September 8, 2021 and September 16, 2021
Howdy from our favorite little corner of the world – we’re in southwest Colorado, at our very favorite campground ever. This is our 3rd visit here and we’re already booked again for next year for a month. We’ll be here for about 4 weeks this year. You may remember the last time we were here, in 2019, my brother Dan and his wife Christine visited, and I had so many pictures and stories to share back then. We really love it here. We’re deep in the San Juan mountains, and the campground is at about 8,100 feet, so we get that great mountain weather – cool nights and mornings, sunny afternoons and hiking all around. The campground has been here for decades and it’s done right as far as we’re concerned. All the conveniences you could want, yet nestled in the trees, along the Dolores river. The river goes right through the center of the campground. Mountain views everywhere. Stars at night, we are several miles from any town with lights. Telluride, the very nice ski resort town is about 45 minutes away, and Dolores, a very small town but with a fabulous local market that carries tons of organic and local produce is about 20 miles in the other direction. And somehow we got lucky and got this super nice, HUGE by RV camping standards site. We are spoiled now for sure!
Anyhow, we’re all settled in here, we arrived about 10 days ago (I can’t believe how fast time goes by). But I need to back up a little, and fill you in about our brake repair, and our time in Ridgeway, Colorado.
First – the brake – it’s all repaired! I mentioned how the part caught up with us finally. We carried it around with us for a little while. Then, while in Ridgeway, Colorado, we found a mobile repair technician who came out and installed it for us. It’s a relief to have that done.
We really enjoyed our stay at Ridgeway State Park. Big mountains all around and the state park campground had very nice walking paths along the river and a couple of lakes. Easy to get Gerry out for walks. We did a little hiking in the area, although Steve ended up with Strep throat and an ear infection and needed some relaxing time at home. So we set up our chairs and sat outside a lot enjoying the blue skies and clean mountain air. Sometimes we forget that we’re not really on vacation, even though it feels like it a lot of the time. This is our life and some days we just need to stay home and clean house or take a nap. And so we did. 😊
September 16:
OK….so that all is what I wrote back on September 8 when I first started this post (really – where does the time go?!) NOW I need to fill you in on what I consider to be a Big Deal that has been going on. You really do need to go get a cup of tea now….and get comfortable.
This is a story about my stove. Range. Oven. Yes. An appliance. But in my life, a very important appliance. Most of you know we changed how we eat along with our lifestyle a few years ago. We continue to evolve our diet as we learn more and as we observe how we feel based on what we are eating. You know we look for farmer’s markets everywhere we go and access to quality food is a criteria we use in determining where we go. Shopping for quality food has become a hobby we really enjoy doing together. Cooking is my favorite thing to do when not out on a trail. Eating the results is Steve’s favorite thing to do. It’s all good, and it makes us happy.
A big reason we purchased the new RV we have this year is because it has a larger kitchen, and a real, residential, range. The oven has 2 racks and is much larger than the oven in our last RV. Here’s a picture of it:
Well. I’ve had problems with it from the very beginning. I had a mobile RV service technician come out when we were in Minnesota, before the wedding. I was having problems getting the pilot light to light (it runs on propane). He showed me how to make it work, by taking the cover off the bottom of the oven, where the flames are, exposing the pilot light assembly, and using a lighter I could light it. The pilot light assembly, which includes the thermocouple (yes, I now know what a thermocouple is, unfortunately!) is not aligned exactly right (welded together out of alignment) and that makes getting the pilot light to light difficult. I read online in a variety of RV forums that others were experiencing this same problem with this brand of range in their RVs. Ok. Not a huge deal, I can live with that. And I did – using a lighter and wiggling the pilot light assembly I could eventually get it to light.
It was getting harder and harder to get it to light, I have been having to really wiggle and play with the pilot light assembly to eventually get it to light. But I figured I’d live with it until the end of our trip, and add it to the list of things to be repaired when we take it in for service at the dealership.
