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The Energizer Bunny Rabbit is happy. We visited a friend's boat yesterday, and collected drapes from several windows and the salon door. The boat owners also asked Chris to work on drapes for their home.

Unavailability of the chosen fabrics meant that Chris spent most of the day today visiting fabric stores, and getting the client to approve. She has an eye for this stuff, and was able to pick a fabric that was approved by the client.

We enjoyed a "day out" yesterday visiting a marina. Reminded us of our 12 years at Village West Marina in Stockton, especially when it started raining.

We have a 2003 Beaver Santiam that we live in full time, and I need advice on how to troubleshoot a possible problem with our rear propane furnace that won't come on. I'm trying to condense this story as much as possible.....

On 9-30-20, we had a small fire in the front heat pump area (air filter along with the filter grill caught fire caused by apparent wires shorting out). It burnt enough of the wiring that the Dometic heat pump couldn't be repaired according to a couple of different repair shops. We found a shop that we trust to do the repairs, but they couldn't find a heat pump in the country because of the virus. They did, however, find a couple of Coleman heat pumps. We were told the rear Dometic heat pump had to be replaced because it needed a control box that couldn't be found (because of the virus and part shortage). The rear Dometic is/was only 1 1/2 yrs old...

Fast forward 5 weeks and both Coleman heat pumps are installed. We were in a hurry to get the Beaver back, so when we went to pick it up, we saw the thermostats mounted on the bottom of both heat pumps.

I checked all settings on both heat pumps, and the rear furnace would not come on. The tech said he heard it click, and he suspected it was a mouse in the blower cage. I looked and there is no mouse. Also, to heat the RV up to 70 degrees, you have to set the thermostat to 82 degrees because the sensor is now on the ceiling - unlike the sensor under the cabinet for the Dometic.

How can I troubleshoot the problem with the rear furnace? It’s possible there is no connection from the rear thermostat to the furnace, because it was controlled by the Dometic thermostat in the front of the Beaver.

Easiest work around is to tell google maps to "avoid tolls" in the options tab. It may take a little longer to get where you are going but I prefer the no tolls options.

I've done this before, and oftentimes the alternative is worse than a few bucks in tolls... for an RV. I've often been redirected onto city streets that bypass the tolls (or bypass slow traffic on the road if there's construction or a crash), and have ended up driving through some pretty shady neighborhoods with pretty crappy roads. A bit unnerving when pulling our trailer and having no other option than to keep going. Almost every time I wished I just stayed on the expressway and paid the toll!

So just do your "look ahead" or pre-planning research with the mapping when RVing, since it's not as easy and U-turning or zipping off some other way if you don't like the alternate route.

Thanks for all the great advice! Think we will get the PikePass, as we've got quite a list to try to fit in 4 weeks. We will watch out for the roads also (but TN we think is the south east repository for orange barrels...we have 'em all over the place, so have a lot of experience with roads under construction and rehabilitation!)

Like the statement below my avatar, “ Every day is pay day and every pay day I have off”.