Our Craziest Week of July

Another long post…I have a couple of weeks to make up for. But this one is just for one week, trying to break it up better. =)

On 7/9 we decided to go Jeeping and explore the area. We had it planned a nice trip with going up a few canyon roads, wanted to get to the top of Red Mountain, then go to Lochiel (it is on google map, but sure not in our GPS) and head by north by way of Parker Canyon Road. The plans was to take in landscape and takes pictures but it turned out a bigger adventure then that.

We took a side road that ended up on “Diamond Mine Road” and didn’t know that which turned into a road, that was not a road…icks! It was an extremely rocky “road” that had pipes laying on it that haven’t been connected, found out that they were water pipes for mining.

We barely had enough room for Kermit, no place to turn around. Ended up having to back up. I didn’t look down (a HUGE drop), didn’t say a dang word, I just let ToRn drive and concentrate. I know we both were stressed. I just didn’t want to add to it on both of us. We had a lot of bushes on the sides and got a lot of “Arizona Pin Strips” on him now.

Once we got out of that and back on to a true “road”, it was much better. Even through we got a “hot oil” light. Visit ToRn’s post for more of that and his take on that day and the lessons learned: Survived Another Adventure

It was really cool how the landscape changed as we went south. It was desert, dry and brown, but it was a plain of grass with mountains around it. The plains reminded us of the midwest. It was very cool, isolated, and beautiful in it’s unique way. We were able to see Mexico from the road.

Ended our trip with a very good lunch in Sonoita at the “Cunningham Ranch House Restaurant”.

Didn’t realize that the storm clouds of that even was the beginning of the next 2 days of crazy.

Now the adventure didn’t end with that day (this was a crazy week), the next day the 10th, we had 4 different monsoons. The morning one was heavy (.74), the 2 midday were smaller (.25-50), but it was the one that hit late that night that was nutty as hell (2.54), gave us a total of 4.68 inches of rain within 24hrs and no power by midnight, until late that morning. Which won’t be an issue except the fridge never gets to temperature on LP (hopefully I got that figured out, not sure). And that wasn’t the biggest issue….

In the morning after we saw the parking lot turn into a lake that night, the cracks of thunder and all that water, we were tilting to one side. We needed to move Admiral Ackbar. The lesson learned here, is that we should’ve waited. We saw the tires had barely sunken into was was gravel, now all mud, what we didn’t see, because we didn’t look was that the jacks were sunken. If we had seen that, we won’t have lowered the jacks at that time.

Once we did that, our driver side front wheel went up to it’s axl in mud. Not good. And once you bring up the jacks on our rig, you can’t lower them back down until they are up and by that time, it was too late.

Now I’ve never driven Ackbar and I’ve never driven a tracker, so I wasn’t the most useful on helping getting Ackbar out. Luckily the TNC had someone that could help, he just needed to get here.

As we were waiting, we got power and still couldn’t get our fridge going, not good. After going through fuse boxes, circuit brakers and everything else, I noticed that the GCFI in that bathroom keep tripping and that the fridge outlet (which is outside under a vented “door”) stated that it was on GCFI. After trial and error, we determined that it was all tied together.

Called our dealer at RV Warehouse in OR and they stated that we may need a new outlet. I went and got that and still wasn’t working. Talked to the electrician, Dave, there (who is GREAT and has been a LIFE saver) and found that water may have gotten in an outlet and that is what is tripping it.

We did what he suggested and took a can of air to all the outside outlets, we really concentrated on the fridge one. With that being a vented door and the way the rain was coming from all directions, that was the one that had the greater odds of being the issue, plus none of the other outlets stated that they were on the GCFI. Now it didn’t trip as quickly but it was still tripping. He did say that may work itself out as it dries out, if not, then we may need to take Ackbar in. Though out the next few hours, we tested it and it was taking longer to trip, it was giving us hope. Then it stayed on! We were SO happy. We took painters tape and cover up the outlet to help keep it from happening again.

When I was gone getting the outlet, Charlie came and use the tracker to help ToRn get Ackbar unstuck. Pulled him about 20ft back and with the use of the jacks, they put a lot of wood under the tires. We were going to have to sit for a day or so until it dried out enough to move. We were able to have our bedroom slideout out, but not the front one. Wow, when you aren’t driving and are just living in it, that is tight as heck.

Here is ToRn’s take on that day : 4.69 Inches of Rain in 24hrs

Luckily we had no more rain on the 10th and the beginning of the 11th it was still dry, but it looked like it was going to rain again, so we needed to move. I’ll let you read ToRn’s post about that, but we got out of it : We are Once Again Living Life on Solid Ground

We were totally wiped out by the end of the week. Didn’t know if we were coming or going