October 31, 2023 - November 10, 2023 - Getting Ready to Head South - Backup Camera Issue Continues

Getting Ready to Head South:

Well, now that the house windows have been installed, we began to think about the trip south. Part of that process was getting doctor appointments out of the way. Monday I had an eye doctor appointment, Tuesday my annual visit with my GP, and Wednesday a visit with the Allergist for an allergy shot. I should be good to go. I found a doctor near our park in Florida who will give me the allergy shots each week. I'll use her as my Florida GP as well. Kelly made all of her doctor appointments and blood work as well. 

With all the stuff we want to take to Florida and leave down there, we have to take the truck down. We decided to start packing the truck today (November 10th) so that we could figure out what was going to fit and what had to be left behind for a future trip. We picked today to load up the truck because we had nice weather, Alexa and Aaron are coming down tomorrow for the weekend and an early Thanksgiving (so no work then), and we didn't want to run into any snags with last minute packing. Before the packing process started I filled the gas tank and checked the oil so we are ready for the road.

Almost everything we want to take to Florida fit in the truck. Some wall hangings will have to go down on another trip. With all the stuff in the back seat that couldn't get wet, there was little room for our clothes. We crammed a bunch into totes in the bed of the truck. There will be a lot of ironing to do once we unload. I know we have an iron in Florida but we may have to hunt up an ironing board. We should be able to find one at a thrift store because nobody irons anymore.

The back seat is stacked to the ceiling with items which cannot get wet or which we need to access during the trip. There is a small space on the blue cooler for the overnight bag we will use on the way down. Here are a couple of pictures. 

Interestingly the back seats left in their normal positions provided more room for larger items than flipping them. I thought this was odd. In my Ram truck, flipping the seats up created a lot of room. Not so with the Toyota.

The bed is tarped, bungeed, and cargo netted. Almost the entire bed floor is covered with totes.  By using the totes nothing packed in the bed should be harmed by rain or other foul weather. To be safe I Duck taped all the lids on the totes. The reason the pile sticks up so high is that we are taking down two rod iron rockers for the front porch.

I am happy to have this project completed and the truck in the garage until we leave. 

One last traveling detail was to connect my phone by bluetooth to the truck sound system so that we could listen to audio books on our way down. The truck has an updated, sophisticated Pioneer sound system but it would not pair with my phone. We tried Kelly's phone and it would not pair either. Our phones showed they were connected but the readout said that the connection failed. We will take our Bose speaker and Bluetooth to it. We find listing to audio books makes the trip go faster. 

Homer's Backup Camera, Monitor, and Wiring Harness:

When the new wiring harness arrived the other day I hooked everything up. Still nothing worked. I called RV Cams and was online with a tech for almost an hour. He had me get an alternative 12-volt power source so that the system got its power from that rather than the motorhome, in case that was an issue. Still nothing worked. I boxed up the monitor, camera, and new wiring harness and sent it back to them once again for testing. They tested it and found that the new wiring harness was bad. They are replacing it under warranty, but I still have to pay shipping for the third or fourth time. If, upon getting everything back, it doesn't work, I'm going to give up on it until spring when I will buy a whole new system.

While waiting on the camera issue to get resolved I took the two chassis batteries out and put them on a smart charger in the garage for the winter. It is a chore to get them out of battery compartment. The compartment was not designed for the taller 6-volt batteries I use. After testing the monitor and camera when I get it back next week, I will put Homer in storage and pull out the chassis battery and put it on a charger in the garage as well. Lots left to do this week before we leave.