Day 111: Necedah, WI

We figured out why my new Shimano chain failed so soon after it had been installed last week in Fort Wayne, IN: they made it too short to wrap around the big chainring in front and the big cog in back.  It fits, but not without tremendous stress on the chain, and some awful sounding noises to boot.  So for the next 4,000 miles or so that we will be pedaling down the road, that is one gear combination that I won't be able to use.  I'm not about to spend another $45 for a new chain.

 Camped out with Jenn Stuart at Camp Inn.

Fortunately for us, it rained our first night in Necedah, so we had a chance to see how the new galley cap seal worked at keeping the rain out: It didn't.  At least not on the curbside, which is where this problem originated back in November 2015.  Though interestingly enough, my earlier efforts to goober up that side with various sealants had been largely successful, with only rarely getting a small amount of leaking there.  So we let Craig throw some brain cells at it, in the hope that he could figure out what was going wrong.

Craig spent the better part of the day water testing and finding tiny leaks, and then repeating the process over and over.  He'd have everything sealed up tight, but then run a sprinkler over the back of the camper for an hour or so, only to discover another tiny leak.  Then the process would be repeated.

If we throw enough water on the galley hatch, a small amount of water always seems to find its way inside the hatch lid.  But we are talking monsoonal rain levels.  So we suspect we are about as watertight as is possible.  The one thing that we have learned is, whenever we know that it will rain, to center the hatch on the hinge, so that both sides are evenly centered over the side hatch weatherstripping (their unique hatch hinge, which also functions as a rain gutter, can move about a half inch side-to-side).

When we first got our van (the one we now own, not the one we special ordered) from Corwin Ford in Nampa, ID, there was some damage to the rear bumper.  The dealer supposedly fixed it by replacing a sensor and repainting the rear bumper.  Of course they couldn't get the color matched correctly (can you believe THAT??), and it wasn't long before the paint had chipped in a few places.  We pressure washed the van a week or so ago and the paint started seriously peeling (less than a year after being painted).  So we took it to another car wash here in Necedah, WI to see if we can't get more of the paint off.  It looks as though it may take a while, but eventually it will likely all come off and it will match the color of all the other exterior plastic surfaces.  Off course now we can see all the places where they sanded the bumper to prep for the paint...

Jenn Stuart joined us at the factory around the time when Craig and Cary should have been calling it quits on Friday.  She has a Camp Inn that is a year older than ours and has been living in hers since she bought it.  She had been having some work done on the camper while visiting grandkids in Madison, WI.

So the three of us camped out in front of the Camp-Inn factory showroom, in order to have access to shore power, and so that she could have access to water with which to top off her water tank before heading west back to Whidbey Island, WA.

We did our usual impromptu meal of cheese, crackers and veggies, hanging out together until we were seriously swarmed by mosquitos despite the bug spray and citronella candles that we had deployed.