Electrical Systems

The rain we were waiting for finally arrived last night — sort of.  There was just enough rain to wake us up and turn a layer of dust to mud.  A strong wind was blowing, which the weather report promised would continue all day.  It would be a good day to hide out indoors.  We headed for the pancake and sausage line a little later than usual. 

The two seminars I wanted to attend both focused on electrical issues.  Since the first started at 10:45 AM, we had time to hit the local internet cafe to update the computers.  As it turned out, the wireless service at the cafe was slow and kept dropping the connection.  It was frustrating and all we did was download e-mail.  Updating this site would have to wait.

Returning to the rally, there were no seminars Jeanne wanted to attend and she spent most of the day keeping warm and quietly reading in the coach.

The two electrical seminars I attended were great and were really broken into three parts: batteries, electrical systems and air conditioner maintenance.

The section on batteries covered the different types of batteries, battery care and methods to extend battery life.  This is no small thing, since the coach has two chassis and four house batteries.  We also have a battery in the Jeep.  Seven batteries is quite an investment and the class was most useful.

The discussion of electrical systems was alarming.  The main focus of the class was protecting the coach electrical system when connecting to an external power supply.  Although problems at RV parks are rare, connecting to a bad system can be catastrophic.  There is a lot to watch for and I will now be testing the circuits before hooking up, especially 30 amp circuits.

The instructor quickly covered air conditioner operation and maintenance.  I will have to perform some maintenance when we return to California in a couple of weeks, no big deal.

Later in the afternoon, it was still too windy to run so we went for a drive around the area.  It is really pretty here this time of year and the cottonwood trees and in their full golden fall color.  The three local towns, Farmington, Bloomfield and Aztec are not the most prosperous places in the country, but the communities seem to be getting along.  This is not the place for us, but we’re getting close.

We got a sandwich for dinner and returned to the coach.  Expecting the night to be cold, we snuggled into bed early to read and watch TV before falling asleep.