Shady Oasis
It was 34F when we woke up; about 45F inside. As per usual, I turned up the thermostat and as the furnace kicked on it made a god awful squealing sound. I was sure glad we bought the electric heater! But, we need the furnace when electricity is not available, so I started looking online for RV dealers in the area. It was only 7AM; the three I found didn’t open until 9. In the meantime, I went to the internet for advice on this problem and there was plenty. It did not indicate the need for replacing the whole fan. The fan may be contacting the housing; this can be remedied by oil and/or adjustment. Exhale!
After it warmed up a bit, I went out side to investigate the problem. It appears to be a big job to pull the entire furnace. The gas line, three ducts and power would all have to be disconnected first; all tight quarters work. Optimistically, it can be done without this drastic maneuver. But, first I needed to pinpoint the source of the noise. Penny turned on the thermostat; the fan spun up to speed with no noise! My theory is the furnace housing in distorting in the cold temps and impeding the fan blades. Let’s see what happens in the next couple of days.
Later, we went over to Barb and Barb’s for lively conversation on a wide ranging series of topics. They prepared homemade buns, crockpot pork, home made BBQ sauce, and coleslaw. We brought artisan ice cream oatmeal cookie sandwiches covered in chocolate for dessert. A good time was had by all!
Matt and Stacia had mailed Christmas presents to the Barbs’ address for her mom and I. Matt made us laminated cutting board. Stacia made us some vanilla extract and sent some great portraits of the grand daughters, Kadie, Alison and Emma.
We also sent a package there when we decided to change out our halogen light bulbs to LED bulbs. We needed 17 indoor and two outdoor, but when we shopped at the RV place in Spokane, each bulb was $17!!! However, when I mentioned that to my brother-in-law, Mike, he did some detective work on the inter web and found 20 bulbs for $16!!! As a result, we replaced all of our bulbs last night and are using only a fraction of the power we were with the other bulbs. This results in longer battery life while primitive camping.
Frankly, primitive camping sounds drastically different from our reality. What we do is a long way from primitive. We roll our trailer from spot to spot and live quite well. It is cold at night, but we have heaters. It rains, but we are not sleeping on the ground and our roof does not leak. We have a refrigerator and a freezer for food storage. We even have a microwave! (which does not work without electrical hookup.)
Same trailer; different park!