Road Trip Day 5 – Emporia, KS to Kansas City, MO

Well it is 3:49 pm Kansas time and we are JUST NOW leaving Emporia, KS. It has been a hell of a day! We made it a point to set the alarms on our phones so we could attempt to wake up at 7am local time instead of waking up at 7am Arizona time like we have been doing for the past few days.

The fact that we hadn’t adjusted to the time change in regards to sleeping and waking times was really beginning to impact our route schedule. We were pulling in to camp sites super late and having a hard time finding our assigned spots, we were having super late dinners and all in all the late nights were taking a toll on us.

On this particular day we wake up at 7am local time (which happens to be 5am Arizona time), we were groggy and it was a slow morning but getting the day off to an early start is necessary. The goal was to make it to another mystery shop in Missouri before 2pm so we had to be on the road by 9am.

Throughout the night we were all having issues charging our electronics but the small TV my mom was using seemed to be working fine so we didn’t think twice about it. After cleaning bunny’s cage and showering in much more pleasant showers at the Emporia RV Park we were ready to hit the road. If you missed reading about my nipple blasting shower experience you should check our the day 3 post!

After we got all loaded up in the RV N goes to start the RV but it just clicks. He says it sometimes has trouble starting and continues trying it. I am already feeling rushed about being behind on schedule since we haven’t left the RV park and it was now 9:30am so I am thinking about canceling the mystery shop. N was set on me keeping the appointment though.

After N tries and fails to start the RV several times I get the feeling I definitely need to cancel the mystery shop in Missouri since the day was off to a rough start. It’s no use adding more stress to an already stressful situation right? So I cancel the shop which in turn makes our time schedule more flexible and I begin feeling more relaxed, amazing concept huh?

The RV still wont start though, good thing we have nowhere to be anymore! While the guys fiddle with the RV ans brainstorm I begin writing this blog post. Turns out both our batteries on the RV were completely drained, were talking 100% dead! We weren’t too sure how the batteries got drained but we knew we needed to get a jump start or something so we headed in to the RV office to see if someone could help us.

I guess having a regular car jump an RV is not good business cause nobody would give us a jump start. My mom joked that she needed to put on a sexy dress and walk up and down the RV park trying to find a guy to help us… Good news is we did manage to get an electric charger thingy from the RV park office without any sexy dress or other questionable actions so that was good!

We tried to charge the batteries  by plugging the electric charges in to the power port at our RV site. The charger needed to be plugged in to a power source in order for it to begin charging the battery. Problem was the charger would not power on to even behind the battery charging process.

Again the boys and mom did some troubleshooting while I blogged. Turns out the power port for our assigned spot was not working since the charger would not power on from that particular power port but it did work from another sites power port..

We informed the RV park manager that the power port at our site was not working, she argued with us about it and was a bit confrontational. Thing is that with our RV the plugs inside will not work unless 1) the RV is plugged in to a power source or 2) the generator is running. We tried explaining this to the RV park lady but she continued to be defensive and argumentative about it all.

Like I said earlier my mom had the TV going all night on the outlet inside the RV and our generator was not running. We were all trying to charge our phones and computers and nothing seemed to be working all night. Later we figured the power port at the RV park was providing some power to our RV but that it was not enough because by morning both our batteries were drained.

I even told the RV park owner I wanted our park fee refunded since we were without power all night and also were not provided with the wireless internet, she refused so I disputed the charge through VISA.

My brother discovered that he could charge our RV batteries with the charger thingy from the camp host by running an extension cord from another RV site since our power port was not working. While we were waiting for our RV’s batteries to charge we enjoyed the sights at the RV park and took our traditional group photo for the day.

After our batteries on the RV were charged we tried to start it again. It just made a clicking noise but would not turn over.  At this point the lady running the RV park tried to call a mobile RV repair service to come out and take a look at our motor home.  After talking with him for several minutes he informed her he was out of town and offered some troubleshooting tips that we went through over the telephone.  Nothing worked.  N was convinced the starter died and now we had the dilemma of finding someone to come work on it since we were stuck at the RV park.  A tow to a shop was expected to cost $100+ so we were trying to avoid that punch in the gut.  Another mobile mechanic showed up just a few minutes after we placed a call.  N explained the problems to him and he agreed it might be the starter.  The mechanic climbed underneath the Winnebago, banged on the starter a few times and she turned right over.  That was a feeling of relief…or at least somewhat of relief.

We now knew what the problem was but how much and how long was it going to take to fix it?  The mechanic from Williams Automotive in Emporia led us over to their auto shop where we disconnected the rolling greenhouse and pulled the motor home into one of their service bays.  After about two hours worth of work and $300, Williams Automotive had us back on the road with a brand new starter.  We also had them look at our power inverter since that didn’t seem to be working either.  They did a simple test and figured it wasn’t working right and therefore not charging our batteries when we were plugged into the power port at the RV park the night before.  So not only did our starter go out, but it would also seem the Emporia RV Park power system fried our power inverter.  Another problem to figure out later!

It was great to be back on the highway again, cruising to another destination and getting at least a little bit closer to our new home!  We finally reached the border of Kansas and Missouri and continued pulling through to the Oak Grove KOA east of East Kansas City.  We did have to deal with about an hour of heavy, rush-hour traffic on Friday evening in Kansas City so that was a little stressful for N to pilot our big rig through that traffic after the already stressful day.  Just 2.5 hours later we were in another state and ready to pull in for the night.  We made a short stop at Walmart to pick up some items for dinner and headed to the Oak Grove KOA before dark!  We at least got one goal accomplished today.

Since our inverter wasn’t working right, we couldn’t plug in for the night knowing that it would probably drain the batteries again.  So we rigged up an extension cord and power strips and ran that through the window into the RV so we could run the laptop and charge all our phones.  My mom had to attempt cooking stew in the dark with a flashlight and she sure did make the most of it.  Okay, maybe a Captain and Coke I poured her helped out the process since she was so stressed.  It did turn out really good.  It was by far probably the worst day we’ve experience on our trip so far and hopefully the last one until we pull into our driveway in Evansville, Indiana on Sunday!

Check out the next posts in the series:

• Day 5 continued – Kingdom City, MO to Stanton, MO
• Day 6 – Stanton, MO to Evansville, IN
• Days 7-11, We are here but the chaos continues
• Sitting in the garage, watching Ike blow through.
• OMG, we are actually living in Evansville…

or you can checkout the previous posts in the series:

• Road Trip Day 5 – Emporia, KS to Kansas City, MO
• Road Trip Day 4 – Dodge City, KS to Emporia, KS
• Road Trip Day 3 – Logan, NM to Dodge City, KS
• Road trip day 2 – New Mexico to New Mexico
• Road trip day 1 – Arizona to New Mexico.
• We pull out tomorrow…

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