Bad News / Good News

Bad news -
For a few days I wondered why I had decided to strike off into the well-populated unknown on my own.  The electric converter failed so I have no lights, the outlet still works if I have a camping spot with a plug however the lights are gone.  I had supper guests that night and watching the lights fade was disturbing.  We finished eating by candlelight.

A call to the closest Aliner dealer, there is one in New Mexico, gained me nothing; they don’t do warranty work for anyone other than there own customers.  I found two dealers in Arizona however one never answered the phone and the other seemed to be out of business.  Next closest was south of San Diego.  The fellow from there was quite helpful.  They would take out my faulty converter, send it to the manufacturer for verification it was faulty and then install a return unit.  The whole thing would take 8-10 weeks.

I moved to a different camping location, one without electricity, and dug out my new duel-fuel Coleman camp stove and found something wasn’t working so I could not pressurize the fuel tank.  A cooking campfire took care of that night and my back-up backpacking stove helped me through a couple more days, however it is volatile to light and needs to be used outside, I didn’t always have an outside table and my knees are creaky. I'd like all that to be an oh well, however it often turns into a damn!

Then, when Scout and I went to the cliff dwellings, my brakes smoked so badly going down some of the hills, I thought I had ruined them.  We cautiously took a less hilly way to the closest State Park.

Good News –
I finally called my son and asked his opinion on a California repair.  He was able to put voice to some of the mixed thoughts I was having.  At the end, I bid him good-by and headed in a generally western direction.  A couple of days later I stopped in Douglas AZ for a information break.  As I returned to my car, I walked around Scout as I usually do, checking tires and things before driving.  There on the back of Scout was the name of my dealership and the phone number.  Since I was in cell-phone service I called my guy.  He said swapping out a bad converter would take a couple of hours and he could do it whenever we came in.  He even suggested a couple of make-shift fixes for lights until I did come in.  So, no more trip to California!

I returned to New Mexico and visited the cliff dwelling, landed in a state park, unhitched and headed to Deming to have my brakes fixed.  I was able to get and appointment the same day I brought in my car.  The brakes are fine, the smoking didn’t hurt them.  The car guys also changed my oil for 2/3 the cost of having it done at home.  And the manager knows my son and had some nice things to say about him.

Finally, I had the receipt for the stove with me, I bought it at a chain that has a store in Deming and since I was well inside 90 days, they traded my bad stove for a new one. Guess that makes it a hot damn!