Phew.
Well, this weekend we planned on working on the idle issue with the Brave. It still wants to stall at stoplights, and bad traffic on the interstate, even for a minute, is so stressful.
We picked up the RV from its storage spot, parked it in a lot to work on it, and went inside to get our tools. When we came back to it moments later, the key would not turn the door lock. What? We had to take apart the whole lock/handle mechanism to solve this problem, it turns out a spring had slipped internally and it was a fast fix, but getting into the Brave and getting the door apart was another story.
With most of our project time tied up fixing the door, we really only had time to take the sink and cabinet out of the bathroom. Hopefully we can get the carb issue knocked out this week/weekend, as we've got another weekend trip planned soon.
Here's to nothing else breaking! HA!
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Monday, August 23, 2010
Long time, no update!
We got our master cylinder replaced at the mechanic a couple weekends back, and it totally fixed our braking problem. Last weekend we took the Brave for an hour long drive, just making sure it could hang with a long trip. It ran strong the whole time (well, aside from the stalling at stoplights issue)! This weekend we decided to make a quick overnight trip Saturday and Sunday. We initially were planning on going to Pocohontas State Park (they've got great MTB trails and a nice pool) but their offices were closed on Saturday so we couldn't make a reservation. We ended up going to Grey's Point in Topping, Virginia, a place I'd gone often as a child.
We left Richmond around 4 p.m. Saturday and headed east toward Deltaville. We planned on making a Wal-Mart stop along the way for groceries and a couple important supplies, but as we got closer and closer to the campground we realized the Walmarts were getting few and far between. We ended up getting to Greys Point in about an hour and a half and just going and checking in. We were escorted to our site by a gent in his golf cart. We hooked up, for the first time, and realized how totally simple it is. Phew.
A few minutes after we got the water hooked up, the too-strong pressure blew the old pipe off of the back of our toilet and started to flood the bathroom. HA! The floor of the bathroom was soaked and water was leaking from the inside of the RV to the outside...making quite a puddle under the Winnie. We cut the water off, drained the system, and Andrew ended up taking the toilet out/off and tearing out the soaked nasty carpet. We were planning on doing that anyway (not on our first night camping in it though), but we wanted the floor to actually have a chance to dry.
First problem aside and sort of resolved, we realized we really needed to go get groceries. We've been having issues with the headlights flickering in and out and wanted to be back at the campground before dark, and at that point we only had about an hour of daylight left. We unhooked and headed toward Kilmarnock.
We crossed this bridge to get to Kilmarnock.
It had a 10 foot wide restriction on the lanes, and our Brave is 9 feet wide. The guard rail was about two feet high, and we both thought maybe, probably, we would die crossing it. It was definitely a white knuckled drive across it, but Andrew is my hero and got us safely to the end both times. Phew.
After a frantic drive looking for Walmart and not finding it, we found a grocery store and stopped there. Stocked up on beer, hotdogs, easy mac, and snacks. We headed back to the campground post haste, it was pretty much dark and we had to cross the terrifying bridge, and we both knew that if our lights cut off on the bridge we would really seriously be in trouble. Luckily for us, the lights never faltered, Andrew held his lane and space perfectly (even when a huge box truck passed us!) and we made it back.
We got back to the campground and hooked the electric and cable back up. The fridge was nice and cold (we'd never turned it on before) so we cracked some beers and cooked some hotdogs. A cold beer never tasted so good than after the stress of a hastily planned last minute trip and gut wrenching anxiety of crossing that bridge with potential headlight failure. UGH. The cable at the campground was way better than the package we get at home, go figure. The dogs all settled in quickly, and we sat up in the bed in the back eating snacks and getting more and more stoked about our camper. The nightlife at Grey's Point was HOPPING. First off, everyone had golf carts, and they drove them all the time. At night, they all showed off their ground effects and bumping stereos. One of our neighbors had a faux living room set up outside, complete with a rug, coffee table, and huge flat screen tv. It was so rad. We finally fell asleep, knowing we had to get up early to figure out how to flush the tanks and check out by noon.
We woke up pretty darn early. I woke up first because some kid was up at 6, riding her bike around and ringing her bell like crazy. It's funny now, but then I was really tired and not laughing. The dogs all woke up and started acting crazy, so we walked and they peed on everything. We hit the main store for some breakfast treats, came back to the camper, secured the dogs, and rode our bikes all around the campground to explore. It was really cool, I've never seen more trailer cabanas. The breeze off the bay felt great, and it was fun exploring a place I'd gone to so much as a kid that had changed so drastically. Very cool.
We decided we needed to at least hit the waterpark before we left, so we rode back to the Winnie and swimsuited up, rode bikes over to the pool. Swimming felt great. We raced down the waterslides one last time before we headed back, we still had to pack up, clean up, and flush the tanks out.
