Hola, This Is The Broccoli Express

DO YOU LOVE BROCCOLI?

This afternoon we had an errand in El Centro. 

On our way back, it was between Hwy 111 and Holtville, I suddenly saw a lot of white stuff ahead. It looked like a lot of cardboard boxes and they were all over our lane. Getting into the left line was impossible, as another car and a bus blocked my way. So I hit the brake and the horn, but a collision was impossible.

A split second later I realized that we just had hit a load of broccoli.

Once being through that mess, we continued our way only to see more broccoli along in the ditch along the highway.

Now, it was time to do a controlled stop on the shoulder and start picking ---- broccoli.

Lots of people were already at it, and I quickly filled two boxes, roughly 40lbs. of beautiful fresh broccoli packed with ice. Crashing to the ground, all of the boxes had opened up spilling their content. It really was mess.

Loaded with broccoli, we continued our way home to camp, where one box was left on the "Free Table" at the host station, the other one to be distributed between us and our neighbours. Tomorrow all of us may appear with green faces.

One Hour And We Were Back In Business

Yuma is on Mountain time and our appointment at the RV Repair was scheduled at 9am, which, coming from California, really is at 8am, which meant we had to get up early. Two other errands were on the agenda and they had to be done before getting to CJ's RV-Repair in the foothills.

We had to stop for diesel and a dumping station.

Pilot Knob LTVA

We found both at MAVERIK Truckstop. Then we continued into the foothills.

CJ's is operating behind an RV storage and when rolling into their yard, a guy was already standing outside and waving us into a parking spot.

All I can say is that the man knew what he was doing. After checking out fuses, voltage, and relays, he found the culprit. When I had my coach batteries out to connect the Lithium battery, and afterwards re-installed the old batteries, I had connected a thin red wire to the wrong battery pol. Instead of 12V it only got 6, and, obviously, that is not enough to run the slides. My fault entirely.

Well, the bill I had to pay was not scary. Or what do you think about $130? 

If you get into any RV-trouble in the Yuma area we gladly recommend CJ's. Not only are they very efficient and you don't have to wait months like with RV-dealers, but they also are very friendly and accommodating. When I told him about our experiment with the Lithium battery, he agreed that the battery most likely is faulty.

Being in Yuma, we got our diesel filled up and tomorrow we gonna see some friends, we haven't seen for 2 years.

This afternoon sun got out and we did a nice walk-about at Pilot Knob LTVA. This year the desert is especially beautiful.

And Back To The Projects

Lazy Holidays are over and we move back to projects, brought up from our dear motorhome.

In my posting of Dec 22 I talked about our metal roof loosening from the sidewall. Thank god I was able to fix this after I got the necessary screws. I drilled about 40 holes and got 40 screws to hold the metal in place. My way of pressing the roof material to the sidewall was working out. Of course, those screws are visible but who's looking anyway? That roof will never get loose gain.

Having finished that project, we decided to empty out our waste water tanks. The procedure of getting the bus ready to move again always involves a couple of hours preparations.

One of the last things is moving in the slide-outs.

And that's where a new project started.

None of our 3 slides were moving. Pressing the buttons yielded - nothing. Not a sound, no beeps - just silence.

I was stumped. I had only experienced this when I had started the engine without first pulling in the slides. Our bus has a lock-out switch which makes slides inoperable when the key is in the ignition position or the engine running. Similarly the same is valid with the parking brake off. With the help of neighbours I checked all related fuses and relays which could have an impact on the slide operation. All seemed working fine. Yeah, I really was stumped!

We still needed to go to the dump station so somehow the slides had to come in. Looking into our baggage compartments I saw that the electric motors were visible and accessible. One of each side and the third one mounted under our bed inside a wooden box. They just had an electric connector with plus-minus wires.

Searching auto part stores in town for a fitting plugin proved useless, so I build my own with 2 nails, wiring and hot glue. Once that was done I used the battery of my electric screwdriver and inserted 2 copper wires.  Once I connected this make-shift contraption to the slide-out motor, the slide was moving. That meant that we finally could go to the dump station.

Reversing plus/minus moved the slides out again. It is a little awkward, but works fine in a pickle.

A call to two RV repair facilities didn't yield anything. The third company got us an appointment for Wednesday morning. 

So we are near Yuma tonight. Our appointment is for 9am and we still have to go for 40 minutes from where we are now.

Meanwhile, we have been enjoying a super beautiful sunset.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

 Was this the craziest New-Years Party in America?

I think so. Why? Because of campers from all walks of life and lots of different places decided to celebrate the end of year 2025 in a forlorn stretch of desert under adverse weather conditions. Two couples from Montana, 1 couple from Oregon, 1 couple from Saskatchewan, Canada, 1 lady from Arizona, 1 guy from Montana, 1 couple from Washington State, and ourselves from New Brunswick, Canada.

The weather: Rain and wind and low, low temperatures.

The theme: Dress up like the upper crust!

The Characters:

May I introduce: His highness, The Duke of Canterberry with his lovely wife Pamela Antoinette.

The Duke is a highly successful businessman in London, he routinely gets the best deals and while he is always charming the ladies, he can be quite brutal in his business dealings. Some say that Scotland Yard is onto him.

Mr. O'connor is a well known appearance of American decent, currently on business in London to strike a deal with the Duke of Canterberry. Rumours have it that Mr, O'Connor has connections to the US-Mafia. O'Connor has also been visiting his older aunt Betsy.

McRourke with his secretary.

In order to find the best story of the day there is Mr. Mc.Rourke, Chief Reporter at the London Daily at Fleet Street. He thinks that O'Connor and the Duke of Canterberry are up to some highly illegal deals involving the British crown jewels. His secretary Ms. Blackburn, is helping him to get to the facts.

Under one of McRourke's investigations he learns that another guy from the US, a certain Peter Mc.Cormack, an executive who represents a big US oil consortium from Texas is part of the ongoing deal.

McCormack seems nice enough but under his western-cowboy style his vest is not as clean as it appears. He wants to highjack the British Gasoline Market.

Naturally, McRourke has included John Colburn, detective at Scotland Yard in his research. Sergeant Colburn is ready to call in more of his staff, but waits for the final clue.

They all met at the New Years Party at Piccadilly Circus.

It is not known yet what happened right after the clock struck 12, but we will let you know as soon as possible.

Have a wonderful start into 2026!