One more week to go.

We are counting down the days until we leave Midland. One more week to go! The winds are currently blowing 30-35 MPH and and caliche and the smell of petroleum from the many nearby drilling rigs fill the air. Truly a horrible place to live.

We managed to get a new water hose put on the powered water hose reel. This would be a five minute job if Monaco would have given access to the reel. Instead it was entombed behind a thick plastic panel. We ended up hacksawing an access hole in the panel big enough to reach our hands in and disconnect the old hose and reconnect the new one. We also found out that the old water hose was 35 foot. Of course, it is impossible to buy a 35 foot fresh water hose, so we had to chop the ends off of a 50 footer and make our own. At least that project is done!

Next up on the list to do is to obtain our yearly state inspection sticker. Normally, for a regular passenger automobile, this is easy, but for a 43 foot passenger vehicle (The RV), this is very hard. I dread this process every year. We ended up getting the inspection at a Midas in downtown Midland after trying a couple of places that could not help us or were too backed up. We parked right in the middle of the parking lot on the managers' direction, and no customers or employees could leave or enter the parking lot until we were done.

Since we first bought our Motorhome last September, we have noticed that one brake light was dimmer than the other. The mechanic who performed our state inspection noted this as well, and also noted that when the lights on the motorhome were on, the right side bulb did not get brighter when the brake was applied. HMMM.

When we got home, I started thinking about the problem and figured it was either a bad ground that was sufficient for some current to pass, but not the high current needed to power the bright brake light, or the taillight itself was miswired.


Turns out the taillight was miswired from the factory. I spliced the wires where they should go and everything worked properly.

Only one more week, we can't wait!.

Waiting...

There are only 20 more days left until we leave! It seems the closer we get to leaving, the longer the days are. We have gotten almost everything completely ready to go (oil change, replacing every filter you could imagine, etc.). Now our water hose is having a blow-out every few days and being on an electric reel we are anticipating it will be difficult to replace. We are guessing that the manufacturers must have thought the water hose was going to last forever because it is located behind a panel we have no hope in getting off without messing up other connections (water, etc.). I'm thinking we will have to cut an opening in the panel you see below to gain access to the reel. It is also hard to find a day we are both off work to permanently fix it, so duct tape will have to hold that last bulge together until we can get to it. I'm sure the few 100+ degree days aren't helping the impossibly cheap water hose work properly.

It is now on the list of "things to do before we leave", along with washing all the caliche and dust off this poor motorhome. Although it did actually rain last night/this morning, it did not come close to knocking off all the dirt.

Living in Midland, TX has taught us that it is no less windy and is definitely more dusty than in Lubbock, and therefore things don't stay clean (living behind a cement plant doesn't help either). So, with the dusty, hot, windy days ahead, we are dreaming of clean air, mountains, and wildlife.