We arrived at MacDill AFB in Tampa, Florida, on Friday,
December 6th. The night we
arrived at the campground, they were having a Christmas light judging
contest. What a great way to get into
the Christmas spirit!
We took out our little box of Christmas items that we
brought with us on our trip. We have
four strands of multicolored lights strung inside the camper, along with four
pretty red bows over the windows. We
didn’t forget our Christmas tree! We
brought a little 18” tall tree that Steve used on deployments. We decorated our little tree, then turned out
the lights and awed over the magic that enveloped our camper that night.
Later on we drove around the campground to see the contestants. There’s no doubt who won the decorating contest! One camper was completely decked out!
So even though we are surrounded by sea gulls, palm trees,
and 80+ degree temperatures, we are getting into the spirit!
*******
Shortly after arriving in Tampa, Steve took off again for
two weeks of working in San Antonio. It
didn’t take too long for me to realize that our camper was unusually hot inside
– 80 degrees inside when it was only 83 degrees outside. With the air conditioner on??? Something wasn’t right.
I called a mobile RV technician to come to the base. There was something wrong with ALL THREE of
my air conditioning units!
The one up front in our bedroom had a leak in the duct work
causing it to re-cool the already-cooled air.
This was making it freeze up.
Then when you turned off the unit, the ice would melt and drip on our
bed. The technician closed up the leak
in the duct work, and all was well again.
Easy fix.
The one in the back in the boys’ bedroom would start to pour
water into the room after only a few minutes of use. The technician climbed onto the roof to
discover that the weep holes were plugged, too small, and compressed too tightly
against the rooftop which was preventing the water to weep out onto the
roof. So he cleared out the gunk
stopping up the holes, enlarged the holes, and lifted the unit off the roof a
bit. And now this unit is usable again.
The unit that cools the main cabin was, unfortunately, not
such an easy fix. When the technician
climbed on the roof and tried to lift the cover off the unit, he discovered
that one bolt wouldn’t let go. He asked
if we had maintenance on the unit before, but I told him that we had not. Well,
apparently somewhere along the line, someone replaced the cover and bolted one
bolt crookedly, and that bolt was driven into the coils! So there was, obviously, a leak in the coils
which was causing the unit to freeze up.
Unfortunately, this was NOT an easy fix.
The entire unit had to be completely replaced. And THAT really hurt the pocketbook.
And NO WONDER we were so stinkin’ hot over the summer when we
were still in San Antonio!
Even though this unexpected expense put a dent into our
Christmas budget, we aren’t letting it steal our Christmas spirit. Joy to the world, and all that stuff!
