Ever since we started this trip, people have been asking what our vehicle is called. For the record, neither Liz nor I are in the habit of naming cars. My first car, a grey 1990 Honda Civic, was “My Civic”. My second car, a silver 2003 Volkswagen Golf, was “The Golf”. Thus far, our current vehicle, a 2006 Gulf Stream Vista Cruiser on a Freightliner Sprinter chassis with a Mercedes Benz engine that’s white with beige RV accent paint, has been the “The Van” or “The Rig” or “The RV.”
The Van had 23,000 miles on it when we bought it in 2014, meaning it had been driven very little. It was in very good condition, with everything working properly and with few signs of use. It had a few quirks from the beginning, the most notable being this wood storage container mounted to the dinette table.
Grandpa’s Box, custom made by the original owner we think
We have made good use of it, as you can see, but from the beginning called it “Grandpa’s box.” There was also a little wastebasket screwed into the side of the passenger’s seat and empty holes from where who knows what used to be affixed, our guess mainly for organization. So began the theory that an elderly gentleman had bought the RV new, intended to use it for weekend fishing trips with or without Mama, and then died.
We ran the Carfax report and found a story rather consistent with our fabricated one. Someone bought the vehicle near LA with cash, owned it until 2013, and then it went to auction. At some point, it traveled from California to Arizona where we purchased it.
Meanwhile, in Mexican culture, an old man, both literally and a husband you’re forced to keep around, is called “Viejo.” Liz’s stepmom called her father, Jim, viejo all the time, as in “Come on, Viejo, get your own pills, you silly man” and “Ay, Viejo!”
While driving down the road, talking about Jim Moore, thinking about our rig, we realized (OK, I said it because I can’t help but come up with horrible names that are puns, like our dog L.B., thus named because he was both a “lazy butt” and from the pound. I’m so clever!) that we might call our RV “ouR Viejo.” So, for the time being, that’s what he is.
When we finally picked the van up on Friday afternoon, Victor at the auto shop told us that there was a bad connection on the cable that connected the battery to the chassis ground. There was corrosion all over the connection. He claimed, multiple times, that all of this had NOT been our fault. If any of you believe otherwise, we don’t want to hear it. It’s much easier to blame someone else! We were also thrilled to hear that our house battery was also in good shape, holding a charge well.
Goodbye Seattle!
We bid Seattle farewell and headed to trusty Issaquah, about 10 miles east of Seattle, for the night.
Day 2 of our unexpected delay brought some good news. While the alternator is fried, the shop can build a new cable and get us on the road (fingers and toes crossed) tomorrow. In the meantime, we’re staying at a lovely hotel enjoying a king-sized bed, a truly hot shower, and regular electricity.
Many blame Mercury in retrograde for our mishap. Liz and I blame ourselves. Today, we both finally understand why power management of our house battery is so important. And why we were crazy not to immediately find shore power once our system started failing. The liquid propane detector beeping because it has low power is not just annoying–it’s the canary in the coal mine. Get more power to that battery, quick!, or your battery will reach the point of no return.
I had already come to the conclusion that boondocking, living without additional power sources, was difficult. But I couldn’t articulate exactly why until now. Yes, it’s weird to wear a headlamp and use camping lanterns inside a vehicle equipped with LEDs. Sure, it’s a little funny to wash your face with water from a water bottle since the rig’s water pump won’t work. It really would be nice if the generator would start to power up the battery, but I guess we can do without it. What the fuck were we thinking!?!
Thank goodness we learned this lesson in Seattle, where we know the area, still have our second car (which is very Rubi friendly), have plenty of hotels, and know how to deal with the rainy weather. Let’s hope and pray we never get into this situation again!
The morning of the walk through was completely frantic. After sleeping on the air mattress, we work up early. We still had to load my car with all the Pittsburgh stuff, take out a ton of trash, throw all of the Goodwill remaining items into a vehicle, and clean the apartment some more. We had moved our clothes into the van, but hadn’t moved the refrigerator, kitchen, pantry, or Rubi items in. We woke up at 7am, with the walk through scheduled at noon.
