We Return from Mexico & Experience Our First Challenge On the Road - Actually 3!
The last week spent in Rocky Point was excellent! We managed to record a tour of our motorhome - Winnebago Sightseer 34M - upload it and get it posted along with a video about Puerto Penasco and Brian's Battle Born Install Update. Success! This new lifestyle has definitely tested our resourcefulness so we feel pretty good having gotten it done - and we learned a LOT along the way. As mentioned before, the upload speeds where we were located in Mexico were abysmal. What we had to do was send to a dropbox and our oldest son uploaded and processed on YouTube.
Thank you Eric for bailing out Mom & Dad! (wink!)
As all do when getting ready for a travel day, we began the breakdown procedure and while doing this, heard a terrible, loud CLANG/snap noise as we brought in the living room slide. Our largest on the rig. Since the slide went in, we thought it was just a piece of rock (it had been windy), but lo and behold, Brian noticed the slide creeping out as we drove away from the RV park. We pulled into Walmart where he put a slide lock in place for the remainder of the trip back to the US. (oh by the way....we got searched again right before we crossed the border to the US). When we pulled into our destination, he had a chance to investigate and found a disintegrated Acme nut on the slide ram. Bummer! Has your Acme nut ever disintegrated?! Brian can fix a lot of things, but for this one, we need the experts and their equipment.
Also along the trip home, we had a person pass up pulling an empty trailer which resulted in a large rock being kicked up into the windshield on the driver's side. A quarter size star and ensuing crack began to form. Thank you!! 2nd bummer as this was a newly replaced windshield. Our third incident was the presence of the "check engine" light that popped on midway home. We stopped at AutoZone to have it tested and found the O2 Sensor might be faulty or a problem with the system. All fixable stuff, but it has put us out of traveling commission for the next few days - perhaps a week.
Our saving grace was the fact that we were already headed to a family member's house to pick up stuff we left behind prior to our trip to Mexico. They graciously let us stay at their house until the rig is fixed. A blessing in disguise - for sure!! Thank you Family!!
So for the time being, we're getting caught up on several things, including video editing, blog updates, bill paying, trip planning and restocking the rig. Our goal is to get back on the road this week. Fingers crossed and Lord willing!!
Did I mention that we missed an opportunity to be part of a television show about the RV life? Yep! We were scheduled to meet with the filming crew on Friday and had to cancel due to the RV work that needed to be done. UGH! Well, they have offered to Skype with us once the rig is back on the road. We'd love to do the piece so we're keeping our fingers crossed on the opportunity!
Back to Rocky Point for a just a moment! (why not right?!) We had an absolutely wonderful time and met some really nice people there! Because we have our logo on the side and back of our rig, it tended to be a conversation starter in the RV park. We love meeting new people and are still in awe of how awesome the RV community is. More than one time, a couple said to us "you guys are living our dream" or "we can't wait to do what you're doing, soon". To that we responded with "you can do it too, it just takes planning and a serious change in mindset". We hope to be an inspiration to others on the road. If you have any questions, we are happy to help. Of course, we may not have all the answers since we're still pretty new at this, but we're learning to be mighty resourceful AND we're not afraid to ask questions of others.
So with that, I'll end this blog post and hopefully you'll find that we're back on the road soon. Our first month on the road is right around the corner. We're considering doing a live stream so let us know if you'd be interested in participating! We'd love to hear from you!