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Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Down the Road in Destin

We are back at the Destin Army Recreation Center Campground in a few miles east of Fort Walton Beach.  I think this is our third time here.  We didn't plan on being here but got into a jam and decided to take a campsite for the week.
We left Pensacola on Saturday morning on a beautiful day.  It was also a beautiful day for a 5K fun run and we ran into McGuires 5K.  We could have risked a detour but we saw a motorhome have to do a U-turn Sunday evening because there was a low bridge that was in the way.

So we watched the race and enjoyed the 40 minute delay.  It was fine.  

Then we moved on to the Air Force FamCamp that is right across from the main gate at Hurlburt Field. It has no reservation system and one gets a spot on a first-come basis.  We arrived about 10:30 and had a hard time finding a spot.  The campground is run down and not well taken care of.  A new one is being built but will not be open until June.  

The supervisor from the Services Flight (who runs the campground) saw us looking for a spot and offered to move a temporary trailer off a campsite for us to use.  
It worked great and we were very appreciative.  He could have just said 'We're Full'.  Instead he took another drive around the park then had two guys come over and hook up the trailer and move it to another place.  I took his card and send a note to his commander.  That is customer service!

We wanted to be near Hurlburt for a couple of reasons.  We were married her in 1979 and spent a couple of great years in Fort Walton Beach.  We also wanted to get the Roadrunner into the Freightliner shop at Fleet Maintenance in FWB.  We had a 7:00 a.m. appointment on Monday.

We were there on time at Fleet Maintenance and asked them to check out the "Low Voltage" light that has been coming on after we are parked for a while.  We dropped off the coach, then went over to Panera Bread for coffee.

I was able to check into work for an hour then we went back over to the garage.  They had a commercial vehicle come in and we got pushed back.  They didn't even start checking things out until about 11:00.  

The batteries were fine but they questioned if they were all hooked up correctly.  We got a residential refrigerator installed 18 months ago by Brannon Hutcheson at Custom RV near Red Bay.  I called him and left a message.  He called back in about five minutes and discussed things with the mechanics.  

Then we sent him some photos.  They determined it was  a bad solenoid, not faulty hookups.
This part is now on order and hopefully will be here in a couple of days.  Meanwhile we are in close quarters at Destin.

We made a rookie error in moving on the weekend.  We could have stayed in Pensacola a few more days.  But we made an appointment at the Freightliner place for Monday a.m.   We could have made it for Tuesday.

Then we stayed at a place where we could lose our spot when we moved over to the repair facility.  Our other option was that we could have stayed at the repair facility with power but no water or sewer. So we opted to make the reservation at Destin.

That's it for this edition of the Roadrunner Chronicles!  Please join us again...

5 comments:

  1. Pretty sure that Brannon hooked those batteries up correctly. Others on the TRVN forum have addressed the solenoid as well. Glad to hear things are getting taken care of.

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  2. Now that is a solenoid.... Judging from the size of the wires, it must handle oodles of current.. That would burn the best of contactors inside... You might consider having a spare on board....

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  3. Problems in RVs are no fun, I know. We have had our share in previous owned ones, and I know we will have them in our new one. Just hopefully not for a few months :) Glad you got to enjoy a race.

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  4. You are talking electrical...and that is McGyver's specialty...too bad he wasn't "in the neighborhood!"

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  5. Also having problems with my charging solenoid and ordered the part from Tiffin. The new one looks nothing like the original and has one less terminal. Looks like I will have to return to Red Bay.

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