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Bounder Blues, Part 2

by, David Taylor

-------Bounder Blues Back to Part 1

Part 1 Part 2

At first we tied the dogs to the bumper, with the shade of the site's cabana falling over them. They would have none of it, whining and crying like children. Robin had no choice but to guide them around with her. Kellian and Nick learned to walk them.

First Time out with our new to us Bounder

A 'C' class camper pulled up in #6, then a new 24-foot Flair moved in to #11. The little guy with the Dutch accent had made me furtive and paranoid. With the arrival of these other Rvers, I felt some relief. Safety in numbers, I thought.

Then the people at campsite #9 pulled up in a VW pop-up van. Although gray and old, they reminded me of Lloyd Smith and his wife. Obviously practiced, they abandoned the picnic table underneath the site's cabana and set up a card table, covered it with a blue and white checked table cloth, candelabra and plates, all the time hugging and kissing each other like young lovers. My children screamed and yelled, our dogs barked and played. Number 9 glared at us.

This was not meant as a true planned-out camping trip with goals of things to see and do. It was a shakedown cruise, to test the equipment, familiarize ourselves with its idiosyncrasies, a good reason to stay at a campground instead of taking a risky backroad. With nothing really planned, the dogs got walked a lot, and I tinkered around the machine.

My Bounder falls into the category of a 'fixer-upper'. We got it cheap, figuring the multitude of repairs it will require will also allow us to shape it to our own desires. The frame is solid, the drive-train superlative, the suspension can be upgraded, the vast majority of appliances work just fine. I have a list, though, of repairs and things to be done that go on for a full page.

The check valve leaked, and I'll be honest, until I asked the taciturn old man in the back at Rick's RV in El Cajon, I didn't even realize it wasn't an actual valve that could be turned on and off. I had rigged a piece of old lawn hose into the 'city water' connection so that it dripped down through the hole for the holding tank hose. I brought a bucket and slipped it underneath the leaking hose. This was where I got water for the dogs. There had been a substantial gully washer of a leak underneath the bathroom sink. I had replaced the cracked 'T' joint with a whole new set-up, but this wept a drop or two on occasion, like the 'T' joint to the water heater. We turned off the water pump unless we needed it.

I couldn't get the house batteries fully charged. At best the gauge would hover about a third up through the green range. All three batteries looked practically new, so I had pulled all the terminals and cleaned them, then sprayed a corrosion inhibitor over them. No improvement. I had hoped, with the long drive out to Bow Willow, that that might do the trick. It hadn't. Now I fretted. With the big 6.5 Onan generator, I hadn't worried about it that much anyway, but the glaring old couple at campsite #9 had me uncomfortable. Did I dare fire it up?

The propane tank gauge said it was completely full, and had read that since we'd bought the thing, though I had tested the propane side of the refrigerator, the furnace, hot water heater and stove over the last four weeks, running all of them at length. Still the gauge showed full.

Ever since the Cedar Fire had nearly burned us out and covered San Diego County in an ash storm, Nick's infant breathing problems had cropped up again, another reason to get out of town for a weekend. We'd brought his nebulizer breathing machine along, which required AC, so around four I fired up the generator and sat Nick down at the dinette table. Nick gratefully took to sucking at the tube with the atomized medicine and saline mix, and I could see through the window the old couple at #9 glaring at us all that much more.

The day had been crystal clear, no wind. It cooled off now, dropping from the seventies into the high fifties. I started a fire so Robin could cook dinner, steaks that had marinated since leaving the house.

I should've run the generator for a couple of hours, but I didn't. (At this time I thought that was one of the main functions of the generator, to charge the house batteries.)

Steaks require an open wood fire, but Robin opted to warm the beans and tortillas on the stove and in the oven, and once again, we ate inside, the novelty of the RV overwhelming the draw of the outdoors. At least I hoped that was the case.

The twins hadn't napped, Alex had ridden his bike all over the local roads, Smith was exhausted from being walked around all day, and Thomas was willing to consider going to bed. I took the dogs out for one more walk.

