Littleton, MA (May 17): Chuck, who is doing 95% of the driving, prefers to keep to major highways with the RV. Much as we hated to retrace our footsteps, there are no major roads east from Bangor. We either had to head northeast or southwest. Since we wanted to have our RV dealer in Erie PA replace our bedroom fan, we decided to head back to Boston and then take I90 east.
We pulled into a very lovely wooded campsite about 50 miles northeast of Boston, and returned to RV life. After 5 days in hotels (6 if you count Boston) we realized that we could not do this trip living in hotels, and it was nice to be back “home”.
It also seemed like it was time to do some cooking, but when I turned on the propane tank, I could smell the gas (actually the additive that is included so that you can smell the gas) and hear the hiss of escaping gas. I quickly shut it off and thanked my fear of propane tanks. Many RVers leave the propane on while traveling to run the fridge and at our first service stop the repairman had asked why we preferred the generator and assured us it was safe to drive with the propane on. It is not clear to me what the consequences might have been having this leak with a lit appliance, but I am glad I did not find out.
Due to the seriousness of the problem, our RV dealer agreed to allow us to jump the queue on their service schedule and will look at the two problems (fan and propane) on Monday. They will not order the fan or the propane regulator until they have confirmed that they need to be replaced, but Winnebago agreed to rush the parts to us them if necessary. (Honestly, we feel that Winnebago should replace the RV, which seems to be a lemon, but I don’t think we’ll get far with that!)
With an assurance that the soonest the estate sale person would be available would be Tuesday, we decided to spend a relaxing 90F day at this lovely wooded campsite, basically just lazing in our recliner chairs. Unfortunately, the swimming pool was not yet open for the season, but we enjoyed the wooded setting, tossed a few horseshoes and relaxed. I biked into town for some groceries as well.
We finally worked our way through most of the left-overs, but we are well equipped with electric appliances and ate well without our propane stove.