Keeping It Real – Reflections on Loneliness/Isolation and RV Repairs – 7/3/2019

As part of my promise to keep this blog “real” – not just an itinerary of the “cool” places we visit on our RV journey — this entry is about a couple of topics that will definitely keep you from thinking that full-time RVing is only about “living the dream”…though I’m sure many of you think it’s the furthest thing from that anyway!

The first “real” topic that I wanted to talk about in this post is the topic of “loneliness and isolation” when you are full-time RVing.  We knew that our RV adventure would take us to all sorts of interesting places and we also knew that it would mean leaving family and friends behind, as well as leaving an area that we knew so well and provided us such comfort. While Karen and I would have each other, which would help us combat day-to-day loneliness, we knew that we were about to find out how much being away from our kids, other family members, friends, and familiar surroundings were going to impact us.  What we can say for a fact is that being able to have almost daily communication via phone calls, texts, and FaceTime goes a long way to help mitigate the most intense feelings of loneliness and missing people. It’s hard to imagine how isolated we’d feel if we didn’t have that capability.  I don’t like to go more than a few days without having some form of communication with our kids, even if it’s just a quick text on something superficial like how the Yankees did the previous day or to send a photo.  In terms of other family and friends, I’m used to not having daily contact while I was in MD, so not having contact for a couple of weeks or so while we’re RVing doesn’t feel a lot different than when I was back in MD.  However, having said that, I do find that I am much more likely to reach out, even if it’s just by text, to family and friends on a more frequent basis than when I was in MD.  Not only do I want to contact them for the joy of the communication, but I know there’s a fear-based aspect to it – I want to make sure that I’m not forgotten now that I’m at such a distance and the time lapse between seeing each other is getting much longer.  As Karen also pointed out, while I was working, I was constantly interacting with people on a daily basis, so the switch to both retirement and to leaving the area was a big change in my normal level of social interaction.  I’m sure that some of my reaching out to communicate with folks on a more frequent basis also stems from this significant drop-off in social interaction.  As an extrovert, this life-style offers some challenges to getting those needs met.  I suppose, that also explains, to some extent, why I’m so willing to engage other RVers or travelers when we’re at the RV parks and the various places we are visiting.  It’s a real bonus when the people we meet turn out to be folks with whom we feel a nice bond/chemistry.

The second “real” topic is about an ordeal we’re currently living through as I’m writing this blog entry.  Sunday, (June 30^th), we left our campground at Dead Horse Point State Park to move on to our next stop in Torrey UT, which would put us at the entrance to Capitol Reef National Park.  As we started up the RV, we got a low battery voltage warning.  We’ve gotten this warning before and we assume it just meant we’d better put some water in our batteries when we get to our next stop.  Well, that’s not what it was about.  Without getting into great detail, let me just explain that there are two batteries in the RV that are used to start the engine and keep all things related to the engine/chassis working properly.  These are very powerful batteries that rarely need attention of any kind.  We have four other batteries that we call “coach” batteries – they are the ones that provide power for the various normal living devices – refrigerator/freezer, lights, air conditioning, etc.  Well, the low battery voltage indicator we were seeing was for the batteries that are related to the engine.  We figured that as long as we have the engine running and drive the RV, that low voltage situation would resolve itself.  Not this time.  As Karen was driving, she kept getting the low voltage warning…and then she started getting a “Check Engine” warning.  We noticed that there was an exit off of the interstate not too far ahead, so we figured that we’d go ahead and make our way there and decide if we need to call for roadside assistance.  As Karen pulled off of the ramp and started driving on the state road, suddenly the gauges on the dashboard started acting funny and she got some message about the transmission and brakes.  When you’re driving a huge RV, you don’t want to see any messages suggesting you might have issues with your brakes. Luckily, she quickly found a place to pull off on the side of the road that wouldn’t block traffic.

