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 

Spring Fling 2026 - Day 47: Curtiss Museum

Heading west towards home!

As far as the use of the RV for traveling, this will be the last time it will be driven to the eastern seaboard states  of the US.

Today was the real start of the westbound portion of the trip. We drove over 323 mi and are now overnighting at a harvest host location provided by the Glen H. Curtiss Museum.

Known as the father of Naval Aviation, he designed and built not only planes but also motorcycles, cars and even boats!  There are also motorcycles for other manufacturers such as:

He also had a Navy ship named after him!

The initial great accomplishment:

His seaplane, America, was a cool early example of such planes:

Another famous plane by Curtiss:

In January of 1907, he was called:

There were many motorcycles from other makers:

The parking area for Harvest Host lot docking is pretty big, you could squeeze them and dozen rigs I think.  

We were the only ones using the site today, under cloudy skies and some light rain helping too cool things off a bit but it is still humid here in Hammondsport, NY.

Curtiss C-46 Commando

Spring Fling 2026 - Day 46: The Von Trapp History Tour

Our last day of this spring Fling before we start heading back towards Colorado. 

We drove to Stowe, VT to take part in the history tour of the real Von Trapp family of Sound of Music movie fame.

Hollywood of course changed the timeline, names, history and general details of the story involving this family. We listened to a briefing on the true history and how it differed from the version offered by Hollywood. 

Then there was a movie featuring the real Maria and showing her return to Salzburg and some backstory tidbits of her life that were featured in the movie, not quite exactly, but you get the idea. 

The tour was finished with a short talk by the current president of the Von Trapp Lodge which has about a 1000 person capacity in terms of lodging.  Quite the enterprise, you might say.  The president is the daughter of Johannes Peterson who is the son of Maria Augusta Kutschera, who was the Maria that married Baron Von Trapp.

Julie Andrews who played the character of Maria, the governess from a convent who ends up marrying the character portrayed by Christopher Plummer in the movie.

An interesting tour and I learned a few interesting tidbits, having been a fan of the movie for many many years. 

Here's the real family tree with the correct names: 

Movie Poster

The real Von Trapp Singers

The small family plot on the lodge grounds are the final resting place of both the Baron and Maria and alongside are some of their children.

We drove back towards New Hampshire, picked up the RV and headed to Brattleboro, VT for a one night stay at the Saxtons Distillery Harvest Host location.

Our host: Ginny 

We turn West tomorrow, having thoroughly scratched ( in Martha's words ) the itch to take the RV into the country's northeast.