Spring Fling - Day 58: No Longer Homeless in Ohio

We drove down to Mansfield, OH to the Ford dealership from Martha's sister's home in Brownstown, MI.  Our thanks to Laura and Andy for allowing us to stay with them since Thursday of last week!  

Along the way we had a couple of issues to resolve.

First, the starboard strap holding Yagi onto the rack in back of the CRV broke. Luckily the other straps held it in place but seriously leaning outboard. I hurriedly exited the highway and we put a new strap on. Close call! 

The second thing was Martha's iPhone started acting weird again. The screen blanked out and she could not use the phone so we decided to find the Verizon store in Mansfield.  The phone started behaving again as we waited for customer service but we decided to go ahead and upgrade her phone since it had been due since before the trip. 

As this was going on and her data was being transferred to the new phone, we drove over to the dealership and I chatted with the mechanic, Randy.  

Basically, the solenoid that is related to the house battery had to be replaced along with the fusible link connected to the chassis battery. It had burned and melted quite badly but the way it was installed it was not easily visible. Randy did not believe that the charging circuit to the house battery was compromised and we tested it with a clamp-on amp meter and it seemed to be charging when the engine was running! 

The bill was paid and I drove off following Martha to the Harvest host where we are staying at tonight.  It's called the Blueberry Patch Farm and this located between Mansfield and Lexington Ohio a long highway 42. 

Nice Harvest Host location, two RVs parking spots and we are the only rig here tonight.

The dealership mechanic also replace the failed wooden board that supports the house battery inside the battery box.  The house battery was also replaced by the dealer as the fear was the previous battery had been "cooked".  Unfortunately AutoZone gave them the wrong battery I think, it's a starting battery not a deep cycle battery. 

However, after a couple of calls with RichardM, it should be fine to keep this battery for now just do some calculations as I use it to figure out how many amp hours it really has. The fact that my electrical needs are not very high made RichardM State that it really didn't matter in that we should be fine.   I am guessing it only has, the new battery, between 42 to 70 amp hours, we'll see.

The plan for now is to install a DC to DC charger system once I get home to go with a LiPO4 battery since they have become less expensive on Amazon.

Otherwise, everything seems to be working on Uma and we will start the drive back to Colorado again tomorrow morning.  

Spring Fling 2026 - Days 52 - 57: Hanging Out in Michigan + Touring Belle Isle/Downtown Detroit

 June 18-24

We would hang out at Martha's sister's home in Brownstown, MI.

Lots of waiting for the Ford dealership in Mansfield, OH to call us with updates.  A couple of calls from me to them when I couldn't wait any longer.  Very frustrating.

Lots of binging TV series such as Marshals and Dutton Ranch.

Lots of trying not to fixate on the RV-relared woes, such a first world problem after all eh?

Managed to hurt my back shoveling dirt, helping my brother-in-law: Andy B. put new soil on patchy portions of his lawn.  A quick trip to Urgent Care the next day and I got some anti-inflammatory steroids and a muscle relaxant and I began to feel better.

We finally got a plan and quote from the Ford mechanic/dealership today.  They'll bypass the charging circuit that charges the house battery while the RV engine is running.  The mechanic just didn't know the intricacies involved 

He's going to install the bypass wiring and repair the house battery box along with replacing the house battery.  Must make sure tomorrow to remind them it has to be a deep cycle battery!

Wednesday, June 24

We saw a rather more picturesque view of Detroit today.  We drove to Belle Isle State Park which used to be under the management of Detroit until it declared bankruptcy a few years ago. 

I never realized how close Detroit is to Canada's Windsor city.  The Detroit River forms that border and you can look into Canada quite easily from the shores of Belle Isle,  the island in the middle Detroit River next to Detroit itself. 

In the next three pictures, Windsor is on the left and across the river is Detroit.

After walking around for a bit, we toured the Anna Scripps Whitcomb Conservatory:

A small but pretty good display of flora and it's free!

Next was a short walk to the Dossin Great Lakes Museum:

As you walk into the museum, the lobby is the restored lobby from the Detroit City III riverboat from the 1960s:

Here's some of the stuff that got my eye in the rest of the museum: 

The actual periscope from the USS Tambor from World War II: 

This is what you see when peering through the eyepiece: 

This is the bridge/pilot house of the William Clay Ford Longship.

The sisters try their hand at steering: 

I'm sure you've heard the ballad of the F Scott Fitzgerald cargo ship that sank in Lake Erie and for which a song was made.  Here's the timeline for the disaster: 

Outside the museum looking towards the conservancy: 

Then we drove into the downtown of Detroit around the Detroit River Walk and the Renaissance Center.

The Renaissance Center or Ren Cen

Windsor, Canada

At riverside base of Ren Cen

To save a whole bunch of walking around the downtown area, we found our way to the people mover train system and rode the loop.  I must say, the downtown area is actually not bad at all, cleanee than Denver for sure!

One last look at the Renaissance Center from the Riverwalk area, at a small carousel: 

Barring unforeseen complications, we'll be driving into Ohio tomorrow to pick up the RV in the afternoon.

Spring Fling 2026- Days 49 - 51: Homeless in Mansfield, OH

Tuesday, June 16

There we were, motoring along southbound Interstate 71 in Ohio, heading for a Harvest Host location for the night.  Suddenly, all the gauges in the RVs dashboard turned off! They turn back on immediately and we motored on wondering what was going on.

