Exploratory Surgery

Ellie's in the shop. The roof is coming off today and I wait for the phone call - damage control. A few months ago Ellie sprung a leak that I, nor the guys from the local shop, could find. So the next logical thing was to take the roof off, assess the damage to the internal structure and go from there. I was looking at potentially thousands of dollars to repair Ellie so I did what I always do when faced with a daunting situation that could cost me a LOT of money - nothing!

I winterized her, covered her up with tarps and parked her outside the house for the next two months. During that time I unintentionally drained the chassis battery. I didn't know that you're supposed to leave it on a "trickle" charge so it doesn't die on you during the winter. So now I've replaced the chassis battery and I'm afraid the coach batteries are next. I also didn't know that if you have the coach plugged in to shore power the battery indicator reads a false positive and so I thought my coach batteries were doing great - that is until I unplugged the motorhome and saw the indicator dip to the red zone. Uh, oh....since this was just before I took her in for "surgury" I didn't have time to adequately charge them so I'm afraid they, too, may have bit the dust.

 I did have some really good luck with the chassis battery though. They were purchased from Walmart and had a 3 year guarantee which wasn't up until June. I took the old battery into Walmart, expecting them to prorate me on a new battery but I has so pleasantly surprised to find that they swapped it out, even though the new battery had more power and was $5 more than the old battery. Hooray for Walmart! I'm now telling everyone to buy batteries there!

I'm getting very excited to hit the road in June. Alaska here I come!

My Alaska Notebook is filling up - great places to camp, fun things to do, delicious places to eat. I feel like I'm taking the virtual trip before the real trip and it's been great fun so far. There is still much to prepare for however. Taking Ellie out from under cover, getting her in for repair, is just the start but at least I started! It's hard to spend that kind of money on the unknown but I hope and pray in the long run it will be worth the price. I don't make decisions lightly but I usually feel confident in the end - or at least I've just bought myself some time to get used to it!