June 11, 2010

June 11, 2010


From the Trailer Inn, Bellevue, WA N47º34.603 W122º8.034


No rain during the night but it was still cloudy.

We don't full time but spend several months a year on the road. It seems I have to be retrained at the start of each trip. There also seems to be a new set of small problems that have to be shaken out if you don't use the coach for a few months.

I thought I would share my experience with our sleep number bed, I know it’s a tough life. The problem seemed large, the mattress lost all air and the remote read "Er" no matter which buttons were pushed. We had trouble with the pump last year and it was replaced, so I had the number for warranty service. A CSA named Bob was very helpful. His first advice was to unplug and re-plug the pump, then hold down the "R" button on the remote. This procedure is basically a reboot or reset of the system. Due to where the pump is I envisioned this to be quite a job. Bob also gave me a list of trouble shooting items to make sure the mattress was holding air.

Before getting under the bed to unplug the pump I had a flash of adequate thinking. It occurred to me that turning off the 110 to the whole coach would be easier than getting to the pump plug.

I turned the power off and back on. I even remembered to make sure the inverter was off. I pressed the "R" button as Bob had instructed and low and behold the bed now works.

Now this might not seem like a difficult task to many of you but for an electrically, mechanically challenged individual like me it is quite an accomplishment.



I also managed to figure out why we couldn’t get the park cable television after hooking up. First I checked my part of the cable, it seemed fine so I hooked it back up and this time made sure the connections were tight. I then tried the channel numbers provided. I notice that when I ran the channels up or down with the arrow keys that some numbers were skipped. I then started looking at all the buttons on the remote and found a menu item that switched the TV from Air to Cable. Well, DUH. We are now in business with more channels than we could possibly need. Another mystery solved.



Flush with these two successes I decided to risk cleaning up the Jeep. I did the jeep and the front of the coach. I may do the rest of the coach Sunday. I say ‘may’ because when we get to our next stopping point there is a ¼ mile of dirt road to Bob Rodreick’s house.



We picked up Gerri’s mom at her hotel and went to meet other family members at their hotel and then on to supper. We ate at an Italian restaurant nearby, Piatta. At nine Kelly, Kayla’s aunt went and picked Kayla up from work and joined us back at the restaurant. Plans were finalized for attending tomorrow’s graduation and the dinner party broke up at about 11 PM.

The pictures are the family group before supper and Kayla and her mother after Kayla joined us.