Thankfully, the area we were in had cellular service.  That is not something that you can take for granted as you drive between remote little towns out west.  We are constantly driving through areas in which our cell phones say “No Service”. Karen got a hold of an RV repair service.  While they couldn’t send someone out to us right then, they did explain that there was an RV park less than a mile up the road and that we should see if we could limp to it with our RV.  After sitting for a while with our generator on, our engine batteries had enough power for us to start the RV and get to that RV park.  Even better, when we went into the office to ask if they had a site that we could stay at for the night, the answer was yes!  We got our RV into the site, plugged it in to the site’s power supply, and was able to spend a relatively calm, normal night at the park. The RV repair service told us that their guy would be able to come out the next morning to check on our batteries and our alternator.  He wouldn’t be able to fix them onsite, but he’d be able to identify the issue and let us know whether we could drive for another hour to our original destination, where there would be a full-service repair shop that could handle our issue and might even have the parts available rather than have to order them.  The guy did come out the next morning (July 1) and confirmed it was likely that our alternator isn’t functioning properly.  When he checked our engine batteries, they had an adequate charge from our being plugged in overnight, so he thought that we should be able to make it to our destination.

Well, he was almost right. We started driving and it wasn’t long before the low battery voltage and check engine warnings started to flash again. With about 16 miles to go to get to our destination, as we were driving through Capitol Reef National Park, the warnings were coming more quickly, so when I saw a big enough pull-off area on the side of the road, I drove the RV into it and shut down the engine.  Even though we were in a National Park, there wasn’t any cellular service.  We decided that Karen and the dogs should hop into our car (which was unhitched from the RV) and head to the visitor’s center, hopefully to get cellular service and to be able to call AAA for towing of our RV to our destination.  So, there I was, sitting in the RV on the side of the road without cellular service or Internet.  On the bright side, since it is an RV, I did have a bathroom, a refrigerator with food, and I could have put up our Dish Network satellite for some TV.  As I was sitting there, I tried to wrap my mind around what it will look like to have our RV towed.  Do they just lift the front wheels and tow with back wheels on the ground…or do they come with some really long tow truck that is capable of putting a 40-ft, 32,000-pound RV on its truck bed?  If they tow it up at an angle, do we have to worry about all the stuff in the refrigerator sliding to one side and/or falling off the shelves?  The rear wheels of the RV are so far forward from the back of the RV, that I can’t imagine it can be towed at much of an angle without the rear end of it hitting the ground.  These are all the questions/observations of someone who can’t remember ever having seen an RV towed!

A few hours later, the AAA tow truck made it to our location, but the tow truck wasn’t big enough to tow our size RV.  So, he basically offered to escort us to our destination 16 miles away and, if our batteries discharged too much during that drive, he could use his truck battery to get our batteries re-charged so that we could make it the rest of the way to our destination. With that plan in mind, we created a little caravan – the tow truck in front, then me driving the RV, and then Karen driving our Honda CRV (with the dogs) bringing up the rear. We slowly made our way to the RV park in Torrey UT.  Other than having the additional anxiety of having to drive through a heavy thunderstorm as we made our way there (which meant using headlights and wipers, both drawing voltage from the weakened batteries), the RV successfully made the drive without needing to stop to charge the batteries. Overall, it ended up taking us 7 hours from the time we left our initial RV park until we got to our destination RV park, which was only one hour away! Most of that time, of course, was spent waiting for Karen to drive to where there was cellular service and then the long wait for the AAA tow truck to show up.

The next morning, we called the RV repair place and they said that they are so busy, they can’t have us come in until two days from now (July 4th).  Normally, that wouldn’t be too big a deal, but we had lined-up reservations at three RV parks over the next two weeks as we quickly hop to Bryce Canyon and then Zion National Park. We now have to cancel and reschedule without knowing when our RV will be repaired and ready to go.  That’s even harder than it sounds because this is all happening around a holiday weekend and RV parks out west get full during the summer months as families with kids use this time to take vacations out here.  In addition, even if the cause of your cancellation is an RV repair issue, if you cancel too close to your reservation, the RV parks may still charge you the fee for your original stay.  Some will let you cancel free of charge, which is great.  Others may refund you most of your money but charge a late cancellation fee.  I don’t blame them for doing any of the charging options – we booked one of their sites and made it unavailable for someone else.  It’s just not fun to have to work hard to reschedule, pay late cancellation fees, and get ready to brace ourselves for whatever the cost of the RV repair will be.  Since this RV repair story is still ongoing, I’ll have to provide the conclusion to it in a later blog post!

Well, that’s it for the “real” stuff for now. In my next blog post, we’ll get back to some of the cool travel stuff, as we have seen some spectacular landscapes while visiting the state and national parks in Utah!