Leaving Paladora the next morning I have my oatmeal with raisins, and an apple to cut up. My fancy contraption that plugs into my lighter heats up water while I’m driving. I also have my travel mug with a tea bag ready. I swept the van, packed things up in a way that they are easy to unload at the next park and was off.
I had to get some help from a neighbor camper. I was trying to take out a cater pin from my bike rack that was hooked up to my trailer hitch. It is a great bike rack that allows me to pull the bike and rack away from the back doors. This is very convenient because that is where my grub box and cooler stay. Somehow I took the pin out of the rack to lower the bike and never put it back. Or I lost it on the road in Palo Duro Canyon. I’m pissed, as now I have to load the bike in the van, but that is alright, things could be worse. But I can’t drive 500 miles with this bike rack hanging off of my vehicle, so, I have to try and take it off. I can’t get this pin out, agh wish the other one would have been that stubborn, it might not be lost now. Going across the way to the large RV homes where I have seen a big screen tv playing cable through the satellite antenna mounted on the top. God only knows how they got that monstrosity down the canyon road. I felt I had my life in my hands with a van. I have watched the two RV’s one next to the other, looks like kids and their parents. The younger ones in their smaller RV tend a crying infant for the evening. This is their family affair. A man makes pancakes as I walk up. “Is there someone who could help me remove a pin from my trailer hitch?” A young blond woman, I predict is the mother of the infant, tells me she has a burly fireman that can give me a hand.
He comes over and finesses the cotter pin out of the trailer hitch. Part of me thinks. I want to do this alone, but doing things alone does not mean not asking for help when you need it. I thank him and finish packing up.
Finished packing I get in my van and tick, tick, tick. I can’t believe it; the van is dead. How embarrassing. I go to the camp host, and he is not in, another young couple drives by, and I ask them for a jump. He is younger than my daughter and gladly helps, but nothing works.
I wonder if it is the critters that I thought I heard under the hood of my van last night. Whatever it was they seemed like they were having a grand time chasing each other around. It sure sounded like it was under the hood.
Later the fireman comes back over as he sees me waiting for AAA. Yes, AAA will come to a campsite. “Want me to give you a jump?” He asks. I bought jumper cables before I left, just in case and I’m so glad I did. I told him about the young man that just tried, and he said, well let’s try. Here is what I learned. If a battery is dead, it may take up to 10 minutes. When he put the jumper cables on the van and then on his small jeep, I was thinking, this little thing is going to jump my big van, he wiggled them a bit. I asked, “What are you doing?” “You want to get a good connection, ” he said. Then he turns his car on, and we sit there for a while. I learn he is no longer a fireman but instead has gone into his own business selling wood chips for horses. I never knew there was such a business, but he seems happy about that. I am sure it is less stressful than being a fireman. After the 10 minutes he tells me to start my van, and sure enough, it starts.
I learned I should not turn the car off for about 15 minutes so that the battery could charge. My daughter says to find an Oriley or Auto Zone. They will put a test on the battery to check the life of the battery. She also says that I might need a new one. Apparently, their is an expiration date stamped on batteries, Who knew? I find an Oriely in the neighboring town, and they tell me my battery has 1/4 more life. I should be ok for a while.
I have decided that while on this trip I will turn my van on for 10 minutes each night to get it charged and maybe cool or heat the van, just in case. I can’t imagine that my going in and out of the van wore the battery down. The lights I’m using in the van are from the electrical outlet, so that is not it. I only assume that having my doors open to my camp kitchen has caused this.
Now that my battery has a stamp of approval it is on the road to the next stop. I could get used to this kind of life. Even with the CVS episode and the dead batter, I do love this. My van has been revived and my soul is also getting that jump.
Breathing in life,
Pusche