Rear Cap Finally Fixed

Back to RVing . . .

In July 2022 while on our way to Jalama Beach County Park, we stopped the RV suddenly and our attached Jeep reared up and smashed into the rear cap of our Sea View:

One year later after removing and repairing the roof ladder, we rough fixed the great open fiberglass wound:

Finally, in April of this year, we had a local auto body shop finish the repairs and paint the rear cap:

YAHOO !

My iMac Died

I bought a used 2020 iMac about a month ago and things started going wrong about a week ago. Yesterday my iMac gave up the ghost and nothing I did brought it back to life. It’s a brick.

Here’s the story . . .

First, during the past week the “Mac screen of death” appeared more and more. My iMac would freeze and then restart with this screen:

After too many of these screens of death, I decided to reinstall the MacOS on my iMac. However, first I tried running the Mac’s Disk Utility First Aid, but that failed. After several attempts, First Aid kept failing.

Next, I tried cold starting the iMac while holding down the CMD and R keys in order to enter Recovery Mode.

INTERNET RECOVERY

However, after several minutes, this screen appeared:

Before my next attempt, using my MacBook laptop, I created a bootable external USB drive with MacOS installed.

EXTERNAL BOOTABLE MAC OS DRIVE

Then I connected the drive to my iMac, and restarted my iMac while holding down the Option key:

When the possible startup disks appeared, I selected the external USB drive I had just created (IMACSTARTUP):

However, 2020 iMacs have the T2 security chip installed which prevent start up from an external disk:

So . . . . another CMD + R restart . . .

I “passed” the first part of the T2 security chip procedure . . .

Finally, I thought I was getting somewhere. I selected “Exit to Recovery” and then selected the “Startup Security Utility” in order to get around the T2 security chip:

But once again I was thwarted because the Startup Security Utility would not accept my login password:

Nevertheless, from my college UNIX days I opened the Terminal program and entered the resetpassword command:

Failure again! (I love the two “choices” on the screen below.)

TIME MACHINE BACKUP ATTEMPT

Next, still in Recovery mode, I tried a Time Machine backup:

This too failed as it wanted me to install MacOS first.

MAC OS REINSTALL ATTEMPT

So I tried re-installing the MacOS on my iMac (Macintosh HD):

The MacOS reinstall started ok . . .

However, once again, it failed because of a hard disk error:

DISK UTILITY FIRST AID

Last chance — in Recovery I ran Disk First Aid on my iMac disk:

That’s it. Nada.

Powergear Slideout Repair

The following describes how we fixed our non-working living room slide out on our 2001 SeaView.

The following is not really a “how to”, but rather a detailed description on how we fixed our Powergear slide out. So, if details aren’t your cup of tea, read a book instead.

Some background: our Living Room slide out failed to operate during the start of our 2024 Fall RV trip.

When we turned the slide out switch on our RV’s control panel, nothing happened.

Repeated attempts yielded the same results: nada.

So we were forced to manually crank the slide out in and out. A real PITA.

When we returned home after our Fall trip, we started troubleshooting . . .

CHECK FOR OBVIOUS PROBLEMS

We checked for disconnected wires. Nothing obvious.

STUDY THE SLIDE OUT WIRING SCHEMATIC

MEASURE VOLTAGES AND CONTINUITY

Checked that 12 VDC actually has +12 volts and that GND was grounded.

Since MOTOR 1 and MOTOR 2 wires only become active with 12 VDC after the slide out switch it turned, we checked for continuity on the SWITCH IN and SWITCH OUT wires.

And there was no continuity . . . both wires had somehow become disconnected.

So, the next step . . .

RUNNING NEW WIRES

Because running new wiring seemed like a better idea than trying to trace the existing wiring, we ran new wires to the slide out switch (SWITCH IN, SWITCH OUT, and +12 VDC) and new wiring to the slide out motor (MOTOR 1 and MOTOR 2).

