THE FATES DEAL A NEAR DISASTROUS BLOW TO THE HAPPY WANDERERS -- IN THE DARK NO LESS!!!
Today is a day NO ONE would ever want to write about. More accurately, today began yesterday when we pulled into camp in Sundance, Wyoming, and straightaway attempted to do some laundry. When we got our basket of dirty duds down to the official camp laundry room, we discovered that a gentleman who looked very much like Wild Bill Hickock, or Buffalo Bill Cody had usurped every single machine for what looked like eight or ten items. As far as I could see, there were about two items each in the four machines.
"Okay," we said to Mr. Hickock, "we'll be back when you're done." After setting Concetta's IPhone countdown clock for requisite twenty-five minutes, We climbed the stairs back to the camping area and trudged back to the rig, our laundry still in our possession.
When the alarm went off we retraced our steps back to the aforementioned laundry emporium only to find that Wild Bill had NOT only failed to reserve even one machine for us, he had seemingly welcomed members of his gang to come down and put their two or three items in every machine in order to have yet another monopoly on the minuscule number of washing machines. It was almost like the cattle ranchers hoarding all the water so the hated sheep herders would not be able to water their sheep.
At this point I was so irritated with the events as they were unfolding that Concetta and I decided to engage in a heated discussion on the efficacy of performing laundry duties at this particular point in time. This "discussion" carried on while I was typing last night's blog, as well as well into the evening hours. We managed to settle the matter just short of the time we had set aside for sleeping. The only problem was, what with all the negotiations going on, I had forgotten to retract the awning that I had earlier deployed in an effort to ward off the afternoon sun.
Okay, so I'd retracted the awning dozens of times and felt no particular trepidation about doing it in the dark. Opening the forward locker on the starboard side, I removed the "hook" by which the awning is pulled down and which is also useful for helping to ease the awning back into its storage position.
The first step you must perform when retracting the awning is to pull the arms back from whatever hyper extended position you might have employed after pulling it down from the top of the RV. Hyper extending the awning arms raises the elevation of the roller, which effectively allows the entry door to swing outward without contacting the underside of the awning.
Once I had lifted the release levers and slid the awning-arm extensions backwards into their resting position, it was time to perform the retraction process. I loosened the knurled nobs on each arm which accomplishes something that I've never quite figured out but which seems to need to be loosened whenever you play with the awning for any reason.
At that point I was ready to push the small knob located on the main roller mechanism drum that allows the whole ten-foot roller to either revolve one way or the other, depending on your desire. This mechanism works pretty much like a common window shade. Pull down and it stays. Flip the knob on the roller and it wants to retract. Almost foolproof. Almost.
It was at this point that the Fates decided that it was time to have some fun with me. I flipped the knob. Then, while holding the stay cord with one hand, I began to allow the awning to retract. At that point the pivoting mechanism made a terrible noise and broke and came loose from the side of the rig. This caused the awning to sag toward the rear of the coach and look dangerously close to falling completely off.
You may remember that at the beginning of this trip, the pivoting support mechanism that screws to the side of the rig had disintegrated, leaving us stranded in Oregon City until we had come up with a way to replace the ruined part. Well, this time the other half of the pivoting mechanism, the part that attaches to the pivoting arm itself also disintegrated. We were, as you might imagine, screwed. It was dark, it was late, and there was NO way I was going to be able to replace the part in the foreseeable future in the tiny town of Sundance, from whence the famous Sundance Kid had taken his nickname. More on that subject -- perhaps -- in another blog.
Okay, not to be deterred by a mere aluminum part malfunction, I decided that there must be a way to outwit the broken awning piece and "MacGiver" the connection soundly enough to get us to a RV repair facility somewhere down the road. It didn't sound reasonable, even to my ears, but I fully intended to give it a try before my head sought the pillow. I got a flashlight, and I got Concetta to hold it, and I set to work.
