We Have a Screw Loose (Presho, SD)

I know what you’re thinking. It’s kinda crazy to live in your Airstream while you look for a new house. We must have a screw loose!

Yes, probably… but also, literally.

In Stewart Brand’s book Maintenance of Everything, Part One, he uses some interesting stories to illustrate why maintaining things is just an undeniable part of life. You should embrace maintenance, Brand suggests, rather than foolishly neglecting things and hoping they will take care of themselves. Luckily, for Chisoku, Craig is pretty handy, and we’re accustomed to her constant need for maintenance. As Chisoku trundles down the road behind the truck, her bits and parts rattle loose and shift. Unfortunately, that means there is always something to fix. But normally, we are up to the task.

During our recent stay at the sleepy New Frontier Campground in Presho, South Dakota, we had a rather unexpected maintenance task pop up. (Or maybe out?)

We often find loose screws on the floor of the Airstream. Sometimes we keep them, but other times we don’t. It’s often difficult to figure out where they came from. So, we assume we can run to a hardware store to buy a replacement screw once we figure out where it belongs. On this occasion, that wouldn’t have been possible. 

Soon after we parked in our spot at New Frontier and started un-stowing all the things that get packed away while we’re driving, I found a dark-colored screw on the floor and handed it to Craig. We couldn’t figure out where it belonged. So, he set it on the dinette table. The next day, we were doing our morning activities. I had taken Lizzie for a walk. (Dottie sleeps in.) We had had our breakfast. Craig decided to go outside for some reason, but he couldn’t open the door! (I guess Chisoku didn't want us to leave.)

He looked at the door plate and realized a dark-colored screw was missing. Ah, the dark-colored screw! We’d heard of people locking themselves *out* of their Airstream because the mechanism to lock it can get bumped when you close it. It’s a known design flaw, and there are many after-market devices you can buy to prevent this type of thing from happening. (These people at NoLOX made a whole business out of it!) However, we hadn’t realized you could get locked *inside* your Airstream! There would be no running to the hardware store to buy the missing screw since we couldn’t get out. We had to find it. Craig was pretty sure he’d thrown it away. So, he went about digging through our trash (ick!) I was determined (and hopeful) to find it in a less disgusting place and started going through all our drawers and bins where a screw could be mindlessly dropped in for safe keeping. Alas, he finally found it during a second search of the trash bag, way at the bottom, among the used coffee grounds (double ick!) But even replacing this screw did not make it possible to open the door. Ugh.

Airstream’s Flying Cloud model has a large back window on one side that is made to be used as an emergency exit should you ever need to get out when the real door is blocked by something like a fire. (Apparently, it may also be there because Airstream knows its doors are faulty and can lock you in.) Craig took that window’s screen off and climbed out of Chisoku, then unlocked the truck to get our spare Airstream keys out of it so he could unlock the door. He then proceeded to take the face plate off and figure out how to ensure it would work properly. I can’t describe what he did, but it seems to work now (fingers crossed). 

Another maintenance issue that came to a head while we were at New Frontier had been driving Craig crazy since we left Big Hollow Recreation Area. Our lithium batteries and 12-volt battery were not recharging the way they should be. We have been on “shore power” (i.e., plugged into electricity) at most of our stops so far. So, we haven’t had to boondock (i.e., run off-grid) very much. However, certain things in the trailer rely on the 12-volt battery. So, we really need it to stay charged.

More than two years ago, Craig installed an inverter/charger in Chisoku. This way, we can use the regular electrical outlets throughout the trailer even when we are not on shore power. The inverter/charger has a way of monitoring how much power the batteries have and governing how much they charge. Something was getting in the way of that, such that it didn’t have accurate information. Craig tried all kinds of things to isolate the problem. He turned things off and on again, pulled things out, put things back, investigated this power source or that one. Searched the Internet, read the forums, watched the YouTubes. Then, finally, while we were going through another phase of turning everything off, it occurred to Craig to look one more time at the batteries themselves. He had already checked whether they were loose in some way. But sure enough, when he looked closer, he found that one of the batteries had a bolt loose. (Bolt, screw, same difference.) This issue apparently caused the batteries not to charge and screwed up (pun intended) the inverter/charger’s ability to know the true status of the batteries.

The rest of our stay in Presho was pretty chill. I washed our Ruggable rugs and did other laundry. Craig cleaned the solar panels on the roof, and we cleaned behind Chisoku's front window shields. I did some personal maintenance by jogging around the area, and we took the dogs on plenty of walks. Now, we can continue our journey westward with all loose screws and bolts (that we know of) tightened back into place (except for maybe the ones in our heads). Here are some more pictures from our stay...