TVC - Day 24 - 'Batteries included....some assembly required'

After my morning round of site checks Harry and I spent time resetting the timers that control the campground light posts, and replacing burned out bulbs.  The timers are now set to turn on the lights when it is actually dark, and to turn them off when it is daytime.  I had thought there were one, or two bulbs that needed replacing, but there turned out to be 8, and then we found two light posts that had no bulb receptacle in which to screw in a new light bulb....one more job added to the list....install new light bulb receptacles.

Another first for me Monday was responding to calls for propane service....I filled up the propane tank in one Class C motorhome, and two individual bottles with no explosions, or mishaps of any kind, and no small animals, or children were harmed.

We have 6 golf carts here at TVC, but at any given time 2-3 of them can be out of order.....one of our two office golf carts has been out of order since the middle of last summer as we had to cannibalize batteries from it to keep the other one in operation.  Of the six carts, the remaining four are used by maintenance and housekeeping, and one of them has been out of commission since the middle of this past winter (yes I think winter can finally be referred to in the past tense here in SLT).  On Monday we received some very good news....half of which I am at liberty to share.....we took delivery on 12 new 8 volt batteries (6 for each office golf cart....and, yes, they are 8 volt....not 6 volt, or 12 volt....I know, I didn't know there was such a thing).....the other half of the good news will have to wait for further confirmation.  I have been using the one operational office golf cart to do my site checks, and other office related business.....it has been running on battery 'fumes' since we got here on May 9th...some days it will make it to 2, or 3 pm before it stops moving......with healthy, fully charged batteries these carts should be good for 8-12 hours between charges, and we were barely making it for 5-6.

On Monday, just as I was on my way to the maintenance yard to plug in my cart I got a call from Harry advising the new batteries had arrived and would I come and help him install them....of course....I was able to coast into the maintenance yard to the spot where the new batteries were awaiting.....I was out of power....how timely.

When I arrived in the maintenance yard he already had the other office cart out of the shed and was preparing to install 6 of the new batteries, so I jumped into help.  Within 40 minutes we had all 12 batteries installed in the two office carts and we were back in business with a vengeance......by this time I needed to get out and do my final site check round of the day and then check the folks out of the computer who had departed the campground.

Around 3 pm, while I was in the middle of checking folks out of the DigiRez system, a European gentleman of French descent came into the office asking in broken English if we knew who the owner of the Chevy van conversion was that was parked in front of him because his rented 'Cruise America' Class C had rolled into the rear of it and was hooked to the receiver hitch on the back of it.....see below, making it impossible for him to back up.......

.....apparently he had stopped a few feet short of the van conversion when he pulled in, turned off the engine, but left it in neutral while he went to attend to one of his children in the back....all of a sudden he felt a jolt and turned around to see they had rolled into the van conversion jamming the ball and hitch into the bumper of the Class C.  Ultimately Harry and I pulled the cotter pin (see it on the ground near the top of the picture) and used a small hand sledge hammer and punch to 'punch out' the larger pin holding the hitch in the receiver....once that was done the Frenchman was able to just back up pulling the hitch out of the receiver allowing us to rotate it and free it from his bumper.

I had planned to only work until 2:30, but by the time I finished my computer work it was fast approaching 4 pm, so I called it a day and 'clocked out'.....enough excitement for the day, huh?  I wondered why I was so tired last night, but after putting down in writing all that I did Monday I'm tired all over again.....:-)

Thanks for stopping by!