October 1, 2021
Colder than a witch in a brass bra
The saga continues
It was a rude awaking when I woke up at 2:30 this morning and threw off the covers to go to the bathroom, only to pull them back over me - it was COLD!!!!!! WAY to cold!!!! A glance at the weather station on the dresser showed that it was 61 degrees in the trailer. Obviously the furnace was no longer working. Crap!!!!!
I laid there in bed for a while with the covers pulled over my head and tried to get back to sleep, but finally gave it up. Who knew I should have brought my warm down sleeping bag with me!
So I nudged Don awake and he turned on the heat pump to try to get a little warmth inside. Since neither of us could sleep by now, we just got up and heated up water for tea and coffee. What a way to start the day!
We both felt like zombies and I knew that now wasn't a good time to ask Don what his plans were to fix the furnace. Do we call the useless warranty service, contact the Salt Lake Airstream dealer and cry on their shoulder, pleading for some immediate help or make plans to go to Vegas and see the dealer there for repairs. My brain was churning with all of the "what if's".
Eventually Don had enough coffee in him to talk coherently to me. He said he had found some You Tube videos that addressed our problem and wanted to try to fix things himself. He's pretty handy mechanically, so maybe that would work.
When it had warmed up enough outside to open the furnace access panel, he went out to see what he could do. He took some things apart and when he came back inside, said that he had discovered some 'lint' in one part.
Hmmmm - wonder how that happened?! Was it the cotton from cotton wood trees? Something that got in there when we had the strong wind the other day or something that blew inside the panel while we traveled??? This was what that the dealer had mentioned as being a normal problem with furnaces.
He was able to clean it out, double checked that there weren't any loose connections, and put it all back together. Then we turned on the furnace and crossing our fingers, waited for the results.
The blower kicked on and then we heard the sweet sound of the igniter switching on with heat coming out of the vents. We waited, barely breathing, hoping that it would stay on this time. YES- IT DID !!!!! YEAH!!!!!!! All morning the furnace ran correctly with no issues.
We'll see how things go overnight, but maybe Don had resolved this problem. THANK YOU YOU TUBE!!! We've used You Tube instructional videos a lot and wondered how we got by without it!?
The furnace issue resolved for now, we next drove over to Walmart to do a resupply. That shot the rest of the morning and after lunch, decided to do a short bike ride since our feet were tired from the walking at the grocery store.
This time we rode south on busier roads with bike lanes that went through downtown Springville and into some newer housing developments. There were less turns so we didn't get lost this time.
There were some nice looking older buildings on main street. But I was looking for some art. Springville calls itself the 'Art City' but other than a few statues, I didn't spot much. Maybe we weren't in the right place.
We only rode 12 miles today, but that was plenty since neither of us had gotten more than 4 hours of sleep last night. We'll be here for several more days, so will ample opportunity to do longer rides.
At 4 pm a guy came by to wash/detail the exterior of the trailer. Don had seen him in the campground and arranged this service.
Airstream doesn't recommend using a truck car wash as the water pressure would be too high. Water could get pushed into where it doesn't belong.
The guy was younger and really took his time (nearly 3 hours!) hand washing everything from the sides to the top. By the time he had finished, Tango was sparkling once again. At only $130, it was well worth it!
Dinner tonight was interesting with grilled pork loin, sweet potato, taro root and a plantain. Don had said he wanted to try something different.
The taro was like a potato and sweet tasting - worth having again. But neither of us cared for the plantain. Maybe we should have put a brown sugar glaze on it like some of the recipes called for?
After we ate, we tried a little dancing, but with the lack of sleep, stress, biking, and shopping today, just couldn't get into it. Oh well, we'll do it again some other time.
We both went to bed early, hoping that the furnace would work all night. Boy,what a day!!!
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Today's ride: 12 miles (19 km)
Total: 672 miles (1,081 km)
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