My, how the last month has flown by. We mistakenly thought that once we got back to Georgetown things would calm down considerably, but that was not to be!
We decided to dodge the Texas heat for a week and flew up to the nice cool NW to visit my Dad and Sheila in Washington state. The 4 of us had a grand adventure ferrying over to and enjoying 3 days in the Cape Flattery and Hurricane Ridge areas.. absolutely beautiful parts of the U.S.A. Also got to see my aunt Pat and Dad's cousin Ray and wife Carolyn. Can't say enough about the nice weather though! We always get lucky and have sunshine when we go up there.
Once back at Max, we braved 100+ degree days for the last week of August and successfully kicked off Gator football game watching parties with our Gator Club. Unfortunately, Max's electrical woes took a new turn and we lost half the brains of our energy management system for some unknown reason. Though we had plenty of power coming in, this EMS is responsible for making sure we don't overuse it, so part of its job is to monitor what devices are on and selectively turn lower priority things on/off if needed -- like water heater, engine heater, washer/dryer, etc. Generally is doesn't need to do much for us and we rarely notice it cycling things, but running our full compliment of air conditioners in the Texas heat can definitely kick it in.
Of course this issue happens over the Labor Day holiday weekend when we can't get to the service place in a timely fashion, so we have a few days to put our former-engineering heads together and diagnose what might be going on. We are able to limp on one A/C in a VERY warm coach and to our great surprise, the company that makes the EMS is actually answering phones on Labor Day! We come up with some ideas and get Max to service the next day where they confirm the problem and order a part that seems to fix us right up -- hooray! (and hooray for extended warranties)
Deep breath of relief ensues as Jeffrey has decided he wants to celebrate his upcoming 50th birthday with a Carnival cruise out of Galveston over the Gator football "bye" week and Max is fixed just in time. So Key West and the Bahamas, here we come! It is always nice to just drive to a cruise ship and not have to deal with airline flights in and out. The cruise is terrific and we valiantly try not to over eat and try to get some exercise every day. We return to only mid-90 degree heat in Texas, so the fall is starting to cool things down a little at least.
We are thrilled to find Max seemingly happy and with no obvious electrical issues when we get back -- and that lasts for only 2 days. We wake up on Jeffrey's birthday expecting to give him a day of rest and relaxation and no errands :-) and whammo... we have the same EMS problem again on the new part. Sigh. More research and several phone calls later and Jeffrey is getting more and more educated about how things work. He is able to rig a way to temporarily bypass the EMS -- which means we just need to manage the power levels ourselves. We also have a new clue as we heard the water heater breaker flip right before the problem. In hindsight, this was happening "before" too. So as I write this, we are sitting in service having the heater element replaced and hope we have finally tracked down our little electrical gremlin.
Is this making us question full-time life in a motorhome? Nope! But it is definitely mentally challenging us more than we ever expected and keeping life exciting!