Dusk had fallen. The sky was red, orange, pink. The smell of creosote and cheese bush filled the air, the desert moist from recent rains. My heart soared, and I made sure to throw a couple more pieces of wood on the fire. The kids would go to bed, and Robin and I, and probably the dogs, would sit by the fire, drink some beer and wine, and know peace and solitude. As I policed the campsite, I heard a sonorous deep voice coming from #9. The old couple had five kerosene lanterns hanging about the cabana. They had lawn chairs and a small foldout table with red wine and cheese set up, but no fire. The old man was reading from a book in a melodic deep voice. I paused and listened as he read T.S. Elliot. If we sat by our fire we could listen.

I opened the door and a blast of heated air hit me. The kids were in the back watching TV.

"Get in," the wife ordered. "Don't let the heat out."

Robin had turned the driver and passenger seats around and closed the 'privacy drapes'. She had a glass of wine in her hand. There was a Karl Strauss at the driver's seat. She stretched her legs out over the engine cowling. The furnace clicked off, satisfied for the moment. I didn't even realize Robin knew where the thermostat was. The radio was playing the Eagles.

"C'mon, sit down, I got a beer for you. Let's relax."

I pointed through the window.

"You can watch it from here." She looked at me, and answered my unspoken thought. "I got a glass of wine, a comfortable chair, a real good sound system, and central heat. I ain't goin' nowhere. Sit."

I did as I was told, and saw my worst fears come true . I cracked the drapes, saw the snapping fire, but could not hear it, smell it, feel the heat. Campsite #9 glowed, with all the lanterns. Beyond that, the sullen swell of rises and ridges stretched out to the Badlands, gone in the gloom. Stars hung low.

On the other hand, we were wonderfully comfortable that night. The twins played musical beds, crawling into bed with Alex on the folded-out dinette set/ bed, then sneaking into Robin's bunk, then mine until I gave up and went to sleep in the back which the twins had vacated. Shortly, they were back there with me, Nick's cough not nearly as bad as it had been. What chance for us to be here if it weren't for the RV?

I woke up warm and rested to Smith whining nervously at the door. I took the dogs out.

The sun hadn't risen yet, the false dawn filling the eastern sky with a dark crimson and lavender. When I went past Site #9, I noticed that all the kerosene lanterns had been taken down and were gone from sight. Though there seemed to be no one stirring in the camp, the card table with the blue and white checkered cloth appeared already set for breakfast, with crystal glasses not yet filled, silverware neatly lined up on cloth napkins next to the two plates.

The battery gauge showed down in the red. We had a big breakfast of eggs, ham and biscuits. We ate in the well-heated RV. Though the heater had run all night, the propane gauge still showed full. If the gauge was broken, how much propane did we have left? A glance out the window showed the couple at Camp #9 eating breakfast as well. It looked like crescents and orange juice. Soon they began packing up, very slowly.

I watched them with anticipation, since my plan was to fire up the generator and recharge the batteries once they left. Around eleven they finished loading up and crept out, giving our campsite one last ugly look. Even before they were out of sight I had the generator running. There was a large clunk from the power module. I checked, the charge light had come on. The house battery meter read the bottom of the green.

The family and I took a hike, walked around the rise to our south, picking our way through campsite #11. From this side the climb up the rise was much easier. We wound through honey mesquite and burro bush until we crested the rise. We checked out the digs to the southwest of the graves, one of them a substantial horizontal cut into the mountain, chasing a crumbly white quartz vein. Thompson managed to step on a cholla ball, but we got lucky, none of its needles penetrated the pad. Then we all inspected the graves again.

Finally we started back down to our camp.

I let the generator run for two hours. When I shut it down, I was disappointed to see the battery meter showing us barely at the halfway point of the yellow.

"It just makes an awful lot of noise. How much gas does it use?"

"About a gallon an hour."

I let it run for another hour. Still the needle hovered in the yellow. I decided to let it go, or maybe run the generator that night.