Less for a couple miles later, the gauge needles went down again and stayed down and the engine quit.  I pulled over onto a flat spot on the shoulder of the interstate and noticed I had no electrical power as the hazard lights were not coming on. 

We had also smelled a burning smell just before we stopped, and I found that burnt terminals at a solenoid mounted on the firewall of the RV. I also noted that we have no power in the habitat area. Examination of the house battery showed that the Coulomb meter's input terminal had come in contact with the house battery's positive terminal and generated quite a lot of heat and sparks!

So much so, that the cable going from the output terminal of the meter had actually melted right where it connected to the house battery!

So the theory now is, when the short circuit of the house battery was ongoing it was connected to the chassis battery because during motor operation the engine charges the house battery.  This link allowed some kind of surge from the house battery into the electrical system of the chassis and caused the electrical outage.

How did this happen?  Well, the previous day I had implemented temporary reinforcement of the bottom of the house battery tray.  It had developed quite the crack down the middle you see.  I had hoped the temp support would hold till I got the RV home.  Alas, nope.

I found the board you see supporting the battery had somehow slid out from under the tied down battery, allowing the battery to sag forward, allowing the cables to touch.

The picture doesn't show the probably fried shunt device which had actually come in contact with the positive terminal of the house battery.  

Martha called Coachnet to arrange for a tow truck.  The tow truck arrived pretty quickly and got things hooked up. Previous to its arrival, I had dismounted the motorcycle from the front cargo rack, and removed the cargo rack itself so that the RV could be towed. 

The front rack went into the tow hitch of the Honda CRV, and then I mounted the motorcycle onto the rack.  I then also disconnected the Honda CRV from the tow bars in preparation. 

Coachnet had found a Ford dealership in the nearby town of Mansfield, OH.  That's where the tow truck went followed by Martha and I in the Honda CRV.  The RV was dropped off and I checked it in with the service department.  We got a room at the Wingate Suites  hotel in the nearby town of Ontario, OH.  A rather depressing day as you might imagine.

Wednesday, June 17

Waited all day, but got no status on whether the dealership's technician had even had a chance to look at the RV and render a diagnosis for repair.  They apparently were quite busy.

A bit frustrated at the lack of communication from the service advisor, we got another hotel room this time at the La Quinta inn about 8 miles away from the dealership.  Much better hotel by the way, their beds were nice and firm were the previous hotels beds were way too soft and tended to lean, making you feel like you were going to roll out of bed.

Thursday, June 18

We woke early and decided to go talk to the folks at a different truck service center in Mansfield to see if they could fit our RV in.  They said sure, but their diagnostic guy was on vacation till Thursday of next week!  They would of course rake a look at it beforehand but realistically it would sit for a week.  We decided to put this option into our hip pocket and headed over to the Ford dealership. 

The service advisor we had been working with was now on vacation till Monday so we were switched to another service advisor by the name of Ben.  Ben was very courteous and attentive and arranged for me to talk to the assigned technician. We had seen the RV had actually been pulled into the service bay, you see, when we pulled up. 

Some discussion with Randy, the technician, and I explained what I thought had happened with the house battery, he agreed that it was a likely scenario and I authorized three more hours of diagnostic time for him to run down all the wiring involved.  

Well we waited for the diagnostics to continue, Martha and I drove the Honda CRV an hour or so to the heart of Amish country in Berlin, OH.

After a few hours in Amish country which was comprised of very few Amish sightings and crowds or should I say hordes up tourists seeking souvenirs totally unrelated to the Amish we returned to Mansfield.

We stopped by the mechanic and he'd continued tracing wires.  I delivered the key to the house battery compartment for his access.  He remains hopeful he can fix the RV's issue by end of next week.  I hope it's sooner 

In the meantime, we grabbed some clothing and stuff out of the RV and drove the Honda CR-V to Brownstown, MI to stay with Martha's sister and her husband Andy for a few days.

Spring Fling 2026- Day 48: COE Camping near Clark, PA

We left the Saxtons Distillery Harvest Host just before 7AM and made it to the Pennsylvania border at 940 AM.  It felt good to leave New York.

By noon we were at the Shenango Recreation Area Campgrounds, which is run by the COE: Corps of Engineers (US Army).  Not too far from the interstate though we had to take a detour off a few miles to avoid a low railroad bridge. 

The site I had originally selected last night  turned out to be undesirable in terms of people and crowded together cramped campsites.  While filling up with water, after dumping tanks, I saw a much better site and Martha got it for me in spite of it being a PITA process within the rec.gov app.  I ate the cost of the first site, and it was worth it.

The view from our site:

I spent some of the afternoon adding some reinforcement to the base of the storage area that holds the house battery.  I found it rotted and cracking while checking something else.  The repairs will hold till I get the RV home for more permanent repairs.

A Cardinal (I think) bird kept making a run at the RV's window and bouncing off.  We think it was seeing it's reflection and think it was a rival bird.

Here's a short video with the birds actions slowed down to 1/10th speed.  The weird sound on impact is due to the slow I down of the video.

Slow uploads but usable download speeds via cellular signal at this location.  It was much cooler than the last few days also. 

Tomorrow: Ohio