Dennis and Melissa

Last night we hosted a sleepover with the grandbabies. DW had one twin bed. 6 yr old had the other. 8 yr old had the dinette bed (so I got to learn how to set that up: EZPZ). And I got the floor with my old sleeping bag. Had a blast. 😂 We ran the AC a lot yesterday. All on battery. We had several "showings" during the day to interested friends and family. Then the sleepover started with "Finding Nemo at 7:30" and ran till 7 the next morning. (The AC was on for 12 hrs straight.) Battery levels went from about 85% yesterday morning to about 20% this morning. Very nice. Bright sunshine predicted all day today. We will see how they recover.

Finally made it back to Tampa 🙂 73 nights, 13 states, 4 national parks, 3 state parks, a couple of KOAs, 2 siblings' driveways, and one highway rest stop. 5,000 miles on the new truck. 3,400 on hull MDIV. Changed the composting toilet twice. Greased the zerks once. Learned soooo much, saw many beautiful places and met loads of nice folks. Thanks to everyone for all the hand-holding and advice. Ollie gets a very well deserved bath tomorrow. Then we check out the storage facility. He might get to rest there for a few days before we get the energy to head to a beach or some place else close by. 😜

I just got a second reply which corrected what I thought I had understood the first time 😜 Bottom line, Oliver agrees it’s a problem but they don’t want to take corrective action until they understand WHY it happened. I’m 100% happy with this 🥳

I heard back from Oliver today. They said that it was supposed to be that way and "engineering is looking for a solution". I think that's just wrong, so I am going to follow up with them. But I'm not going to air my dirty laundry here. So I'll only post on this issue again if I get a good result.

I opened a ticket that was "sent to production and quality for review". That was on 4/26. Is it normal to wait this long for an update?

Reading through the manual for the Ollies air conditioner I see it has a dehumidify mode. Knowing that will I ever use the little standalone dehumidifier I bought?

IMG_2737.heicIMG_2738.heic If you can see these pictures, any suggestions?

Is it normal for the "washers" on either end of the rod in the top stair to rust?

User error 🤣 I eventually realized I could look at the pressure gauge (I was told to buy here) while my wife looked at the flow from the faucet. The fluctuation was coming from the campground. And, apparently, I wasn't the only one to notice. The camp host told me they were having a plumber come by today. So the water might go out intermittently.

We have just decided that we will be returning home (for the first time since MDIV was born) immediately after the rally in AL. That means we will be making a dash from Lake Guntersville to Tampa in May. Dash = 3-4 days 😀 Any suggestions on itineraries or nice places to stop along the way?

I appears to me the water pressure at the sink and shower heads does not match anything like the pressure coming from the city water inlet. Moreover, it appears to fluctuate continually. Maybe I have air in the line? Any thoughts?

Very kind. Our kids laughed for hours watching that. 🤣 We are already registered for the rally. Site D5.

I fell asleep last night trying to analyze this using my "simple machines" physics from 50 years ago. 🙂 I think that goes like this.... Instead of an Ollie, we have a sled with 4 wheels that spin and roll frictionlessly across a plane. If that plane is inclined, the sled will always roll down hill. To keep it from rolling, put chocks (another inclined plane going the other way) on the downhill side of the wheels. If held motionless, there will be force on those chocks equal to the force pushing the sled down the hill (sine of the angle of incline IIRC??? , doesn't really matter). It's clear from this picture, the bigger the incline, the bigger the chock needed. (IOW, a little chock will just get run over before creating enough back pressure.) It's also clear that, if you put a big enough chock on the downhill side, and drag the cart "up" it, eventually the cart will "roll backwards" when released. So, how do you know when you are in the sweet spot? How do you know if you let go of the cart, it won't roll? How do you know if you have 0 tension on the hitch? Honestly, I don't have an answer for this. Unless there is some way to actually measure pressure at the ball. It leads me to conclude that I have been getting really lucky, and that I don't live on a frictionless plane. So far, friction has made my guesses "good enough". Henceforward, I'm vowing to chock all 4 tires, front and back, before unhitching. I'm even considering the advice to leave the chains on.

always

What stopped it from going even farther? I'm not trying to be snarky. Whatever stopped it might expose what was "missing" when you decoupled.

LOL. For sure. The handholding was very much appreciated. We are still very seriously considering changing our truck. (Either airbag suspension or Andersen. Not both.) But that won't be until at least next year. Now I'm off to wander around my next National Park: Shenandoah for 10 days. And that's the whole reason I bought this thing. So the plan is working!

Since we are a NH team, we tried this. And it seemed to work. Our next stop is 10 days on full hookups, during which I'll also try closing the drain for most of the day. We'll see which is better for us. Thanks, all. P.S. Another Andersen success today. That's three in a row. So, I'm gonna stop mentioning it unless I fail again. And that's a very welcome silence y'all will be hearing. 😀

We are on full hookups for a couple of days. Is there a way to keep the grey tank drain open without leaving the garage door open?

Found the orange handles AND decoded the dance steps 🤣 TYVM. Works perfectly.

Another good Andersen day. Took two tries. I'm calling that a win. In other news: 1) After yesterday's spectacular hike on the cliff trail, I drove 10 miles through Del Water Gap with my tailgate down. But NOTHING fell out. This is the first plus from our dramatic overpacking. Things are so crammed in there I don't even need the tailgate! 😏 2) We got a drawer stuck. I was able to slide a ladle in, push down on the offending dish, and get it to open. But this is the second time I wish I knew how to remove the drawers. Now that we have wifi, I'll go take a peek in Oliver U. 3) 4 days in Worthington State Park with no hookups, we used half our fresh water, half our grey tank (of course), maybe 1/3 a tank of propane, and left with 50% charge in our batteries (it was cloudy almost the whole time). That confirms my suspicion that fresh water is what will limit anything we do that approaches boondocking. (And I was using the campground shower. DW, refused cuz it was stinky.) And I now know that our major electric draws (beside the AC) are: jacks, microwave, hair drier, water pump. TV, radio, fridge and lights are almost nothing by comparison.

We got the Anderson to work first Try this time. 30 seconds. No sweat. :-)

I think we have good news. Having poured some scented grey tank cleaner in, 24 hours later we have a mild laundry-soap-scented odor in the same place. So, one way or the other, I'm pretty convinced we are getting a whiff of our grey tank. Thanks for everyone's attention and hand holding. Much appreciated. 😀

The first.

I'm hoping this is the case. And I just noticed you are from Lutz. We are in New Tampa. 🙂

yes. And when we came home tonight, i could smell it from in front of the trailer, too So, I'm back to thinking that's the most likely culprit. But the drains smell like nothing, so not sure how it could affect inside??? Be that as it may, we are doing the "clean the grey" tank stuff tomorrow.