Friday, March 27, 2015

Edmund A. Babler State Park


This was Spring Break @ SWIC.  Unfortunately the Academy is still in session, it's week 9 of 10.  So as it turns out Van & I are the only faculty on campus.  It is desolate.

We have been taking turns coming in or leaving early, so that takes some of the sting out of being here.  Van decided we should each take a full day at the end of the week.  He took Thursday & I took Friday.

That worked out because Friday after work Rita & I were going to go to the Ameristar Casino in St. Charles, Mo for an awards program for a business group that Rita belongs to, Business Network International (BNI).  We reserved a room.  We can spend the night & in the morning go get CC.

Then I found out that CC would be done Friday afternoon.  If you remember we had to reserve Babler for Friday & Saturday.  Now we can leave earlier. We decided to cancel the hotel room, get CC, set her up at Babler then go to the function.  Or not.....

We had a nice Friday, slept in.  Rita scheduled me an hour massage.  Then we did some shopping, grabbed lunch & headed to 3 R RV in Union, MO.

She was all ready & the bill wasn't too bad.  We didn't hook up Rita's car we just headed to the campsite.  Arrived with no problems and backed her into slot #23.  Plenty long, paved and close to level.  I set out all the lights & decorations and flags.



I was pretty happy here so, no shocker, Rita went to the dinner for BNI & I stayed at the campsite to "tend the fire".

I took a walk, had a couple of cocktails, listened to music and chilled.  I waited until Rita got home.  She wasn’t very happy that all the wood was gone, as well as the cocktails.  So we went to bed.

So here is where this trip’s lesson came into play.  The site we had was only 30 amp electric hookup.  Previously, we have always had the max power sites 50 amp.  When we took delivery of our RV, the technician explained that when we only had 30 amp, CC would know & work according.  As in using only two of the 3 heat pumps on the roof.

Well not exactly.  We hooked up, turned on the electric hot water heater & the heat pumps.  I heard it fire up so figured all was good. Not really.  CC must have tripped the circuit & we didn't notice because she automatically reverts to battery power so everything works, except the heat pumps.  Around 3am it got pretty chilly in bed.

I couldn’t quite figure out why.  So, in my jammie's, I went outside in the cold.  I turned on the Aqua Hot system, that's the whole house heating system the uses diesel fuel to work. That was one of the things tuned up at 3 R RV. Worked perfect.  Circuit held because I turned off the heat pumps.  CC warmed up comfortably.

In the morning I emailed Jimmie at 3 R RV.  I thought maybe they changed a setting on the system or something. Or maybe the power supply from the park is messed up. 

Meanwhile for breakfast we decide to head into town.  We prowled around Wildwood, MO a little & found a nice diner.  There are some pretty big houses there….

After we got back to the campgrounds we decide to take a walk on one of the trails.  As we passed by the check-in booth we talked to the attendant.  When I asked her about the power she suggested that maybe I was misinformed by the RV dealer on what happens when using a 30 amp hook up.

So after our walk I turned off the electric water heater and then fired up just one of the heat pumps.  And nothing blew. She warmed up nicely.  I’m going to have to do some follow-up on managing power, but nothing we can’t figure out.

We walked all over the campgrounds and discovered that they converted an entire loop to 50 amp, so next time none of this will matter.  But you know, “lessons learned.”

We then spent a leisurely day around CC. Nice dinner and one more walk.


Sunday we slept in, it stayed warm in CC all night, Yea!  Had a great breakfast and then went on a real long walk on the trails.  We slowly cleaned up, had lunch outside and left around 2pm.  It’s always sad when we leave…..

No comments:

Post a Comment