July 4, 2013 - Refrigerator Issues and a Travel Day

Happy Independence Day to All!

Well, I woke up at 2 this morning, checked the refrigerator and it was 55 degrees - Crap!  That was the end of my sleep for a while.  Andy got up and we spent the next hour discussing what to do.  We did go back to bed for a few hours and then we were up and packing up.  At 8 AM, we started the generator and tried a few of the things mentioned in the service manual.  Didn’t work at all - .  Between the heat, humidity, bugs, and frig - I was not a happy camper.

So off we went..... Andy went to Watford City with the MH and parked in the fairgrounds area.  I went to a few stores for ice and Styrofoam coolers.  This is fourth of July - finding both was not easy.  I did get enough ice between two stops but only found one cooler.

I caught up with Andy at the fairgrounds where we broke down the ice into smaller bags and stuffed in the freezer and refrigerator.  We were able to pack a few things in that smaller cooler and hopefully that will be okay. 

So off we went to Minot City where there are a few RV repair shops.

We took SR-23 east out of Watford City.  They are still drilling east of here:

And still putting in pipes:

But there were still some great sites along the way:

Lake Sakakawea:

East of the lake we started to see a lot of water.  We do not if this is normal for this time of year or if they had experienced a lot of rain:

Notice the dots in the above picture?  Well we went thru a couple swarms of bugs - BIG bugs.  What a mess!

Looks like a bug - or maybe a spaceship - LOL!:

We were going to stay at the Moose Lodge in Minot where they had RV camping (according to the Moose site), but when we got there, there were a few signs that stated “No overnight camping.”  The lodge was locked up and the two numbers I called did not help - Oh my! Not what??   Well, we had lunch, while I looked up places to stay.  I called four places and guess what - no answer.  Sheesh.  So we unhooked the Tracker and off we went with the addresses of the campgrounds.  At the first one, the office was locked up and it looked like they were all long term.  The second place was the fairgrounds - could not find the campground nor could anyone tell us where it was .  The third place we just drove on by - scary!  The fourth place had two spots for overnighters.  Turns out that they are mostly all long term sites too.  We talked with the hosts who were great folks and told us they could give us one night. 

We started back to the Moose Lodge to pick up the MH with a short stop at Wal-Mart for coolers first.   Back at the campground we set up and turned on the AC - it was HOT!  And on a lark, we put the refrigerator on electric to see what happens.  As the hours passed the refrigerator got colder and colder and started to work again.  We will wait to see what happens overnight.

This was not one of my better days but as we listened to the news tonight about the memorial for the 19 Arizona firefighters, I thought to myself “And I am upset about a refrigerator working and about being too hot”! - Kind of puts things in perspective, doesn’t it.

Please keep those families in your prayers.

Enjoy today and stay tuned for our next adventure!

Stats for today:

Miles Traveled: 147 Miles

Routes Traveled:

North Dakota: US-85; SR-23; US-2B; US-2