Smile, even if it hurts!

July 15, 2015--When it rains, it pours. Or so the saying goes. That seems to be happening to us on this trip.

Let me see if I can inventory everything that has gone wrong:

• Overheating engine. Yep. We were driving along very nicely, at a comfortable 55 mph, listening to our audio book and watching the countryside pass by. Suddenly, I felt the motorhome slow down and asked Jim what was wrong. He said that an engine light indicating overheating had come on. He slowed down; it went off. Later it came on again. He would stop and let the engine cool. This went on all afternoon, to the point that we aborted a trip to a local attraction and made our way to Macon.
  
  Jim called his cousin's husband, who is a diesel mechanic. He offered suggestions, which include power-washing the three radiators. We'll see if that helps. We will do that tomorrow.
  
• My phone. My Galaxy S4 has been giving me problems for a couple of weeks. Mainly it has been overheating (is overheating the story of my life?) and then using up power fast. I have a hunch the cause is a rogue app or one that has gone bad somehow.
  
  But that is not the only problem: The phone has been having a problem charging, also. I think that is caused by a bad connection.
  
  I believe I have cured both problems, but it took all afternoon to do it because I had to do a factory reset, which then wiped everything off the phone. And I am now using a different charger, which successfully and quickly charged it. Tomorrow we will see how it behaves.
  
• My hotspot. I am still waiting for my Karma Go 4G LTE hotspot to arrive. It should be in my mailbox when I get home. In the meantime, I am relying on T-Mobile.
  
  On our last trip a couple of weeks ago, I purchased 30 GB of data; I probably did not use even 2 GB. T-Mobile had very little presence in Northwest Florida where we were camping.
  
  Before buying data for this trip I checked to make sure we would have connectivity. For the most part, it looked like T-Mobile would work. Our first night we camped in a remote campground. Beautiful, but no connectivity.
  
  Tonight, though, we are in Macon, Ga. Jim has a T-Mobile phone, and it accessed 4GLTE. I turned on my hotspot. Nothing. I finally called T-Mobile's tech center. The tech was no help. But when I removed the battery to look for a model number, it caused a hard reboot, and finally I got connected.
  
  My frustrations are not over with my mobile hotspot, however. It seems to have the same problem getting charged that my phone did. Or maybe it is a different problem. I can't wait to get my Karma Go, which will be powered by Sprint. I hope Sprint has coverage than T-Mobile.
  
• My computer. As if I didn't have enough problems, it seems that my computer's battery has died. I rarely use the computer on battery, so this is not a major problem. Except when I am in the middle of writing something and the power goes out. Which is the next problem.
  
• Electrical problems. As if overheating were not enough a problem to deal with, tonight all of a sudden the power went out. Or so we thought. Jim now thinks there is a malfunction in the electrical system that kicked the air conditioner off. We now know (we think) what not to operate.

All of these things are frustrating, but they will pass. We will get them resolved. And we will have a good time--in fact, we are, despite the challenges.

I just have to keep telling myself to smile:>

Until later,

Your Reluctant RoVer,

Linda