Repairs and Des Moines

Well I'm glad that's done.....  I exclaimed that as I was washing the white corrosion powder off of my hands...  Powder that collects inside of your RV water heater...  I chased over to my motorhome dealer here in Des Moines, Iowa yesterday and purchased a new electric heating element....

And yes, by the way I am in Des Moines with the motorhome...  I pulled the jeep behind on the way up here on Sunday afternoon...  Its fair week and sites are at a real premium here in central Iowa...  But the park behind the National Weather Service office on Saylorville Lake is non reserve-able... So arriving on Sunday night was a good shot that I would duck in behind a weekender...

This is a Core of Engineers camp ground, Acorn Valley...    Almost primitive, as I only have 30 amp and no other hook ups....  So one A/C only and run the rest off of gas...  I'm running the fridge on electric as well, and haven't popped the breaker yet... I can stay here for 14 days, so I am good to go all thru the fair which ends on Sunday the 17th...  But that's not why I came...

The price here is $18 a night but with an old folks Geezer card its only $9...  So I'm not paying much for my limited hook up site either....  Sooo what about that water heater..

Yesterday I went and got the heating element that didn't work this spring....  I think I burned it out...  not having enough water in the heater...  But then I don't know about that as when I pulled the element out of the tank it was totally corroded off like an anode element...  Just gone!  Two stubs sticking out from the screw in part...  They must give up over time as well.

The RV dealership didn't have the special tool in stock to sell me, and the parts guy didn't seem to know what his mechanics did to get the element out....  I went to Sears and purchased a big socket 1 1/2 inches on 3/4 drive, but that wouldn't go into the recessed part of the tank where the element is mounted...

So this morning at 8 AM I was driving over to Ankeny, Iowa to yet another RV dealership....  They had a full camper store out along the front of their building and that lady walked right over to the peg board and handed me the right special tool...  Well so much for my dealer that sold me the rig..

Shorewood RV is out of Anoka, Mn and runs the Thermo King franchise taking care of fridge units on the front of semi trailers...  RVs are done by the wife as a side line..  A Multi million dollar RV  dealership that is a side line...   ?

Anyway after three trips to town for wire connectors and to take the Sears tools back..  Its all back together with the new heating element...  But I can't even try it!  Electric water heaters draw 1440 watts....  That's 12 Amps...  I'm still on one 30 amp plug in...  I switched it on momentarily with the A/C compressor off, and it seemed to draw power and nothing shorted out or blew a fuse...  So I hope I got it...  But I had to go back to gas to heat things up and take a shower...

Also I will need to go over to the fresh water station in the next couple of days as I had to drain the 10 gallons of water that was in the heater on the ground...  So my holding tanks won't fill up but the fresh water will be gone anyway..

I am here checking out the placement of Loyce's new headstone and the marker they put on the stone...  We have had a time getting the job done, and I have lost some faith.  So without looking at it for myself I can't trust....  Of course that was a sad job... And I had lost an uncle about three weeks after Loyce passed and he is buried in the next row over..  I couldn't bear to go to his service, as we would have been standing on Loyce's fresh grave while we laid him to rest....  Just was not strong enough for that one...

Anyway the one thing COE parks do have is the out in the woods factor...  Or the "it" factor if you read Howard and Linda's blog....  Its about 50 feet to the next site and the poison ivy is right in the mower line behind the camper...  The trees are so dense that you can't see the lake from the camp ground even though it is only 500 yards away...

I went down in the tent part of the campground and there you can see the lake thru the trees, but  they have a great big tall fence to keep you from getting to the waters edge...  This is a reservoir and the banks are steep from the river current and large fluctuations in water level...  Somebody would fall off into water over their head, so here's your fence!

Retired Rod