The electric slide

The afternoon of June 11 was like most days in a new campground.  We had driven just over 4 hours, a long day for us.  We had parked in the camp site and done the usual set up.  This includes utility hook up, unload the bikes from the Jeep and lock them to the back of the RV, and various other activities.  Diana un-stows and sets up inside and I do the outside.  The process takes about 45 minutes.  We had dinner and sat back to relax.  It was the first time in about 2 weeks that we had a good internet connection and we had TV!  (See a previous post about TV).  So we are all settled in comfy cozy.

About 9 PM it is finally getting dark and we are happily watching TV.  THUMP!  The electric went out.  No big deal this has happened before.  I went out turned off the breaker then turned it back on.  We have power.  THUMP!  No power.  After about 3 attempts we pulled out the manual on the power guard and surge protector built into the RV.  As with most owners manuals, it was worthless.  So I unhooked the power and we decided to go to bed and deal with this in the morning.  Now we do have house batteries that power lights and other essential needs and we have camped without any hookups before so this is not a big deal.  Say "good night, dear."

The next day we decided to move from the 30 amp electrical site we were at to a 50 amp site.  The idea was to see if the problem was with our RV or with the power source from the park.  So we broke camp, packed up everything and stowed it so we could roll.  You can't just move the RV without stowing everything even for a short distance.  We backed into the new site, hooked up the 50 amp power and presto...clean power.  We called the check in station to tell them we moved and why.  They were not to happy about it but we needed to stop in and pay the difference between the 30 amp site and the 50 amp site.  When we did that we were told that they checked the 30 amp line at our previous site and it had some major power fluctuation.  From nowhere near enough power to way over what should have been.  Score one for the campers.

So we are very pleased that our equipment did what it was supposed to do.  That is protect our appliances and other electrical items by not allowing "dirty power" into the system.  We are also pleased that our equipment is fine and that the problem is the campgrounds.  Not a nice thought but we are glad it is not our problem.