Update 5, June 22, 2009

Monday, June 22:
What a time I’ve had! Not so much went on in the campground, but my generator refused to start yesterday. It rained all night Saturday, and by morning it was really cold. That’s when I realized I had no power to run the furnace, much less the electric heater. I even drove down to Old Station during the day so I could warm up in the truck on the way. To add to the problems, I couldn’t get through to anyone on the radio. I managed to get a little power to the batteries by hooking up to the truck and letting it run for a while.

Today the Honda 3000 generator was sent over and it was wonderful to hear that sound of power again. In the meantime I had been troubleshooting according to the code my generator flashed when it wouldn’t work. David cleaned the battery terminals and tightened them up. He told me that they were so loose there was little, if any contact being made on either battery. The generator didn’t start after he was finished, but I thought it might be that they batteries were too low on power to start it up. Another possible problem could be the viscosity of the oil at the current temperatures and altitude.

I ran the Honda for a little over an hour until the reading was good, turned it off and then tried my Onan. IT STARTED IMMEDIATELY!

Even without power yesterday I had a very good thing happen to me. I walked the dogs over to the board where visitors are supposed to pay the entrance fee to the park, as I needed to take down a sign on the board. I pulled out the staples and a couple of them dropped to the ground. After removing the sign I bent down to try to find the staples, and would you believe I found the reading glasses I had lost a couple of weeks ago! Lying right there on the ground, neatly folded, where anyone could have stepped on them. I myself have been there at the board to replenish the supply of envelopes, park maps, etc., and should have seen them. All of the little mischievous, trick-playing fairies aren’t in Ireland -- some of them have followed me back. I am so glad to have found the glasses, and they didn’t even have a scratch.

It is wonderful to be with power again, so I can turn on lights and not have to climb into bed before dark just to stay warm. Even my flashlights had failed -- all had dead batteries -- so I couldn’t even read. This morning was nearly ten degrees colder than usual, and I could see my breath inside the rig. But I know I can deal with it and survive quite well, even though I would prefer to have things working. I also know I am going to get something smaller during the next year, that won’t have so many things to go wrong with it, although I’m sure the battery connections were jarred loose by the 6 miles of gravel road. In the time I’ve been here and traveled back over that road in my truck I can see the worsening of the washboard effect. Yesterday I took a turn off on a rarely traveled Forest Service road, but although it cut about 2 miles off the trip, it wasn’t much better of a road. Everything considered I still love this place and wouldn’t want to be anywhere else right now.