Saturday, June 2, 2012

In your face TV, literally!

We're safely cozied in at an Iowa Wal-mart after a very exciting day on the road. I'm tellin' ya, the adrenalin was pumping, not just once, but twice as we had two eye poppers.

Before I get to the details, let me just say that both Richard and I have a long history on the road as truck drivers (we owned trucks, and also drove for other folks at times) and he has also driven buses for years, but we have different styles, especially when it comes to driving the motorhome. He drives it like a truck or bus, whereas I drive it slower and more gently. This is MY HOUSE! I drive it tenderly... and sometimes I remind my sweet man that he isn't doing that. I do try to be tactful, but really should keep my mouth shut. Well, today's adventures proved each of our points.

Some of the roads in Missouri are a tad rough, and Richard was driving (in my opinion) a tad fast. All of a sudden we hit a really bad spot in the road and the TV, which was mounted in an open cabinet above the driver, came flying out of its place right in my honey's face! Picture this: 60 mph down the freeway, a curve, a vehicle on each side of us and the TV flies out at him... and like a Hollywood stunt man, Richard dashes out and catches that television in his right hand! He never swerved a lick as he swung it on down to the floor and kept right on driving as if nothing had happened. Then he turned and gave me his best smart aleck grin.

A little while later, we had to make a panic stop to avoid hitting a car cutting across our lane. Thank YHVH for, our new brakes. As Richard stood the rig on its nose, a ceramic lid came rolling up to the driver's area. It had come all the way from the back of our 40 foot coach... In shock I looked back to see the contents of my "dresser box" where I put things that sit out when we're parked, scattered all up the hall. Our spare change, the phone charger, alarm clock, etc. It was as if a drug-crazed madman had pitched a fit and thrown our stuff up to 20 or more feet away. Everything in the coach that was not properly stowed had been flung forward. What a lesson that was! You guessed right, I reorganized the coach big time, thanking God the whole time that we had gotten stopped and not one thing was broken.

Refrigerator notes: The frig is not cooling at all now, but the freezer seems to work fine. We think there must be a problem with the thermostat in the frig and will research that after we are rested up from our big day today. Meanwhile, we are using our icemaker to make and fill large baggies of ice for the frig. I do love the icemaker, a big unit separate from the frig that puts out buckets of ice pronto.

We tried to watch the Beit Yisrael Shabbat service but could not keep a signal on our Mifi. Again, we held our own service here in the coach... not the same, but still a blessing. It was a good day and we were certainly reminded of our Father's care. We live a blessed life!

4 comments:

  1. WOW!!! Yah that sounds like quite the adventurous day! Glad that it al turned out well and none of your items were broken either....including you guys not being broken from it!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Whew what a day!!!! Our tv's were loose too as originally installed. We could see them bounce and vibrate on bad roads too! When we swapped them out for digital ones (still CRT big box type) we secured them a little differently this time.

    As for the stuff flying, I can all too well relate! And I try to tuck most things safely away. Our old Coachmen had the silverware drawer facing forward so if we slammed on the brakes, all our forks, knives and spoons came flying out! We moved the sharp knives to another cabinet after that=====

    For the fridge, if the freezer is working and not the fridge, try cleaning the burner unit first. Once we had a little knob of black crusty stuff was all it took to get it working better. More recently we found out our "water column" propane pressure was bad and not allowing the fridge to work at it's full potential. We swapped out the regulator (only $25 or so) and now it works great again. We figure our regulator got damaged by NOT turning off the two propane valves last time our tank was filled. The guy got to our house and filled it before I could go out and turn off the valves... so he just filled it up anyhow. That can damage the diaphram inside the regulator, which is what we think happened to us. Have you been filled lately? One more thought, the thermistor on the fin inside can get bumped and slide down the fin, slide it back up to the top of the fin and it will get colder again.

    But we are adding an extra 12 volt fan to the back compartment to help with the cooling on the hot days.


    ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
    Karen and Steve
    (Our Blog) RVing: Small House... BIG Backyard
    http://kareninthewoods-kareninthewoods.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hello Ionaruth'
    Never thought I would read a blog. How entertaining! Our large families, Irish on my side and Italian seem to have lost the sense of importance of family withe late generations. DW wife's clan get together once a year in York Beach, ME but my children are in Florida, California and Geneva, CH. Our cousins again are scattered in hte winds and we miss the closeness that were were brought it in. Actually my Swiss son keeps the siblings and some cousins and the older as close as he can, with occasonal gettogethers in either Florida, MA or a charming Swiss town.
    Ilness has kept us(me) from the road but my daughter and her two childen(8& 10) handle our 37' Renegade remarkably well. She had previous trucking experience with hauling 4 horse trailers when they were training them.
    Again, your blog is fantastic and I hope many read it. You cover the little items that are so important in RV travel.
    Shalom from an Irish Catholic ;-D
    Brett
    dudley097@yahoo.com
    '00 Renegade

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thans for the encouraging comments... from each of you, RVers or not, and I hope you'll continue to follow along with us. Life is a blast, isn't it? Sometimes sad, sometimes silly, but always full of wonder.

    iona

    ReplyDelete