More repairs for The Palms? :(

WELCOME to our new Follower, morningmuse!  Kathi's blog is about miniatures, and she loves the beach.  As she says in her blog, "I began my adventure in miniatures in 2009 when I found my first dollhouse at a garage sale."   I think most women can relate to that.  Some of those doll houses are fascinating.  Welcome, Kathi - Katie and I are happy you are following along with us!

New followers, Elaine and Rick, whom I welcomed in the last post, do have a blog, Elaine left the link in a comment.  Just click on their names for the link to their blog.  Thanks Elaine - I hope you make your departure date of the 27th.  Sounds like things are pretty busy at your house; I hope everyone is well by then.

I haven't posted for a few days, just wanted to check in and let you know all is well with me and Katie.  Not so much for The Palms.

Last night we blew a GFI switch in the bathroom, and on another circuit the microwave was clicking like a car engine who's battery needs a charge.  So we're going back to Bob's Generator at 9:30 this morning to have him check it out and see if he can find the problem and fix it.  My son, Tom, thought it might all be connected, the auto transfer switch, the GFI and the microwave - maybe there's an electrical problem down the line that's affecting them all.  We'll see.

I'll post later with the results and other recent happenings and photos.

From Me and Katie - see you soon. :)

UPDATE:

Sorry, I was writing this update when I looked out the window and saw the Dingbats around the bonfire and I decided to join them.  Now it's after 9:00 pm and I'd better get this proofed and published!   

Okay, after spending all morning and a bit more at Bob's Generator, I think he isolated the problem.  He checked out the GFI and replaced it with a new one.  Here's the back of the old one - there was a loud pop last night, and I think this was the result of that popping:

This is the back of the GFI that finally burned out. See the bubble - it was HOT to do that.

Bob checked all the electrical lines in the kitchen/bath side of the coach, and they all seemed to be working fine.  He said he wanted me to stay there for an hour with the generator running to see if everything was still working after an hour.  Almost as soon as he left the rig, the new GFI started clicking, and he came back in and re-checked the plugs, and there was too much voltage showing on his meter, where before it was fine, and Bob said that told him the problem was the voltage regulator.

He went to the generator and pulled the generator apart a little, taking out the voltage regulator, which was dripping oil.  There was oil on the left side of the generator, where he said there shouldn't be oil. He cleaned that area up, and took off the faceplate of the big metal thing with the pistons that's above the spark plug, and it looked all right.  I went back in the rig, and a bit later he came in as asked if I had recently had a carburetor put in, and I had not. Well, he said, someone recently put a new one in, and connected it wrong.  So he cleaned up the carburetor and re-connected it correctly.  This is a bit rambling, but a lot of what he said was over my head, and I was trying to understand it and remember it without writing it down.

So, now I need a new voltage regulator.  The part is $330, I think he said, plus the new GFI and the labor charges - this is going to be an expensive repair.  Bob will order the part from Phoenix Monday morning, and it should be here on Tuesday. He'll call me when the part comes in, and hopefully it will be fixed Tuesday afternoon.

Wow, I hope this is the end of the repairs for a while.  My emergency fund needs some time to get replenished.

Note to Newbies:  When the experienced full-timers say to make sure you start out with an emergency fund of at least a couple thousand dollars, HEED THE WARNING!  They aren't kidding.  Really.  I don't know what I would have done if I didn't have a repair fund.  I guess it could have gone on credit cards, but I'm trying to get them paid off, not built up.  And there are some things you HAVE to fix.

Change of subject:

I heard a lot of wood chopping Thursday afternoon, and then again Friday morning.  There was a man chopping wood by our big fire pit, so Katie and I walked over to see what was going on.  His name is Brian, and he got here Thursday.  He's a Dingbat, but is staying in a local motel.  He said it was just easier to do that than haul his trailer all the way here from Oregon and back for a week's stay.  He has been saving wood all year, some from construction site extras and some from trees that had fallen.  He had the trees all cut up into rounds, and now he's splitting it.  What a job!

We have  a lot of wood now for our bonfires!  Can you see the dining room chair there?  I asked him what that was for, and he said every year they had someone, I think he said King or Queen, I forget, but anyway, they get to sit in the chair at the bonfires, and the last night, the chair goes into the fire.  

Brian, our woodsman

For any of my readers who are Dingbats, or knew them in past years, here's who is camped here so far:
Delores, Carol, Hazel, Carrie, Ron, Don, Mike, Brian who just left, and me.  I think that's everyone so far.  I don't know if more are coming, but they have talked about some past Dingbats who are no longer with us, or aren't coming this year.  It sounds like there used to be quite a crowd.

This was the moon yesterday, setting finally in the late morning in the western sky.

I'm hoping for a lot of sun the next couple of days, at least until I get my generator working.  Thank goodness for solar panels and catalytic heaters!  It appears I had those installed just in the nick of time!  I'll be much more comfortable without my generator for the next few days with those aboard, that's for sure!

From Me and Katie, have a great weekend, everyone!   :)