Our trip started out with a departure from Scott’s hangar at 9:30AM – both Khan and Polo filled with fuel and anxious to head out.  Minor problem as we departed – Khan reported that Polo’s right turn signal didn’t work.  Unplugged and replugged one connection and the problem went away.

Drove without incident through the hills of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and West Virginia.  Saw lots of 6% grade warnings and runaway truck ramps.  Scott was too lazy to take many pictures.

We noticed our traditional Walmart stop would be easy – just 10 miles or so on our way to the campsite.  Filled up with Diesel and got the pesky turn signal warning again.  Tried unplugging and replugging again.  Didn’t work.

At the Walmart parking lot Tom figured we’d unplug it and leave it that way while we shopped – that would teach either Khan or Polo – whichever was the mischievous one – a lesson.  He told Scott to remind him to replug when we returned.  Scott refused to trust our memory, and insisted on replugging right away.

Walmart trip was fairly successful – we only forgot one item (cheese) as we shopped without a list.  On the way out Tom saw 5 pound bags of hash browns, and decided we should add them to our egg day menu.  He somehow found a smaller bag and we looked forward to a change in menu Friday morning for Veterans Day breakfast.

The campground – Summerville Lake Retreat has a cool lighthouse – erected over 10 years ago – which is lit at night.  What it doesn’t have – we discovered – is a working bathhouse – locked with a sign “closed for the season.”  We hooked up to power and water – no need for sewer – and went to bed early for a restful night.

Scott discovered that the 12V power was not working when he woke up for one of multiple trips to the bathroom.  He thought this was an odd failure – the batteries were working fine when he went to bed.  But confident that Tom could fix most anything, he just put on more clothing and shivered a bit as the night went on.  He thought that maybe the 12V power was turned off, but it is in a footwell where it would be hard to accidently do that.

With no 12V power there was no lights, hot water, or heat (the thermostat uses 12V.)  This failure was significant, but not really life threatening.  It could wait until morning – no need to wake emergency repair Tom…

At 4:30AM all of a sudden the problem was fixed!  Scott was groggy at the time, but grateful.

At 7:30AM Scott crawled out of his now-toasty-warm bed to find out what happened.  Turned out the inverter started complaining about low voltage or something soon after Scott went to sleep.  Tom turned it off to punish it as well, but the lesson went the entire night.  Tom turned the 12V back on at 4:30AM as he too was cold and noticed it was dark…

Tom cooked eggs this morning, and they were great.  Turns out the browning frozen hash browns is a lengthy process, so we were delayed a bit in departing.