July 17, 2016
Wakeside Lake RV Park
Rexburg, ID

The best laid plans....... Yesterday was an exciting day. During one of the many power outages at Fishing Bridge I decided to run my generator so we had power and also to give it the monthly maintenance run. After about 45 minutes the power shut off while the generator was still running (not good). I turned it off and  back on but still no power. I decided to turn off the generator and then switch on the main power again from the power pedestal. When I did that I heard a strange noise and then a loud hum. It was then that I heard Marilyn inside yelling something about smoke. I quickly turned everything off and went inside. Sure enough there was smoke. I called the Park Office and they sent down a guy to check their pedestal and of course they said their side was good. I went down to the small RV Service Center and had a Tech come to the site. Here is a picture of what he found:

This is the Power Transfer Relay Switch and all the power for the RV travels through here (great single point of failure). The wire that is fried goes to the main breaker panel. Strangely enough when I had the power on none of the circuit breakers tripped and power continued to work inside the RV (very strange). The Techs at Fishing Bridge said this repair was beyond their capabilities and they recommended we take the RV to a shop in Idaho Falls. Of course this all happened around 5 pm on Saturday and no place was open. We decided to book a reservation at the closest RV Park to the repair shop. So today we cancelled our 2 week stay in the  Grand Tetons, packed up, and traveled 140 miles out the west side of Yellowstone and south on US 20 to Wakeside Lake RV Park in Rexburg, ID.

This is a small park with all gravel pull through sites.

And it borders a small manmade lake.

We have reservations here through Tuesday and other reservations at another Park in Idaho Falls until Friday... beyond that we'll have to figure out the next steps, and of course everything is dependent upon how quickly the repairs can be done. Currently, the only power we have is 120V via an extension cord coming into the RV and a maze of 3 way plugs and short extension cords. This provides us with a little light, fridge, coffee maker, fans (did I mention the temp here is 90 degrees), and phone chargers. At least we have Wi-Fi. We might last a day or two like this but anything more than that and we will have to move into a motel....fun,  fun, fun till your daddy takes your power away......

Currently I'm looking for that juicer so I can make some lemonade, so far no luck. Marilyn likes the fact that the repair shop is also the largest RV Dealer in Idaho.... there may be a Motorhome in our future ;>)

Stay tuned......