The Van With A Name II

Our bags  as promised made it to GEG on the next flight from SEA. 

Rush!

 We found them circling on the  extra noisy baggage carrousel   at the airport.

Who Didn't Get Tossed Off One Of These?

Bonus we got an extra 4k miles for  the 2 people having to get off the sky carriage in Anchorage, that caused us to miss our landing time in sea & caused the go around, that made us race to the gate,  but climate change paid no mind to any of it, and just took all the extra carbon from  burning jet A and put it in the ocean,  destroyed some coral and created a massive typhoon.

But I have clean undies and my toothbrush. 

 The van with a name engine battery was totally discharged after sitting all summer. Surprisingly the house batteries were at 100% even after being under the canopy all summer. Maybe I need another float charger to run off my batteries, and charge the engine batteries?

We came well prepared to do jump starting, with a Astro  jumper / tire pump /flashlight, and USB charger. 

I had  only used this device to charge my phone , and it worked great for that.

I also as a backup brought jumper cables.

 The Astro was fully charged and since I wanted to see how it would work, I  read the directions for jumping, and used it first.

With its display aglow and connections made I twisted the key and the engine spun and roared back to life.

 It  almost as quickly shut off.

It's not supposed to do that I thought, so let's try it again. 

We did and the result was the same. On the third attempt with the jumper, I had my compadre remove the cable as soon as the engine roared into carbon monoxide producing mode. 

The effect was the same.

Well, it must be time to try the jumper cables, which we did ,and this time the van stayed running.

 A quick spin to charge the battery was in order but after running out on highway 2 for a few miles,  and then returning to the jumper,  the van with a name cranked but the battery didn't have enough energy to start.

 A few weeks ago, I had called a couple of RV repair shops because after my house batteries discharged last spring, I wanted them checked out. 

One of the places I  called was just across the street so we motored over and got an appointment for the very next day to have the solar system checked and a new battery for the van.

  They say all  is well with the solar system but it should be connected to power and charged for a while. I guess my first night out will include hookups.

The Ford battery that lives under the driver's seat was replaced, and now the van starts with no issue.

 The Week of birthday celebrations and visiting almost every thrift store in Eastern Washington is drawing to a close.

All This In One Morning And For Pennies On The Dollar

 And that means that I  should be on the road in a couple of days.