'We chose Memphis for our first camping trip of 2016 because Steve's son is playing in the pit for the national tour of "Bullets Over Broadway" and his Memphis stop was the closest for us in NC. We are so excited to see him, and Steve is even going to go to a second show to sit with him in the pit to see him perform!
We intended to leave by lunchtime on May 17th, but it poured buckets until noon so we didn't get off until 4ish. That's okay, we are under almost no time table for this trip...just have to be at the theater on Saturday for his matinee.
Well, there's a reason it's a good idea to go on a little 'shakedown' trip before a big trip, especially after your rig has been in storage all winter.
All seemed well until we stopped for the night at a Cracker Barrel just outside of Knoxville, TN.
First off, Steve realized that we were leaking water from our fresh water tank; bad because we were depending on this water to brush our teeth and flush the toilet until we got to Memphis. He quickly fixed that problem by closing the valves.
Then the water pump did not appear to be working because no water would come out of any faucets. He fixed that by opening the valve to the water pump.
Next, the generator wouldn't turn on even though he had turned it on periodically over the winter. He went to check to be sure there was enough oil in the generator, and saw a puddle of oil under the generator compartment on the Cracerbarrel driveway. This he couldn't fix, we would need to find a place who could fix generators the next day.
Then we realized the refrigerator was not as cold as it should have been and our coach lights were dim. He had filled the coach batteries with distilled water before we left, but we weren't getting enough power from them for lights and refrigerator, and there was a loud beep every time we turned on a light or opened the fridge door. This would need an rv service center the next day.
In the middle of the night, Steve wondered if he had turned on the propane...oops, guess not! He went outside, turned it on, and then lit a burner on the stove, which eventually lit. We had propane, but not enough power for the refrigerator to switch to propane.
Today, the 18th we quickly got ready, hit a McDonalds for a quick breakfast, and set out to get some repairs done!
We found a truck repair place (Cummins Crosspoint in Knoxville) that could fix our generator problem right away. They cleaned up the oil, replaced the oil filter, drained out the old oil that was still in there and filled with new oil. ($170) By now it's 2:00pm. They verified that our coach batteries were dead and sent us to an rv repair shop to buy new batteries.
Where he sent us was Chilhowee RV Service Center in Alcoa, TN which was thankfully on 40W which was the route we were taking to Memohis anyway! A guy was available right away to help us! Turns out what we need is an auxiliary start relay which they don't have in stock. It is because this relay is shot that our coach batteries are not charging just by driving...our batteries may be just fine. We called Camping World in Nashville to see if they could install one tomorrow, but they are booked solid. Just down the street is a Camping World of Knoxville which we checked next. Nope, they don't have one in stock, plus they were too busy anyway.
By now it's 5pm! Our plan is to keep driving to Memphis, keeping the generator on (Chilhowee jump started it) and as long as we keep enough gas in the rig to keep the generator running, we will dry camp at night and drive during the day until we get to our campground in Memphis where we will be plugged in. We are staying in an Army Corps of Engineers campground for the first time. We will make some phone calls and try to get the relay fixed next week. Phew, what a day!
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