San Diego, CA - Battery Boy

You know - every house needs maintenance once in a while - and that means RV’s too. We bought this RV when it was 2 years old and have had it 4 years. That means that our batteries are just like us: almost too old to work. We’ve know we needed new house batteries for a while but, when we stayed in a boondocking site in El Centro a few weeks ago and our batteries died after we used our furnace with its fans over night - well, that was a real clue that something needed to be done. Must be detectives the quick way we can read the clues.

Gary did some research, found the batteries he wanted to get, found the distributor in the area and called. Yes, they had what he wanted, yes, he could pick them up and - wonder of wonders - the manager said he’d actually install them for free. Whoo-eee. What a deal ! ! ! OUR kind of deal ! ! ! Gary then set about learning all about batteries, investigated ours and how they were hooked up and drew a schematic,

then downloaded the actual schematics - I had to lay them out on the floor to get the whole sheet.

Then he continued on and decided that he would prefer installing them himself to having to unhook, drive up to the distributor, maneuver our RV in their tiny parking lot, spend time and then drive back and rehook. OK, sounds good to me. Whatever he wants. Yesterday he got everything ready to go so that today first thing, he could take our batteries out and get up there as soon as possible.

Hey. look, no batteries on this pullout.

No batteries, no electricity, our refrigerator, our furnace and lights won’t work since they don’t have any batteries - nothing works.

Meanwhile, I checked our next campground which doesn’t take reservations and learned that they would not have any spaces for us next week. Ah, now what? I called the campground we were going to after that one but they had no spaces for next week either so - I re-upped for another week here in San Diego. And, what is wrong with that? Can’t beat San Diego in the winter.

We gave them our batteries for recycling (did you know that lead acid batteries top the list as one of the most highly recycled consumer products? No, well, now you know.) they loaded the pretty new red ones (I told Gary that I wanted ‘pretty’ batteries) into the Jeep and we were heading home. (And, no he didn’t crush the milk or the Shredded Wheat - just old boxes he put under the batteries to protect the Jeep flooring.) Look at those whiny new batteries.

A stop at Home Depot for some long bolts to hold the batteries in place and we were on our way.
After a short lunch, Gary began the process of installing our 6 new batteries: 2 for the RV and 4 for the house.) Me, I worked on some other administrative tasks: I’ve got the sun for light, my computer has a battery in it.

Soon, I noticed that the batteries were not disappearing from the Jeep. Hmmm. He told me this would be a simple job. Oh, but it wasn’t the batteries that were the problem, it was the long bolts and nuts that held them into the tray that was the problem and he was working on that.

Oh, why don’t I clean the RV - yesterday’s rain left thousands of little brown dots all over the RV and were especially obvious on the windows. (Who says rain water is clean?) Besides, we’ve invited Marilyn over tomorrow after lunch to see the RV. Can’t have it so dirty that we can’t see out the windows. Yecch. And, that became my job while Gary was working on the tray.

Finally, I finished but Gary was still working. It was getting dark but Gary had his headlamp on so he could see.

I went inside and worked on my computer. The power was down to 48% but it was just about the only thing I could do and it had enough light for me to see it. Of course, there was no other light in the RV and I even had the shades down since there was no light outside either.
Here I am in the RV working on my computer.

Gary finished about 6:30, we had dinner and relaxed.

‘If at first you don’t succeed, try to hide your astonishment.’
                                Texas Bix Bender