I had learned from calling around trying to find a service person for it, no one will work on an Insignia (that’s my brand) range. It is a Best Buy private label brand, no one has any parts for it, and no one wants anything to do with them. This on top of the experience we have had this year that all RV service places, and all RV mobile repair guys, are booked up to their eyeballs. Booked out for weeks.
I had been getting “whiffs” of propane smell here and there. Not all the time. And not really right by the range. More around our loveseat which is near the range. I would check inside the oven (when it was off!) to see if there was a propane smell in it, and there wasn’t. Anyhow, I had convinced myself that I was worrying too much, stressing over the difficult oven too much and let it go. We do get propane whiffs from time to time from the main big tanks outside, maybe that is what I was smelling….
So I spent all day the other day cooking. Had the stove top and oven going for hours – you know, one of those cook ahead, make lots of things kind of days. A perfect day in my book. The next morning, we left to go to a farmer’s market. I didn’t use the stove that morning since we wanted to leave early (turned out to be very fortunate decision). We had several windows open and the ceiling vent/fan open, since it’s sunny and warm after the morning chill wears off. We left Gerry in the RV and went to the market.
We returned back to the RV a few hours later, opened the door and Wow – big propane smell rolling out at us! We were really worried – Steve quickly turned off the big propane tanks at the main source. We took Gerry outside right away. WHY didn’t I think about turning off the main propane source before we left since I had been getting “whiffs”??? Did not occur to me, and poor Gerry had been sitting there with all that propane rolling around. Luckily, the open windows and the ceiling vent/fan must have kept the air circulating well enough he was okay.
Then began the huge process of trying to figure out how to deal with what was obviously a propane leak. I was sure it was the oven. Something must have broken or come loose and was letting propane run out. I spent hours on the phone. Calling our dealership, calling every RV dealership within a 100 mile radius (there were only 3), calling every mobile service guy we could find a number for. Talked to the workers at the campground for recommendations. No luck. Our dealership had a location in Denver we could go to – 400 miles away, in the opposite direction of our planned travel. Not one return phone call from the several messages we left for 2 mobile repair guys. Each of the 3 dealers that were kinda close (100 miles away in Durango) were booked up for weeks. One said that if we paid a $250 fee they would let us “jump to the front of the line”. We said no thanks – who does that? – did not have a good feeling about that one.
So now I’m in tears. We have 3 rounds of guests coming over the next several weeks. Cooking is my thing. What are we going to do? Tell them to not come? Try to get their money back on plane tickets? Eat out all the time? Yuck. And, with the propane turned off, we have no heat. And it’s getting into the 30s at night now. Water pipes will start to freeze before too long. So again – do we have our guests come, tell them we have to eat out all the time, and by the way, it’s going to be freezing in the RV, and we hope the pipes don’t burst so we can keep running water and flushing the toilets???
Steve kept trying to calm me down. We do after all, have a grill. And there’s that thing called a microwave installed in the kitchen. I don’t use the microwave. Why would we go to all that trouble to find good quality food and then kill it by radiating it??? Oh dear. Then I really went down the rabbit hole. Maybe we shouldn’t be trying to live in the RV the way we do. Maybe it’s time to figure something else out. What if I had turned on the stove that morning? What if the leak happened the day before when I had the range going all day? We would have been blown up! And had a big fire! And what about Gerry being there by himself when the leak happened – what if……and on and on it went. Fueled by frustration about owning a 2021, brand new RV with a stove that doesn’t work that I can’t get fixed.
Remember, I told you this was going to be a story and to get a cup of tea. You might want to get another cup. Just saying…
So I call up the mobile service guy who came out to us at Ridgeway State Park and asked him if he would come help us. He is 120 miles away from us (one way) now that we moved to Priest Gulch. At least figure out where the propane leak is and is it safe to even continue to stay in the RV. Please, I beg. He agrees to come out, if we will pay a mileage fee (yes!). It’s a few days before he can come, and I must say I was probably not a lot of fun to live with during that time. Poor Steve. I just seem to have so much of my identity tied up into cooking and it’s so central to our RV life I can’t imagine how we’re going to manage.