LONG STORY SHORT: IT WORKED!

Because of cramped spaces, installing the new wiring was a multi-day task. But it ended up working again!

Following are a couple of drawings that might be of interest . . .

Finally, just in case you have to replace the slide out motor itself (in our case it would have been about $700), make sure you get the right motor as there are several models. For example, we checked out a less expensive motor, but ruled it out when we saw that it was only rated for 300 in-lbs of torque.

Our Fall Camping Trip

We took a 2-week trip in mid-September (sorry for the late posting).

Anyway, we traveled to several new-to-us locations . . .

Lake McSwain Recreational Area

We spent two nights here arriving on Friday, September 13. This was our first time at Lake McSwain.

Our site . . .

. . . a nice view of a small cove . . .

THE BAD NEWS

Our large living room slide out stopped working. Normally, we turn a switch to activate an electric motor which pulls the slide out in or out. However, now we either had to leave it in all the time and live with some pretty cramped space, or crank the slide in and out by hand . . .

Black Oak Casino

Black Oak was only 55 miles from Lake McSwain. Our first time here. We arrived on Sunday, September 15 and left on September 19.

Black Oak had nice showers, laundry, and a restaurant. There was also a walking trail around a large pond.

Grass Valley RV Park

This was about a 140-mile trip. We arrive on Thursday, September 19, and left on September 22.

This is a brand new park which just opened several weeks before we arrived.

The campground is just outside Grass Valley which has some great restaurants that we discovered when we bought our Sea View RV in 2021 at DeMartini RV, a local dealership.

We also went to the Draft Horse Classic in the nearby county park . . .

Dos Reis Regional Park

This was 115-mile drive from Grass Valley RV and our last stop . . . also our first time here.

This park was a big disappointment because of the campground’s shabbiness and its “berm” (see below).

We thought we would be able to see the San Joaquin River from the park.

Now we’re planning for next Spring’s RV trip!

The Last Campgrounds of our Summer 2024 Trip

Bridgeview RV Resort

Grants Pass, OR • Elevation: 997 feet

It looks perfect . . .

The river view is beautiful though the traffic noise is a bit loud, and then there’s the cramped sites which some people “adapt” to . . .

. . . but then there’s the geese . . .

We lived on a lake for several years and each year Canadian Geese would raise their families on our lawn. Great. Until you step in the all too numerous geese droppings . . . which is greasy, sticky, smelly poop. And it’s everywhere.

When we saw the goose family taking a stroll in our dog-walking area, that was it. We won’t be back.

Fawndale Oaks RV Park

Redding, CA • Elevation: 937 feet

You should not stay in this park. It’s potentially dangerous. Not the pets, wild animals, or people . . .it’s the electrical hookups.

During our first night at Fawndale, I awoke to a power outage. The power cycled back on, but I noticed high voltage coming from our electrical pedestal . . . 132 volts . . .

If our Progressive Industries pedestal power protector sees 132V for more than 3 seconds, it disconnects power to our RV in order to protect it from potential high voltage damage.

Apparently, this happened a few times during the night because our Victron inverter kept track of the power resets. Bad, bad, bad . . .

So we left a day early on Sunday morning and headed for our next planned campground . . .

Oroville/Feather Falls Casino KOA Journey

Sorry no pictures. After only a few hours we deemed this KOA a winner. Good, clean facilities, friendly staff, modern sites.

Final Thoughts on Our Summer 2024 Trip

Despite several bad campground experiences along the way, all in all it was a successful trip!

We had two goals:

Get Away from Summer Heat – Mission accomplished! All the campgrounds along the Pacific coast were cool to the point of needing to use a heater at night and pullovers and sweaters during the day.

Find a Long-Term Summer Site – Mission accomplished! We made a month-long reservation at Lucky Lodge Campground on the Rogue River. Love it. We may also spend more time at the Little Creek Casino & Resort. Great food.

We’ll be back for our Fall 2024 trip. Till then . . .