Things are off to a rough start as we prepare to leave Vegas on Monday to begin our “12-Days of Christmas” adventure. During the glow plug installation, I found there was a seal that needed replacing at the turbo air intake. I have the part but hadn’t installed it. Figured, before we set out on a 1,000-mile journey, it might be prudent to just check and make sure that the old one was still doing the job.
NOPE!! The air intake had come away from the turbo completely. Out come the tools, and the part and after 2 hours of struggling and Googling and phone calls to repair facilities in the area, I had no choice but to pay for a mobile mechanic to rescue us. $400 USD for 10 minutes of muscle and a little dielectric grease.
Now we just need propane, and a few groceries and we’ll be on our way. But we’ll never make it to the Hoover Dam and back to the Vally of Fire where I’d planned to spend the night. Then again, I forgot to make the campground reservation, so we probably won’t find a spot anyway… Lake Mead to the rescue. It’s close, I know it – it’s where I installed the battery – and it’s only 10 minutes from Hoover Dam. Day one, done!
We do the Hoover Dam like Clark Griswald did the Grand Canyon. Drifter is 25’, plus the bike rack, so parking is not super easy. We’re too long to pull into the easy photo spots along the road but my co-pilot does a great job of shooting out the window while I slow down exaggeratedly over speed bumps and around sharp curves.
Valley of Fire doesn’t disappoint, in fact it’s so much better than I remember it. I think when we went with Mom in 2012, we turned around before we got to the best parts. On the map, it showed the road looping around and connecting to the main road again, without having to backtrack. That is my plan, but the last part of the road is gravel. I may have gotten a raised eyebrow from the passenger seat, but I had already done a fair bit of off-roading, and I didn’t want to set the wrong precedent. This was an adventure after all.
From Valley of Fire, we head toward Zion National Park through the Virgin River Gorge which I totally forget ever having seen and find a convenient boondock just south of the Red Cliffs National Conservation Area.
Now, yesterday, when we got to Lake Mead, the slide, which adds just over 10 square feet of extra living space, failed to extend. I spent a few minutes trying to diagnose the issue but couldn’t get it working so we made due. I wasn’t even sure if I had extended it since I installed the new battery. Google had said something about the slide being connected to the ignition, though in hindsight I think they were saying that on some models, you can’t start the engine if the slide is not retracted. So, before shutting the engine off tonight, I try the slide again and it works. Halleluia! Since the guest bed looks a lot like a couch if the slide is not extended, this was met with cheers of joy.
Fast forward 15 hours. We fire up the engine to retract the slide – crickets. Nothing at all. No clicking, no groaning, no buzzing, just dead air. This is a head scratcher. Try it with the generator on, still nothing. Back to Google, dig out the toolbox and learn a new skill which I hope to never need again. How to retract an RV slide with nothing but a screwdriver. It’s a job that takes no less than half an hour and must be done hunched over with your head inside the battery compartment. But it’s Christmas, and Zion is waiting so lets get these tools packed away and hit the road.
