Our first winter of snow-birding in Arizona was eye-opening. There is a real learning curve to navigate, and we got a crash course in the RV lifestyle. We arrived in Mesa the last week of January and got situated for a two-week stay at our first campground. This was described as an RV resort and is part of the system of campgrounds that we purchased a year-long pass to use in our travels. We settled on a program where we could stay up to three weeks in one location before moving on, and there are enough of these campgrounds in Arizona alone that we could spend the entire fall and winter there without seeing the same one twice. The real adventure started when we arrived at our second stay in Tucson. Our brand-new fifth-wheel trailer developed a glitch with the bedroom slider mechanism. The slider wouldn’t move out, so we did some checking, and eventually it did move, but it took a lot of nudging. We were there for a week and when we were ready to get back on the road, that same slider didn’t want to move in. It is a sinking feeling when you are up against check-out time at the campground, and you can’t get on the road because you have a room in your trailer that won’t come in. We finally got in touch with someone at the campground and they fiddled with a wire on the wall and got it to reset and we were able to get it back in so that we could get on the road. It continued to be an issue at most of the stops we made, so when we got back to the dealership, we reported it. They said that this happens a lot with this type of slide mechanism, and they recommended a spray lube to apply to the rails and it seemed to help, so we let it ‘slide’ for a while. There were other issues to deal with.
The other big thing that came up was the refrigerator went out on us. We got a mobile tech to look at it and he figured out that a cooling fan was causing a fuse to blow on the control board. We got the dealership to work on that and we continued to live out of the lot for a few weeks. Since we had to visit the dump station once a week or so to empty our tanks and fill the freshwater, we had to move the sliders in and out. The bedroom continued to act up, so we finally got them to take a long look at it and they did see that a wire had been pinched and was shorting out, so they had to order parts to fix it. After a couple of weeks of waiting for the part to come and get it installed, they were testing it and saw that the motor needed to be replaced, so that got done, but still was twisting when it moved, so they had to order a control box. That was another few weeks of parking lot living, which we didn’t mind as it was cheaper than renting space at an actual campground. While we waited for that, we decided to have them look at the stovetop, since one of the burners wouldn’t stay lit. This also required a part to be replaced and shipped. More waiting.
So, the parts got replaced and we are mostly functioning normally. A few small issues have arisen, but nothing we can’t deal with. I’m sure it will be another interesting year of winterizing our RV, which we define as taking it to Arizona. With all the repairs and improvements we made, along with all the things that we hadn’t gotten to work just because we didn’t know how to make the connections, it feels like the rig should be as good or better than new. We will keep you updated as we go. This will be the first year that we actually spend a full fall and winter in the warm climate away from Montana. I for one am looking forward to it, but I will post updates as to the condition of the rig as we travel.
