We were all set to leave, all the kids and dogs and stuff packed and stored and ready for travel. We were filled up with gas and we made one last stop to fill up propane. At the gas station, Mark hooked the two new 6 volt golf cart batteries up. Ryan jumped into the camper to get his headphones, his new, awesome headphones. We had just unpacked the last groceries and thrown out a bunch of garbage and it turns out the headphones were in a case directly above the garbage! Panic ensues! What if it fell into the garbage? Or worse, what if it fell out of the camper and was lying in the parking lot? We jump back in and — the van does not start. The batteries are completely dead. Mark fetches the battery charger and the cables — but the cables are not there! Ryan calls a cab to take him to the parking lot and they say they will be there in 5 minutes. A woman pulls up and offers to jump the van, but that always takes 10 minutes. The cab arrives, Ryan departs. The van gets started and we drive to find Ryan. He has not found his head phones.
After a small family conference, we decide that it’s smarter to spend the night in Fairbanks and run home to get the jumper cables than buy a new set since it’s late anyway. Shana and Mikayla show up!! Jack, Jen & Ryan head to Barnes & Noble.
Mark starts the small generator but it doesn’t start. Its a Honda ue2000i, still under warranty and has worked fine so it seems like we are destined to spend one more night here. We tend to go with the flow anyway, saves a lot of stress. Mark works on the generator and gets it to start but the lights are surging and flickering and it is all wrong.
Only one new event happened and that was the hooking up of the batteries. Mark checks the cables and finds that they are hooked up wrong and fixes it. Everything works fine! That is what drained the batteries and made the generator act strange. The kids come home from Barnes & Noble and Ryan finds his headphones – right by his bunk.
Leave a Reply