A good day with lots of show stoppers!

Today was to be a day of relaxation for us while we did a few little things.  It was true but it seems that everything was a challenge.  For starters, we were slow getting out and heading for the border town to buy our bi-annual supply of vanilla.  We passed the first filling station because the gas price was too high.  The next one was on the wrong side of the busy road.  Finally, as we were leaving Deming, we found a station and the gas was even higher.OUCH,  but we filled up.  Yep, a mile down the road was another station 20 cents cheaper.  We were about half way to Columbus when Sandy suddenly said, "We forgot our passports!"  That is a real show stopper if you are crossing the border, as we were.

So it was back to Deming where we had lunch before trying it again.  Yes, we dug out the passports and headed south.  For the rest of that activity, all went well and we were back in about 90 minutes (30 miles south, 10 minutes to walk to The Pink Store and get 7 liters of real vanilla and 30 miles back to Deming. (Some of the vanilla is for friends.)  Then there was a quick stop at Walmart before we went to the motorhome.

Back at the motorhome, we dug into a problem that was bothering us for the last couple of days.  I thought our friendly SHURFLO water pump was getting air and refusing to pump again.  Finally we figured out that the problem was the presure switch in the SHURFLO pump was not turning the pump on to pump water when the pressure dropped.  The problem would only manifest itself if the pump sat there for a little while under full pressure before being asked it to pump again.

Eventually we figured out that by turning the pump off and back on, the pump would restart on its own.  Needless to say, I was very exasperated.  We fought that problem last winter with one of our many pumps and the current pump was given to me (new pump) by the Shurflo technician at the Winnebago National Rally at Forest City in July.  It has worked flawlessly since then.  It was not used while at Casa Grande and now that we need it, we have our problem again.

I want to call the service technician who gave it to me, but I can't find his calling card.  So tomorrow we call Winnebago and find out his name.  There is a pressure adjustment on the pump, but I'm trying to be a good user and not twiddling with everything until the expert says to.  At least now we can make it pump on demand.

Tomorrow we are going to call and maybe stop at one of two major RV stores in Las Cruces in hopes of getting a "three-way ball valve" to replace the leaky one in the rig.   The real challenge is to find  one that is a direct replacement.  Perhaps I could order it from Winnebago, but where do we have it shipped ?   We're on the road again.   Another challenge of this life style.

The old Farmer's Advice:  It don't take a very big person to carry a grudge!

Gene