Break Down!

When we were in this area last year, our air conditioner failed. This time the power converter broke. An RV has 2 types of power required. The 120 V comes from being plugged in or from the generator. It runs the outlets, TV, microwave, and refrigerator (the refrigerator also runs on propane and 12V). The 12 V comes either from storage batteries or from 120V thru the power converter. It runs the lights, refrigerator controls, the heat controls and fans, the hot water tank controls, the DVD/radio, and the slides for the RV. When the converter failed and the storage batteries were used up, we had no lights, no refrigerator, no heat, no hot water, no DVD/radio, and no way to bring the slides in on the RV. The slides, by the way, are sections of the RV that slide out to give us more room when we’re camping.  The bed and the couch slide out in our RV.

We were able to use ice from the freezer to keep the refrigerator stuff cold for a couple of days. We used flashlights. We could actually run the TV and a portable DVD player using 120 V at the campground. Without hot water, we used the showers at the campground and let the dishes go for a couple of days. The slides had to be manually run in. Those were a major pain for John.

Fortunately, we found a great place on the way to the next camping ground that had the spare part we needed. They installed it quickly. Life in an RV is always an adventure!