Someone decided we should walk out to Bow Willow Canyon, but as we started down the road, who should drive up but a family from Alex's Cub Scout Den.

"Hey Dave," Ron leaned out the window of his 24 foot South Wind, towing a Jeep. "What're you doin' here?"

'Waiting for you," I countered. Ron had only bought his unit a few weeks before we'd bought our, but he seemed to have it all figured out already. A real outdoorsman, he's backpacked through the Sierras and camped most everywhere. I suspect, though, with his wife and three adopted children, he was faced pretty much with the same situation we were, find a better way, or not be able to go camping any longer.

My son Alex recruited Alec and Seth, Ron's two sons, and the trio set about wreaking havoc on the GI Joe's my son had brought.

I ran the generator for another hour with little improvement in the charge.

My thought was, with the unexpected arrival of Ron and his family, we'd end up sharing a fire with them that night. It was decidedly warmer than the night before.

I walked over to #5. Ron was nursing his fire to life. I stepped up next to him.

"What time y'got?" I asked.

"6:30."

I nodded.

"My people are crashing."

"So early?"

I nodded again.

"I was kind'a hoping we'd all sit around the fire, but ."

"Well, the boys'n me were gonna go out for a midnight drive in the Jeep," Ron said, "See if we could spot any wildlife out after dark."

I sighed. Ron scratched at his beard as he studied his meager fire.

"Say, you wouldn't happen to have any extra wood, would ya'?"

"Tons," I answered.

I reentered the coach, the heater fan blowing.

"Feels colder tonight," the wife offered.

"No, no, it's much warmer than yesterday," I countered.

What she meant, of course, was the inside of the coach. I was thinking the weather in general. I woke up in the early morning hours and realized the central heat was not working. I got up and threw extra blankets on everyone. We've run out of propane, I concluded, yet didn't turn off the central heat. The fan ran all night, and by the next morning, the house batteries were so drained, there wasn't enough energy to power a light.

"Ran out of propane," I stated, "the gauge is busted."

"Then there's no fuel for the stove," Robin answered. She flicked her Bic, and the stove lit off, making an utter liar out of me.

"So what's wrong with the furnace?"

"Well, we're headed home, right?"

"Right after breakfast."

"Will the engine start?"

The engine started. The engine battery is isolated from the house system, right? I let it idle as I loaded all our gear. I don't get much help loading. Robin has her chores, the twins are t still too small to help, and Alex refuses on principal. When I finally put the children aboard, having said good-bye to Ron and his herd, raised the levelers and jerry-rigged the steps up with a bungee cord (Kwikee steps need juice from the house batteries to crank up).

We ended up joy riding over to Blair Valley, about ten miles west of Bow Willow, basically just seeing other places that we could take this monstrosity. It was while we were maneuvering around Big Blair Valley that I noticed that the voltmeter gauge was barely off the bottom, nowhere near twelve volts. The only thing I could think was the alternator had chosen this moment to fail me. Roughly a hundred miles away from home, and twenty-five, thirty miles away from a town, I judiciously got us back to S-2 and headed east to Ocotilla, the said nearest town.

The engine ran great, though, although now I also noticed a dull orange light glowing behind the word 'choke'. We got to Ocotilla; still the engine ran great. I got on the freeway, no problem. Indeed, we drove all the way home. When I pulled up in front of the house, I killed the engine, then tried to restart it. Not even a click. The auxiliary battery gauge still read dead, and now the engine battery was dead, too. I Plugged the coach into the house for twenty-four hours, tried the engine, it started right up. Meanwhile the auxiliary battery gauge sits just about as high up as it seems to get, just into the green. The engine voltmeter read just above the red as before, then after only a moment, ticked up to roughly eleven volts, and then after a time, twelve. I went down and had the auxiliary batteries tested, and according to the guys at AutoZone, they're good. Could my isolator be bad? Before I pulled the batteries, I let them sit without anything charging them for more than a day, then checked. The auxiliary battery gauge showed no change, it had not dropped.

All advice greatly appreciated.