leaving J tree

Our trip to Joshua Tree ended rather abruptly. The original plan was to stay the full allowable 2 weeks, or longer if we could swing it somehow, but the weather got to us. We had two gorgeous days New Years weekend and actually went out and hiked and did a bit of climbing with our buddy Lewis, but other than that we had rain, wind, cold and even snow. I have to admit—I was totally excited to see the snow. We continued to have battery issues. We bought two new better batteries and put them in. Greg checked the water level and it was below the plates (not good). Not knowing better, he filled them, then charged and they boiled over. Who knew? He cleaned them up as best he could, but we had no idea if the batteries were still good or not. The charger started giving an error message—the batteries would charge on the generator, but not the charger. We took them back to Kragen, but they just tested them and said they were fine.

The good news was that despite that, we could leave our heat on at night and stay somewhat warm. The old single battery wouldn’t do that. But the unrelenting cold was getting to us and it didn’t look like things were going to improve so we left for Yuma on Wednesday. Phoebe also had a weird rash that was bothering me—I was happy to get her to the warmer Yuma climate.

Oh—I also towed the 5th wheel for the first time. It went well…that is, until I cut a corner close and popped a tire. Poor, sick Greg had to go out in the rain and wind and change the tire. I got to drag it into the tire repair shop though. Luckily, it was the bottom, not a side-wall!