I started on the task of loading up the Golf’s trunk, which went well but took a ton of time. It was packed to the gills, but at least all the items were safely hidden by the trunk cover, so we could leave the car at the marina for Nicole without worrying about it looking like a good break-in target. Right as I was finishing, the movers for our next door neighbor arrived, monopolizing the single elevator. So Liz and I took turns running all everything else down the 3.5 flights of stairs to the garage while the other person cleaned and cleaned. Since the trunk of the Golf was full, we basically just piled all our shit around the car.
At 10:30am, we asked if we could do the walk through at 1pm instead. I also moved the van to an open parking spot on the street in front of the house so we could eventually load it. By 12:30pm, I was sorting through everything in the garage, placing Goodwill items in the Golf, van items in the van, and wondering how we ever managed to accumulate so much stuff. I feared it would NOT all fit in our small space. I also moved the Golf out of the garage so we could turn in all our keys.
When the walk through was over, we were left with this:
Moved out!How did we get so much stuff?Before the afternoon of organizationCan’t leave the Golf looking like this
After a refreshing sandwich from Subway outside our former home and a nice final visit from our friend Clare, we migrated everything to the marina to repack and further purge. As darkness descended, we were wrapping up and Liz readied herself for a final Goodwill run. Which is when we realized the Golf’s battery was dead. That was battery #1. We were ready to jump the Golf with the van when some guys came over and helped us with their beat up diesel truck. We welcomed not having to move the rig and Liz was off to Goodwill.
I was left in the rig. I put away our dishes and realized the RV’s house battery (for the lights, heater, fridge, etc.) was low. We luckily have a meter that tells us the voltage that the battery in the back is putting out. It should be 12.6V or higher when healthy. Once it gets to 12.0V, it’s only about 60% charged. And if it goes below 11V, you could be in real trouble. Ours was at 8V. I turned on the engine, which should allow the coach battery (the one that starts the car and powers car-related things like the radio and the power windows) to charge the house battery. Normally, that immediately pops the voltage up to 14+V. The van took a moment to turn over and then started. But the house battery stayed at 8V. I started to get worried and figured the best thing to do was to turn off everything that was drawing power and just use our camping lanterns and headlamps.
I told Liz about my concern about the RV, but we were both too focused on making sure the VW recharged so we could leave it at the marina for my sister Nicole, who was planning to fly out the following week and drive it back to Pittsburgh for me. We took a long ride for dinner to recharge the Golf battery, hoping it would work despite it being nighttime and raining.
Since we were also worried about the RV, we took it for a night drive as well, filing up the air in the tires and getting gas so we’d be ready to begin our adventure on Wednesday morning. I checked the voltage the whole drive and for some odd reason it wasn’t budging about 8V.
We knew the battery in the back was a problem, but it was 11pm and we were exhausted. We really needed shore power, meaning a 30 amp plug like they have at RV parks and marinas to give our battery a good charge. We looked to see if we could run our RV cord through the fence back to our old boat slip, since we still had the marina key, but it wouldn’t fit. We decided to go to bed and deal with it in the morning.
Once we found our parking spot for the evening, we tried to start the generator, so it could power the battery. But the battery was so low, it wouldn’t start. It was clear we had killed battery #2. So, we boondocked down by Lake Union, a couple blocks from our old house, on Tuesday night, sleeping without heat and using camping lanterns. The irony is that Liz and I had both watched this video from the Hipster Gypsies, where he was completely freaked out when his battery got to 1V.
We were too green and tired to realized what a pickle we were about to be in.
We decided to delay our move out by a day. Despite selling all of our stuff, including the boat, we ran out of time to go through all our papers and other belongings. We also still needed to clean the apartment and load my car with items bound for Pittsburgh. Luckily, the property manager was actually somewhat sick on Monday anyway, and was happy to delay the walk through until Tuesday.