The trip was so much fun. I'm really pumped to go back for a longer time. We have a couple issues to sort out before we go again, the engine still wants to stall quite often and its very sketchy (and we do need to fix the headlights), but otherwise everything went a lot smoother than I anticipated. We are already fast at work planning our next mini-vacation in the Brave!
This weekend coming up we are going to rennovate the bathroom and fix the plumbing issue. Woohoo!
We got our master cylinder replaced at the mechanic a couple weekends back, and it totally fixed our braking problem. Last weekend we took the Brave for an hour long drive, just making sure it could hang with a long trip. It ran strong the whole time (well, aside from the stalling at stoplights issue)! This weekend we decided to make a quick overnight trip Saturday and Sunday. We initially were planning on going to Pocohontas State Park (they've got great MTB trails and a nice pool) but their offices were closed on Saturday so we couldn't make a reservation. We ended up going to Grey's Point in Topping, Virginia, a place I'd gone often as a child.
We left Richmond around 4 p.m. Saturday and headed east toward Deltaville. We planned on making a Wal-Mart stop along the way for groceries and a couple important supplies, but as we got closer and closer to the campground we realized the Walmarts were getting few and far between. We ended up getting to Greys Point in about an hour and a half and just going and checking in. We were escorted to our site by a gent in his golf cart. We hooked up, for the first time, and realized how totally simple it is. Phew.
A few minutes after we got the water hooked up, the too-strong pressure blew the old pipe off of the back of our toilet and started to flood the bathroom. HA! The floor of the bathroom was soaked and water was leaking from the inside of the RV to the outside...making quite a puddle under the Winnie. We cut the water off, drained the system, and Andrew ended up taking the toilet out/off and tearing out the soaked nasty carpet. We were planning on doing that anyway (not on our first night camping in it though), but we wanted the floor to actually have a chance to dry.
First problem aside and sort of resolved, we realized we really needed to go get groceries. We've been having issues with the headlights flickering in and out and wanted to be back at the campground before dark, and at that point we only had about an hour of daylight left. We unhooked and headed toward Kilmarnock.
We crossed this bridge to get to Kilmarnock.
It had a 10 foot wide restriction on the lanes, and our Brave is 9 feet wide. The guard rail was about two feet high, and we both thought maybe, probably, we would die crossing it. It was definitely a white knuckled drive across it, but Andrew is my hero and got us safely to the end both times. Phew.
After a frantic drive looking for Walmart and not finding it, we found a grocery store and stopped there. Stocked up on beer, hotdogs, easy mac, and snacks. We headed back to the campground post haste, it was pretty much dark and we had to cross the terrifying bridge, and we both knew that if our lights cut off on the bridge we would really seriously be in trouble. Luckily for us, the lights never faltered, Andrew held his lane and space perfectly (even when a huge box truck passed us!) and we made it back.
We got back to the campground and hooked the electric and cable back up. The fridge was nice and cold (we'd never turned it on before) so we cracked some beers and cooked some hotdogs. A cold beer never tasted so good than after the stress of a hastily planned last minute trip and gut wrenching anxiety of crossing that bridge with potential headlight failure. UGH. The cable at the campground was way better than the package we get at home, go figure. The dogs all settled in quickly, and we sat up in the bed in the back eating snacks and getting more and more stoked about our camper. The nightlife at Grey's Point was HOPPING. First off, everyone had golf carts, and they drove them all the time. At night, they all showed off their ground effects and bumping stereos. One of our neighbors had a faux living room set up outside, complete with a rug, coffee table, and huge flat screen tv. It was so rad. We finally fell asleep, knowing we had to get up early to figure out how to flush the tanks and check out by noon.
We woke up pretty darn early. I woke up first because some kid was up at 6, riding her bike around and ringing her bell like crazy. It's funny now, but then I was really tired and not laughing. The dogs all woke up and started acting crazy, so we walked and they peed on everything. We hit the main store for some breakfast treats, came back to the camper, secured the dogs, and rode our bikes all around the campground to explore. It was really cool, I've never seen more trailer cabanas. The breeze off the bay felt great, and it was fun exploring a place I'd gone to so much as a kid that had changed so drastically. Very cool.
We decided we needed to at least hit the waterpark before we left, so we rode back to the Winnie and swimsuited up, rode bikes over to the pool. Swimming felt great. We raced down the waterslides one last time before we headed back, we still had to pack up, clean up, and flush the tanks out.
The trip was so much fun. I'm really pumped to go back for a longer time. We have a couple issues to sort out before we go again, the engine still wants to stall quite often and its very sketchy (and we do need to fix the headlights), but otherwise everything went a lot smoother than I anticipated. We are already fast at work planning our next mini-vacation in the Brave!
This weekend coming up we are going to rennovate the bathroom and fix the plumbing issue. Woohoo!
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