Thursday May 11th 2017

My focus today was preparing for tomorrow’s travel day. It was more complicated than normal because I had a little repair work to complete before traveling.

Earlier in the week I spotted something hanging under the car. When I crawled under the car to investigate, it turned out to be the wiring for the lights when under tow. For the cars tail lights to work when it is being towed by the RV, a four wire cable was run from a socket at the front bumper to the lights at the rear of the car. Somehow that cable got snagged and cut sometime along the way. I’m pretty sure it was working when I left Las Vegas last week, but I really can’t be sure.

One end of the wire cable cut under the car. This is after I’ve cleaned it up and made it ready for a splice. Initially, the last three inches on this side were in pretty bad condition.

The best solution would be to run a new cable from the socket to the break and have only one splice. I took a less permanent direction by splicing it twice in the middle of the cable adding about a foot of new cable. When I can find some good shielded cable I’ll do it the right way. I tried several places over the last couple of days but could only find wire glued together as a ribbon.

The hardest part of this repair was access under the car. There is barely enough space to get under far enough to reach the wires. Ideally, the car should be on a lift or at least a good contoured slope of ground. I had the next best thing; a paved flat surface to work from. It’s the next best because it wasn’t wet or rough gravel. The only complication is the grounds crew decided to cut the grass beside the car. It turned out to be a good time for a lunch break. All told it took me an hour over about three to complete the task. With the right conditions it should have taken fifteen minutes.

Later in the day I made a pre-travel provisioning trip to the Super Walmart. Having a good stock of groceries allows me to travel without worrying about finding the next store. Parking was at a premium at the store. The local trend of springtime repaving projects has hit the Walmart. Half of the parking lot was closed so they could repave it. I may just be sensitive to paving because the RV park is getting repaved, but it seems like everywhere I go I see a paving crew.

Tomorrow I’m heading a little under 200 miles east on Interstate 80. I hope the wind is calmer tomorrow. This afternoon the wind has been blowing at twenty miles per hour or more. Gusts have been even higher. Staying here is not an option. This park will be full for the weekend. KOAs have a deal going, if you stay Friday night, Saturday is free this weekend. There is also a River festival going on in Reno.