lifestyle you have to be ready for some setbacks.

Jim got the grill out and cooked us a yummy chicken dinner. I love grilled chicken. We settled in for the evening, with wonderful weather and a nice cool RV.