The hydro goes out to the entire facility just as Bev is about to start the coffee maker. We put our old camping kettle with the whistle on the gas stove to heat the water to make our coffee in our manual coffee press unit and proceed to cook our pancakes on the gas stove instead of using the electric fry pan. While we much on our breakfast, we muse over the fact that this little old whistling tea kettle has seen a lot of mileage. We estimate that we have had it for nearly forty years and it is easily ten years older than that.
Vic writes…
I take a look at the leveler and find that this time there are 2 broken hydraulic lines. Instead of just replacing the lines, I need to find the root cause of why the line(s) are breaking. It seems that the pump part of the leveler assembly is able to flex about ½ inch. With all the bumps and rough roads, it doesn’t take long with all the flexing for the steel line to break. The first step of the repair is to add a bolt to the assembly to eliminate the flex as much as possible.
While under the rig, I hear a hissing sound, which leads me to the inside tire of the right rear dual tires. Maybe we’ll stay longer at this place….
The people in the park are very nice and helpful. One guy, George, has spent a lot of time in MX and offers to help. We go into the auto parts shops in the village but are unable to find the ferrules I need for the hydraulic lines. George recommends a trip to Guadalajara to a brake specialist call Frenos Unicos. During our little trip, we talk about his times in MX and he tells me about breaking his arm while surfing in Lo de Marcos in 1995 and him and his wife Carol running a campground. I ask him if he knows Jan & Dale and he says "Oh yes, I've know Zorro Plata (Silver Fox) for nearly 15 years." Small world.
In the afternoon, Bev and I head off to the big city to search out this Frenos Unicos. We spot the shop on the other side of the road but you can’t get there due to the median and no left turns. You need to find a “retorno” to do a U-turn to get back. It turns out that they don’t have the part. In my limited Spanish, I understand that I should go south past the “periferico” (ring road) to Zertuche’s. We find Zertuche’s and I see immediately that this is the spot as they specialize in hydraulics. They have the parts and we head back. We try to spot a place to have the tire fixed but don’t see a shop the fixes truck tires.
Bev read in the brochure that there are laundry facilities in the park. Instead of doing the laundry herself, she pays the local laundry gal $50 pesos (less than $5 Canadian) to do the 3 loads of laundry for her. Bev drops the laundry off at 11 am and it is returned at 4 pm after we returned from shopping in Guadalajara for new hydraulic lines and associated parts. This is wonderful as it cost $5.50US to do 2 loads of laundry at the facility in the Alamo campground.
We decide to relax in one of the pools. We have been told that they are hottest first thing in the morning but the pool was still about 95F at 4 PM. Oh, so relaxing – there is even a massage pool but we skip that, just floated in the regular pool.
When we come back we join 4 other couples for drinks and socialize. One of the Ontario couples left this afternoon. They are moving into the new house they purchased in Ajijic on the north side of Lake Chapala. It would have been interesting to talk to them and learn all the tribulations they went through to purchase the place.
We sense that there is a propane leak as we can smell the gas but we can't determine if it is coming from our rig or the one nearby. We give it high priority and say manana (tomorrow).
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