After a fine two weeks in Jackson County, MN, we continued our travels north to the small town of Melrose. Our only reason for visiting this town was to cycle the Lake Wobegon Trail, but it ended up being a very nice little town with an excellent, authentic Mexican restaurant and a fine city park campground, so we were glad we decided to stay here. When we first pulled into the Sauk River Park, we weren't overly impressed. Many of the sites were primitive and very small, geared towards folks in tents. There were only a couple of larger sites with hookups available, and we would be up against the fence of a softball field. Fortunately, in late July, there were no games in this field, nor on the soccer field across from us, and we ended up liking this park quite a lot. There were good places to play with Paisley, and from our site, we could walk anywhere in town. Sometimes parks just take awhile to grow on us, because they're all different. The Sauk River runs behind some of the smaller campsites. Right across from the park, the Sauk River is dammed up to form Sauk Lake. The Mexican restaurant I mentioned, El Portal, was a mile walk from the campground, but so well worth it. It's a true mom and pop place and very authentic. Other than the fact that it was not open air, it reminded us of places we'd eaten in Mexico. The decor, food, and Mexican beers took us right back there and made for a very special experience.
In our next post, we'll take you riding on the Lake Wobegon Trail with us. Come along!
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Way back in late June, when we arrived at Prairie Rose State Park in Iowa and started settling into our site, Barry started leveling the coach as he always does, using our Atwood Power Leveleg system. Within two seconds, the alarm sounded on the driver's side front leveler. We've had occasional problems in the past with the leveling system, but normally pulling the fuse and trying again clears things up. In this case, that didn't help, so Barry took a look underneath the rig. Uh-oh! He quickly discovered that the gearbox housing had completely cracked through, rendering the leveler useless. We have no idea how this could have happened, but I guess in a nine-year old coach, things just give out, or we may have hit the leg on something as they hang down below the chassis and are a bit vulnerable to potholes and the like. With only three level legs operational, the automatic leveling function of the leveling system was inoperational. So now, leveling the coach required manually extending each leveler one at a time, checking the level, and adjusting each again (rinse and repeat). And depending on the slope of the site, putting boards under the driver's side front tire was often required as well. Of course, this required additional time (and headaches) at each campsite. No, we were not happy campers! Getting the old leveler off was a real battle. Barry's socket wrench wouldn't budge it, so he bought a breaker bar. Still no luck. As a final attempt before taking Pearl in to a service shop or calling a mobile RV repair outfit, he bought an impact wrench to use with his air compressor. The third try was a charm. He got it off! And it was a heavy, heavy thing to move. But here it is. By this time we were at our next campground, Brown South in Jackson County, MN. We looked into buying an entire replacement level leg but this would have cost around $600. And the leg itself was fine, so we hated to spend that much when only the gearbox was broken. Barry emailed the Atwood company about the possibility of replacing the gearbox only. They told him the part number, but nowhere online could we find a picture of the item to ensure that it was actually what he needed. After chatting in email and on the phone with an employee at CarID, the company Atwood recommended, we decided to take the risk even without a photo. We ordered the gearbox and had it UPS'd to the campground. With shipping, we paid less than half the cost of a full level leg. When the gearbox arrived, Barry thought it would be just fine. There were some extra wires that were not used in our older system, but another email to Atwood confirmed that he could simply tape these off. In around an hour, he had the gearbox installed on the level leg. And the entire assembly bolted back onto Pearl's chassis! But now for the moment of truth. I can't lie; I was terrified. Barry fired up the engine and gave the leg a try. IT WORKED!
So, we saved a bunch of money over going to an RV dealer, and Barry got the satisfaction of fixing something that most RVers would probably not even tackle. And we have a working automatic leveling system again. Definitely one of our better accomplishments since becoming RVers and a happy day indeed! RIP Asus Transformer Book; I surely enjoyed using you, your bright red color and small form factor, perfect for traveling to Mexico and using as my only computer there. I cannot tell a lie: I killed my little tablet/laptop in a valiant attempt to change the failing battery (NOTE: Do not try this at home.) I followed instructions I found on a web page (not by Asus, just a user who did successfuly change out his battery) but still managed to crack the touchscreen in one place opening up the tablet. Ouch! That was probably reason enough to stop while I was ahead (er...behind), but I was determined to look under the hood anyway to see if I could salvage it for a little longer; after all, I'd already bought a replacement battery. Once I finally pried the screen off the brains of the system, I discovered that my battery was not the easy drop and replace model as in the online instructions but glued to a metal backing plate. Asus must have changed this at some point. To replace the battery would have involved unscrewing lots of tiny, delicate computer components and putting them all back onto the battery assembly I'd purchased on ebay. Uh...no. So I wanted to recycle both batteries. I also had an older full-size HP laptop with a large 12-cell battery that was dead, so I could take that one to recycle at the same time. Checking online for a recycling spot, I found that a rural electricity co-op in the county seat of Jackson, MN would take laptop batteries. Jackson was about 15 miles from our campground in the county, so we decided to ride over to recycle! It was a pretty ride on lightly traveled rural roads but very windy. No wonder there are wind farms in the area! These windmills were putting out some serious energy on this day. Jackson is a small, pretty city with nice paved bike paths. The Des Moines River runs right through town. We took a wrong turn on a bike path (my fault) and ended up at the end of the path due to a construction zone. A friendly construction worker came over and told us how to get across the river on the road via a detour and pick up the trail on the other side. We followed his instructions and continued heading north until we got to Highway 71, where the electric co-op was about 1/2 mile north, according to Google maps.
All in all, it was a very successful recycling ride. So far we're doing just fine without the extra expense and inconvenience of having to tow a car behind Pearl. I guess that's because we're willing to ride our bikes just about anywhere!
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Emily & BarryWe're a long-married, early-retired couple who are currently traveling as nomads with no fixed home base. After years of living in North Carolina (Emily's home state), we spent 18 months living oceanfront on Ambergris Caye, Belize, a year road-tripping the US in a Honda CR-V, a year in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, and are now roaming North America in our 32' motorhome, Pearl, following warm weather whenever possible. Archives
July 2019
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