To regress a bit, not long ago when I had stopped to photograph some fetching piece of countryside, I found an extremely heavy-duty piece of wire about three feet long on the shoulder of the road. This wire looked an awful lot like a piece of white coat hanger, but the gauge of the wire was perhaps four or fives times heavier than standard coat hanger wire. Right then and there I decided that the wire might certainly come in handy, and I quickly added it to my "Possibles Locker."
Now, with the awning arm pivot broken and the awning arm left hanging for want of a pivot point, I was left with nowhere to attach anything to the side of the coach. The only thing left in place was the spring-loaded head that usually snaps over the pivot rod and holds the awning arm in place but not so tightly the awning arm can't lower into position. At length I decided that the head of this latch might just serve as my new point of attachment for the arm. I wouldn't be able to make it permanent, but I could "rest" a length of wire atop the latch, and perhaps I could persuade it to stay there.
And THIS is where my wonderful piece of heavy wire came into the picture. Thankfully, when the pivot mechanism broke off, it left the part of the bracket which still contained two 1/4 inch holes on the bottom of the arm. Now these holes where not used for lowering the awing arms in any way. They were meant to be a point of attachment if a person removed the awning arms from the side of the coach by lifting the latch on the coach side and then placing the arms in a vertical position at your camp site. I've never been sure why anyone would want to do this, except perhaps it would allow someone to use the handy holes provided on the ends of the arms to attach them to a heavy object on the ground, thus making the awning more permanent for long-term camping.
At any rate, with Concetta's help we rested the broken end of the awning arm against the old pivot point and threaded my very heavy duty found piece of wire from hole to hole, thus forming a sort of pivot wire in much the same way as the old roller rod pivot had served. This accomplished, we rested the new "pivot wire" atop the old hold-down latch, rather than beneath the latch where the old pivot rod would have been located. Once that was done, we could relax a bit since the awning arm was now supported, we took a fresh, new, and heretofore unused Bungie cord and hooked it around the remains of the old pivot piece and then hooked it into the hold-down bracket on the coach side. When all that was snug and tight we stood back to survey our work. It looked good and seemed to be functionally sound.
This morning, wanting to make doubly sure that one side of the awning would not suddenly part company with the RV while we sped down the Interstate at sixty miles an hour, I took a nylon cord and tied one end to the awning and then wrapped the other free end around the air conditioning unit atop the RV. That might not completely remove the possibility of equipment failure, but I was hoping it might give us some advanced warning.
And there you have it. We spent the whole rest of the day in various towns and cities between Sundance and Buffalo, Wyoming, letting our often unreliable GPS try to guide us to a reliable RV parts company, but we were completely unsuccessful until we arrived in Buffalo. In Buffalo we almost immediately found a likely parts source, fully on our own and without any help whatsoever from our crazy GPS. However, a visit with the young lady behind the counter soon revealed that no such part was locally available. Were we able to identify exactly the part number of said broken part, she might be able to order me one if we would hang around for a week or so.
I, of course, declined the clerk's offer. An inspection of our "MacGiver" repair revealed that it's holding, and most likely we'll just leave it alone and call it good until we get home. That opinion could change in a heartbeat, I am fully aware, but I have high hopes.
My best advice to anyone who intends to trust their fate to a used RV, that was largely built of the most light-weight materials possible, is to bring just about anything and everything you might need to make on-the-spot repairs. If you don't, I predict that you'll be stuck somewhere for quite awhile awaiting rescue. And never, ever walk past a nut, bolt, or screw on the ground without adding it to your possibles box. A found piece of heavy-duty wire saved our bacon last night and today, and I still have the unused portion in my toolkit. Someday I may need that sucker again, and I'll be very glad I have it.
And if you find yourself venturing into the wilderness to seek high times and even higher adventure, for goodness sake go prepared. And when you go, we wish you exciting destinations and memorable travels from the Davises, the Happy Wanderers.
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