No Heat, No Fridge, No Brains, No Problem!

Change of subject here. Jackson Hole vacation is over. So back to the RV Chronicles, the ridiculous story of our new RV purchase.

The story of how two people who shouldn’t have bought an RV, bought an RV.

I left off on my posting of January 24th. The Cliff Notes version is, we bought an RV, and the first night in it, I had a claustrophobic freak-out! I spent part of the night sitting in the front seat, and part of the night sitting on the curb outside, wondering if we could return the RV the next day!

When Mark woke up at daybreak, I exclaimed, “Don’t put any soaps or shampoos in the dispensers. That way, when we return the RV, it’ll be more like brand-new and we won’t lose so much money on it.” His response, “Huh?” He needs his coffee in the morning in order to comprehend complex conversations.

I was totally sleep deprived and wasn’t functioning very well. I just kept muttering, “I’m so sorry. We’re such idiots.” To which Mark replied, “I need coffee.”

Now, you might think that I was the only one suffering that first night. But, it was a group project. See, not only could we not figure out how to get the fridge working the day before, but at night, when temperatures dipped into the low 40’s, we couldn’t figure out how to get the heat to work.  It was damn cold in there!

Ends up there’s a lot more to learn about a motorhome than just how to drive it. It’s a complex piece of machinery. And one we were ill-prepared to deal with!

It was as if we’d purchased the Space Shuttle, and took off in it with no instructions on how it worked. Pretty much, that’s how it felt! Between the two of us, we only had half a brain!!

After some back and forth texting to the Airstream dealer that morning, we found out that we were supposed to turn on the main propane switch on the outside of the rig, in order to fuel the heater. Now they tell us. Or maybe they told us that on our orientation, but there was just so much stuff to remember!

Now we had heat. But, in typical Santa Barbara fashion, after the chilly morning, it was already warming up, and we didn’t need heat anymore. Ha!!

On with our day! We took the pups for a morning walk, and then knocked on the front door of our friends’ house. Remember, we’re “boondocking” right out front of their house. They invited us in for morning coffee and to hear all about our first night in our RV.

“How was it?” they asked excitedly. To which we replied,

It was great!

And they replied,

Cool.

Stay tuned for what happened next…a story which may or may not involve chewing gum, sleeping pills, and a lobotomy.