thoughts on the road – Tom

Oooh the adventures we’ve had, and we’re hardly started! I am writing from the passenger seat rolling down I-81 south of Staunton, VA , 8 am on Wednesday morning, day 2. First though, the setup: I bought the Cacafuego in May, when she was just an unnamed, generic vehicle, and it took two weeks to get an appointment to have it inspected, then the RV dealership kept it for two more weeks before getting around to actually performing the work. We missed the opportunity to take her out for a trial run over Memorial Day weekend, so this grand tour is also our virgin voyage. Nobody I know or have met thinks this is a good idea, but so it goes, as Kurt Vonnegut said.

Slowly, over the last few weeks, Ann and I have been gearing her up, with dishware, jacks and tire irons, pressure gauges, etc., and the RV center checked all the accessories to confirm that they worked. At one point I checked them as well when I ran the 110 AV line up to the house to plug it in and make sure the AC was ok.

Last Friday was July 4th, and Ann’s cousin Margot was out from the west coast for a visit, and with her help, we dived into the final process of gearing up. Margot is an expert at this sort of thing, as she has a houseboat on the Sacramento River that she uses as a weekend getaway and a summer home when she is not busy with work in San Francisco. She knows all about septic tanks, grey water, water pumps and such, so it was a perfect opportunity to get that stuff in order. We filled the water tank, and the first thing we discovered was that the pump didn’t work. As a matter of fact, none of the accessories in the rear cabin worked at all. It quickly became clear that the auxiliary battery was inoperable, so I hooked up my car battery to it with jumper cables and we ran the water and
flushed the toilet and learned about all those tricky little things. I took out the aux. battery and set it on the back porch attached to Ann’s moped battery charger and left it overnight to recharge. In the morning it held 7 volts, and the charger was a dead lump of plastic and metal.

I discovered that the previous owners had had problems as well. Under the carriage of the vehicle, the cable connecting the auxiliary battery to the alternator had been deliberately disconnected and the mounting clip had been wrapped in copious amounts of electrical tape.

I thought “Aha!!” and made a big spark when I went to hook it back up, so I disconnected the main battery and tried again, then reconnected both batteries to the system. Insert long drumroll here….

Nothing. So after some tinkering with a voltmeter, I gave up. Sunday we spent on family visit stuff, and took Margot to the airport with the wiring issue unresolved. Monday morning (T minus One) I called around and found a repair shop that promised nothing, but suggested I bring it by that afternoon so he could look at it and give me some advice. Around 2 pm I drove out to Randallstown in the beloved old crate, and, after a few pokes with his voltmeter under the carriage, suggested that the solenoid switch behind the battery was the culprit, but not only did he not have time to do anything about it, he would have to special order the part!

The his voice dropped – sotto voce, sub rosa, behind his hand, “Unofficially? Hook that wire to that other wire and skip the solenoid altogether. That’s what I’d do. Go inside the parts store and look around. I’ll find you in a minute”.

While I was looking at the septic tank toilet paper a little thing skittered acros the floor under my feet and bounced off of the end wall. About six inches of insulated wire with a connector clip crimped to each end. I looked up and the guy waved.

“You know what to do?”

“Sure.”

“Good luck. I’ll be praying for you.”

I came home, disconnected the main battery first, performed my little bypass operation and everything fired up just fine. Apparently the only new risk is that I can’t isolate the main battery from the auxiliary one and preserve it from being drained when we are running the accessories at a campground. My unnamed benefactor suggests that that risk is low since we are not running TV’s and VCR’s while
we camp. So…

With the last obstacle out of the way, Tuesday came and we packed the food and luggage inside, hung the bikes and the moped off the back, and hit the road at 12:05 pm.

By 12:45, not yet to Frederick, MD, the water temp gauge is redlining.

“This can’t be good”, says I to myself, so we stop at a pulloff. But there is no steam, and when we open the hood, the fluid levels are fine, the overflow chamber well filled and placid (dirty, but full), and no other signs of agitation. When I get back into the cabin and restart the engine, I notice the second water temperature gauge reading a mild 180 degrees, rather than the 250 degrees registering on the factory gauge. I am vaguely reminded of the auto mechanic previous owner telling me that he had installed some new, better gauges, so I guess the wire from the old one rests lightly on the engine block or something.

All is well, tra la la, so off we go again.

Justy short of Harper’s Ferry WV, is the turn off for Boonsboro, MD, and Ann called out “Detour!” We had just passed the sign for the original Washington Monument, which is built out of fieldstone and sits on a ridge along the Appalachian Trail about 15 miles off of our course. Ann and I both have childhood memories of visits to the tower, which was built in 1827 of local fieldstone from the top of a pile
of scree by nearby farmers with nothing else to do with their time. Off we went, through farm land and silos, and finally to the base of the ridge and up the hill. I wasn’t really thinking about it, but this was the first REAL challenge the Cacafuego was to face, and by the time we got to the top, a strange sound was coming from the engine room. I opened the hatch, and THIS time, the coolant was
anything but placid, roiling in the overflow chamber at full tilt and spewing out the overflow valve like a trooper. We went for a walk.

After enjoying the historical structure and the views, and looking at the muskets in the civil war museum, the engine had cooled enough for me to add a half gallon of fresh fluid. Cleverly I had stowed two bottles of ten year old Prestone antifreeze from the supply of seven gallons I got from Ron Milio when he moved to England with his wife, Kristen, and has neglected to ever come back and
collect. (I still have your Jaegermeister in the freezer, too, Ron, I just never seem to get around to enjoying it.) I tried to stow a third gallon, but Ann thought I was being silly. Guess I showed her. We all resolved to wathc the water temperature more closely, and off we went again.

We were planning to drive all the way down Skyline Drive, but after that scare, we decided that discretion bade us stay in the valley, so we kept to the lowlands until it was time to head up the mountain to find our campground. I watched the water temperature like a hawk this time, as it crept up from a comfy 180 degrees, to 190, 195, and when we stopped at the ranger station to check in, we lost the cooling breeze, and it capped 200, so I pulled over to let it cool a bit. It seems that when you are near the edge, and you lose the breeze across the radiator imparted by forward motion, the heat in the engine block continues to transfer to the coolant, so when we stopped, it started to boil over again. Just a little this time, so I added just a little more coolant.

Elinor was feeling ill by this time, and that is all I care to mention. No doubt she will describe the story in great detail, so I, who have no wish to tread in her territory, nor any desire to relive that part of the tale, will leave it at this: A rest was well called for, so both of the delicate ladies were given ten minutes to soothe themselves.

Once on the ridge, Skyline Drive is relatively level, although far from straight. The Cacafuego behaved nicely, but Elinor suffered. We were 15 miles from camp, on top of Loft Mountain, so we pressed on, and arrived with just enough daylight to set up our tent and share a can of Hormel Chili.