Best resort in Georgia. We have gone to there.

Carrot is done with the sittin'-still life

We had a great time at the wildlife management area, but it wasn't long there before we realized our electrical system was toast.  Not that we could make toast.  Annie worked with what we had, and then got more, but the basic set-up was a wreck.

• Nothing charged from the alternator except the chassis (start-up) battery, so to charge our house batteries while we drove, we ALSO had to run the generator.  What.  
• The generator didn't charge the batteries, either, until Annie plugged the umbilicus into an outlet.  Recap:  The Duck has to be plugged into itself to charge.
• Even with a full battery bank (the 4-6 volts in the back), the inverter kicked out an error code ("bad ground" or "charge overload"), and so none of that power was available for any purpose, AC or DC.

So, phone calls to the electrician were answered within three days, with sub-optimal results:  I thought the generator would charge it.  

This is where the story needs a she-ro, and this story has two.  Annie is always the hero of my story, so you might be bored with that.

Darlene and Downwind Nicole

With the last trickle of battery power in the iPad, I emailed Nicole for advice, because I know she and Darlene are rewiring their van from scratch.  Better than advice, they offered us a posh place to stay, technical savvy AND labor.

The following technical stuff is brought to you by Annie:

The solenoid now has a connection from the starting battery to the house batteries up front, and the battery bank in back.  The system needed a ground, and that was also added.  We didn't change the generator hook-up, because the extension cord serves our needs pretty well, and we had a hierarchy of needs. 

There will be no question-and-answer period.

Representative sample of the day's work

During the most exciting portion of the project (not shown),  Annie (who now wishes to be called "Sparky") arc-welded her ratchet thing to the fuse box.  Several times!  Nicole kept saying don't touch anything!  okay, this time, don't touch anything!  oooh, don't touch anything!  until Sparky said oh!  DON'T touch anything!  There are no photos because the photographer was paralyzed with terror.

"We" spent a little time dropping Darlene and DW Nicole's gas tank so they could repair it.  [It's a bad idea for the documentarist to get too close to the action;  she might get her camera dirty.]  A neighbor came over to introduce herself to us, and remarked to me, "You're not the mechanical type, are you?"

You guys rock!

We had never met DW or Darlene "in real life" before Monday when we pulled in and plugged into all their amenities.  It chokes me up a little to think of the hospitality they have offered when we are could have been weird and dangerous.  Thank you, guys!

From here, we'll travel together to a women RVer's meet-up in northern Georgia.