feeling our age .....

Wow, this week has been a tough one! Our only days off were Sunday and Wednesday so we really didn't have the time to recuperate. My hat is off to the full time employees who are required to work the mandatory 60 hours of overtime as well as the work campers who volunteer to do it. We are only required (as work campers) to do a maximum of 50 hours and that is our schedule for at least one more week. The good news is, since our overtime day is Tuesday, we are back to having two days off in a row. :-)

This week has not been without it's drama though. Friday Rudee was finishing her shower and hollered at me to come into the bathroom, she was smelling a "hot" smell. I went in and knew right away we had an electrical issue ...... somewhere. She had the electric heater on but we quickly ruled it out, then I checked the portable ice maker we keep on a shelf above the washer/dryer. Nope, that's not it. Then I thought about the water heater and ........ yep, you could smell the hot, burning wire smell coming through the floor area where the water heater is located. Crap! I quickly shut it off and the smell slowly went away. The water heater heats the water two ways, either by an LP gas burner or by a 120V electric heating element. We have almost always used the electric portion since the gas burner is noisy and the water heater is just below the floor at the foot of our bed, plus the electric provided at most RV parks is included in the site fee. :-)
I let everything cool down some and turned the water heater back on using LP now. Oh oh, I should be hearing the burner burning but it was totally silent. Double crap! By this time we had to leave to go to work so I didn't have the chance to figure out what the problem was with the gas side of things and was worried the the whole unit was "toast".
Saturday afternoon (which is our "morning") I was finally able to take a look at it. Our heater has "thermal cut off" which is a type of fuse that will not allow ignition if it is blown.
The problem is you can't always see if it is good or bad just by looking at it. I got a small piece of 12v wire and bypassed the fuse and "whoosh" the unit fired up! Now we're getting somewhere! I had to replace the fuse once before and when I bought the replacement it came with two of then in the package. I just had to remember where I put the other one. :-o
I showed the old one to Rudee and she had no idea where it could be. I looked in all my usual hiding places and then remembered I store some small things in a compartment in my tool box and "looky what I found".

I put the new fuse in place and we were back in the hot water business! I will tackle the electric element down the road when I have more time (and energy!).
The weather has made a turn for the worse. We went from 60's earlier this week to the 20's and 30's with heavy rain. When we came out from work this morning I had to scrape about 1/2" of ice from all the windows and there is nice coating of ice on all the tree limbs. Brrrrrrr!
We are starting to do the big countdown for our remaining time in Kentucky. Two more weeks to go! I just hope this weather gives us a window where we can get out of here safely. Our plan is to head back to Indiana for a week to ten days and then head south to Florida. We are still in the market for a work camping job (or any gig really) for this winter. We are checking into Disney but they require "in person" interviews so we may check them out further once we are there but if any of you know of anyone hiring let us know. We are not too picky our only requirements are no snow or ice! I'll keep you posted.