It got down to 26 degrees early Sunday, March 26. Fortunately nothing froze. After breakfast, we headed south for Sedona, still looking for reservations as we drove. We finally found a reservation at Distant Drums RV Resort, Camp Verde. It was well south of Sedona, but the closest thing we could find. But we couldn’t get into our spot till afternoon – so we decided to take care of some chores.
The truck was complaining it needed an oil change. We had gone past the miles our normal oil change place recommends, but we use synthetic oil which can go longer. It was Sunday and the only place open was Walmart. Apprehensive, we disconnected the trailer in their parking lot and took the truck in. First, they didn’t have a filter – so they gave us the truck back and we went to an O’Reilly down the road and got oil and air filter. Went back, got in line – and eventually they started work again. We watched from the exit door – as close as we could get. One person was working above, one below. The person above, dropped the filter bolt down into the front grill – and eventually rescued it. The person below – exclaims – “there is a temporary plastic drain plug!” Nope, that is the normal Ford
drain plug for this truck. Its tricky – you have to squeeze two tabs, rotate then pop out. This is a 2015 F150, Ecoboost engine. There are a lot of these on the road – and they’ve never seen one? There was a FORD dealer 1000 feet away down the road. This is why I almost never will go to a Walmart for any kind of vehicle maintenance. When finally it was done, we hooked up and headed for our camp at Distant Drums RV Resort, Camp Verde. This was an upscale resort. It was also mostly occupied by longer term stay Class A vehicles. We had to move after the first night because the sites they put us in first, were reserved as groups of people park together there. The place was fairly meticulously maintained – they even rake out the gravel before they let you move in. There was a casino just across the road, but we didn’t avail ourselves of their services. Just being there was gambling enough for me…. 8^}
So, we were settling into our spots, disconnecting everything when my daughter came over and said “there are metal pieces breaking off our hitch”. What? Sigh – nothing should surprise me. I went and looked and sure enough, the receivers that the load distribution springs lock into were cracking and pieces breaking off. This was a better Equalizer E4 hitch (I just had the E2 on mine). In retrospect, I believe it was a combination of the receivers for the spring bars were not the right ones for the bars that were installed and/or the hitch was not adjusted right for the two and trailer or the weight on the hitch tongue. Whatever the issue, it was still under warranty and so began the adventure of “replacing the hitch in the middle of no-where”.
Continued next post.