When the Splendide is not so splendid......

 7:35 am - Saturday - October 15th - Fontana, CA - 62° F, 92% humidity, wind 5 mph out of the southwest.....heavy marine layer this morning with a chance of rain later today, and a forecast high of 71° F.  On this date in 2021 we stopped in a Rest Area off I-90 eastbound in Washington State to find a billboard advertising Elks Lodges, and saw they had used a picture of our Newell and American Trailer while we were staying at the Elks Lodge in Lompoc, CA back in April of 2017......very cool!.....↴

We refused to get out of bed until the sun had come up, but by 7:30 am it was obvious there was a heavy marine layer blocking out any hint of the sun, but at least it was light outside.  According to everyone with whom we have talked since we arrived it has been quite humid the past 10 days here in SoCal.  We've been used to humidity in the 15-25% range the past 6 months, so returning to SoCal where it is normally pretty dry to find humidity in the 90's is kind of a shock to our collective systems.....lol!

Besides seeing our kids and grandkids, our other main reason for spending 4-5 days at the Elks Lodge in Fontana before continuing on to Glamis North Hot Springs (to be referred to as GNHS from now on) was to pull our Splendide washer/dryer combo unit out of its cubbyhole once again to address a recurring problem with the dryer cycle.  The washer portion of the Splendide would work fine going through the wash, rinse and spin cycles without a hitch, but 10 minutes into the dryer cycle it would shut down.  I think I wrote about dealing with this issue when we were at LPG&RVR.  At the time we had vacuumed out the dryer vent hose, and using the crevice tool for our ShopVac we vacuumed out, as best we could, the rubber tunnel running from the back of the washer/dryer down into the drum area.  It was obvious to us at the time that the air flow coming out of the vent was not what it should be, but after doing the vacuuming it seemed to improve a bit, so we put her away, and she worked fine for another week, or two, but then the dryer started shutting down 10 minutes into the drying cycle again.  LPG&RVR has a nice laundry with pretty new equipment, and it was only a short distance from site #55, so TLE decided she would utilize those facilities to wash our clothes for the final few weeks we were there, and then we would deal with the Splendide when we returned to SoCal and would be nearer to the service folks who would come and and diagnose our problem.

Anyway, I decided to pull the Splendide out once more to see if I could find something obvious, like a big lint blockage deeper into the machine.  Around 9:30 am after finishing my latest post, TLE emptied the pantry, and then I removed the shelving, and doors so I could pull the machine out.  Once it was out I removed the top, then a panel on the back so I could access the rubber snorkel connecting the vent hose with the dryer.  Most of the time the problem is not very obvious, but this time I was blessed with the obvious.....

You are looking at the bottom end of the rubber 'snorkel', an obvious place where lint might gather....not a good design

That is a LOT of lint

......I was initially aghast at how bad the clog was....there was no way you could see it without removing the entire snorkel from the machine, but in the end I was so relieved to find the problem was easy to fix, and would not involve the services of a costly mobile service guy.  I spent about 10 minutes thoroughly cleaning out the snorkel, then as I began to reinstall it our daughter Kate, and her oldest son Elijah arrived for lunch, so I took a break and joined TLE, Kate and Elijah out on the patio behind the RV section here at the Fontana Elks Lodge.  I failed to take a single picture to memorialize the occasion, but needless to say, we had a great time talking, and eating sandwiches prepared by the hands of The Lovely Elaine (I type out TLE once and while as there are some folks who wonder what TLE means).

After our lunch I returned to the task of putting the Splendide back together, and then pushing it back into its cubbyhole where it is my prayer that it will remain for a long time to come.  By the time I finished my job, and TLE was able to put all our stuff back into the pantry it was after 2 pm, and I was sweaty (high humidity) and tired.

We had also arranged for our daughter Sharon, Rod (husband) and Brayden (6 year old son) to join us for dinner at the Elks Lodge.  They host a dinner every Friday night at 5 pm, and we eat there at least once, or twice each time we are here.  We had a great dinner filled with a lot more conversation, then it was time to bid everyone adieu.....

......we had barely said goodbye to Sharon, Rod and Brayden when our oldest daughter, Meredith showed up to welcome us home.....we had plans to see her for breakfast Saturday morning, which is still on, but being able to spend a little extra time with her is quite a bonus!

By the time Meredith left it was going on 9 pm, and I was tired after a few hours of socializing with our three daughters, and was in bed a little after 10.  We'll see our oldest son Chris on Sunday at his home along with Rochelle, his wife, and hopefully their kids (Cynthia and Chris).

Thanks for stopping by!