The reality of this trip still hasn’t sunk in yet. With today’s news from the mortgage folks, we are one step closer to being free but not quite yet clear.

I felt a bit strange today telling one of my campground neighbors, “have a good weekend” knowing very well that he was indeed out for a weekend adventure with the kids while I was off on a new adventure that may last a year. Or years.

While camper dad will return to work on Monday, I will be dealing with the repair of our new trailer’s refrigerator at the nearest RV service center to Lake Francis in Dobbins, CA. Unfortunately that’s in Marysville or Yuba City.

But as Whitman said, “These are the things that must happen to you.”

We keep telling ourselves that we’re just paying our dues in advance of the incredibly wonderful next few years of our lives. But one thing to be honestly happy for is that I actually do have the time to deal with this issue. Just another in a long list of challenges that keep us saying “Hurry up and wait, we’re almost there.”

First it was the sale of our graphics business and house that was going all too well until serious escrow delays. Thank goodness that is finally over! Then it was nailing down the solar installation, and what we thought was a bad water heater. Then we replaced the bad power supply on our Hughes F2 Dish controller.

With only the escrow still looming we headed into the woods only too find out there were too many trees to lock onto our satellite (91 West) with our new top of the line mobile internet solution. Then the whole fridge fiasco.

We are hoping that it is just faulty campground wiring causing the mayhem with our Norcold. But I still have concerns.

We somehow blew a fuse to the fridge, which I was able to track down with the help of my new Digital Multimeter even though Northwood Manufacturing insisted the wiring schematic was differnet. But later we tripped the campground breaker switch, and had no AC power. Its LED display is now going blank , it clicks in AC mode, and it won’t ignite when switching to LP gas.

I won’t be surprised surprised — though I will be happy — if it’s just bad power, considering the state of the rusted outlet boxes in our site and how our neighbor mentioned he had bad power on his last stay. Just something to look for when doing the resort thing. If we had a sunny spot, I’d suggest we run AC power off the inverter. But without the sun to help recharge our batteries, we’d be running the generator more and it is sure cozy here. And we are Good Sams after all.

PS: Whether you use the spotty WiFi offered at most campgrounds or your own satellite internet service, I highly recommend you turn on all firewalls and tighten security, unlike some…