We survived without heat for those few nights, and we used the grill to cook and ate out some. And the service guy came, and yup, we had a big leak alright. There is a regulator on the back of the stove, where the propane line goes into the stove. That regulator was faulty. Gone bad. How does that happen I ask? Just goes bad. Hard to know why. Maybe faulty manufacturing. Maybe installed too tight. Who knows. Just happens. Really??? So you just maybe blow yourself up when cooking??? I still can’t wrap my mind around that. But, it was registering way over the explosion level on his handy propane “sniffer” tool.
So he disconnected the propane line from the stove, and capped the gas line. So we can use the propane for heat safely. He can’t replace or fix the faulty regulator on the stove. Remember, it’s an Insignia. No One Works On Insignia. Any other brand, he had parts in his truck for. But, at least now we’re safe. And we have heat. And now I have to figure out what to do about the stove.
Several phone calls, and emails to the dealership and the manufacturer of the RV. They will replace the stove no charge. They will ship it to us. Our mobile repair guy said he’d come back out and install it. Wow. Things are looking up – but wait – the stove is not in stock. Special order. No one knows how long it will take to be shipped, or how long it will take to get to us once it does ship. And we’ll be leaving Priest Gulch in about 10 days from now. And, unlike the brake caliper, we can’t just carry around a stove (where would we put it???) hoping to find someone who can install it, knowing RV service is almost impossible to find. And, if (when) it shows up here after we have left – what will the nice campground owners do with a big old stove sitting in their office? They can’t throw it in their car and run it to FedEx and forward it to us….and so we go, round and round in circles. Are you dizzy yet? I am!
There is good news here and a light at the end of the tunnel. In case you were wondering! I got out the manual for the microwave yesterday. It is a convection oven/microwave. I never really new what that was. Our old RV had it too. Never used it. Well – guess what – it’s an actual convection oven! An electric oven. With a heating element, you set the oven temperature just like an oven (like 350 degrees), wait for it to pre-heat, use your metal baking pans and tin foil – it’s an actual oven! No microwave when you use it this way! Who knew??? And, we found a really nice hot plate at Walmart. So I have one burner I can use all my pans on like the stove top. Works great. I made a batch off shortcakes yesterday in the convection oven (almond flour, honey, a few other ingredients, a favorite) – turned out better than the oven. Since the convection circulates air all around, there’s no browning on the bottom. Steve had found these beautiful local, organic strawberries a couple of days ago – picked the same day – he bought 5 packages. And we had strawberry shortcakes with whipped coconut cream last night! Delicious and soothed my nerves.
So we have cancelled the attempted ordering/delivery of a new stove, and are going to have them hold the new stove for us for when we return. I can manage with this set up. And still make good food and enjoy company, run the furnace, not worry about frozen pipes and generally get back to our plans. Whew. Was a roller coaster for several days.
I guess I’ve learned through all of this just how much I love our RV life. When we were facing the possibility of having to end our trip and return back to Ohio I was really disappointed and sad. Right when we were getting ready for our visitors to come. We absolutely love sharing our RV life with friends and family. And I also was reminded of how much I love cooking and sharing good food with everyone. There really is nothing better than sharing a meal over the table with love between us. I know it sounds sappy, but it’s true. Somehow life in the RV is more real and up close and personal than it is otherwise. At least it has been for us. And that is what makes sharing it all the more special. Like most things, you don’t always realize how good it is or how much you love it until you’re faced with not having it. It’s clear to me now. We could have really been hurt or worse, and lost everything in a fire. And a stove is just a stove, and we can have good food and share our table with friends and family without it. Life really is good.
So there’s the big long story. I’ve put together some pictures for you, and I promise more to come. My sister will be arriving the end of the month for a visit. Can’t wait!
Pictures! And a few videos:
Ridgeway Colorado: https://photos.app.goo.gl/fA4j7B5rsBzarHxB7
Priest Gulch area – lots here, and more to come – we’ll be here for another 2 weeks: https://photos.app.goo.gl/xTCoLs8AT3WWT2fHA