The mechanic came first thing in the morning, and immediately got the RV running by injecting fuel directly into the carburator to bypass the thing that was blocking it. He said now that it was running we should bring it into his shop so he could address the underlying problem. He immediately seemed like he knew what he was talking about way more than any of the other mechanics we had talked to, so we decided we should go for it and have him fix anything he could. He figured out that the fuel filter had gotten clogged so he replaced it. He said we also might need to get the fuel pump replaced, but that would take all day and we could get by without it for a while, and he knew we were eager to be on our way, so he recommended we just get it done next time we were stopped. He also figured out the cause of the problem that was making the car not start, which all the other mechanics had incorrectly diagnosed: there is a problem with our ignition safety switch, where it incorrectly thinks we are in drive when we are in park, so it refuses to start the car. He said that's an easy replacement, but he would have to order the part and it would take a while, so he recommended that Michael order the part and replace it himself, and taught him how to start the car without a screwdriver in the meantime. He also gave us great advice about our generator (which he thinks is now fine due to the fuel stabilizer) and our noisy heater, let us use his wifi so the kids could do online school while he worked on the car, and let us fill up our water tanks, which were so close to empty we had let our dirty dishes pile up and stopped flushing the toilet. And he charged us way too little. The mechanic was Mexican, and justified my feeling that it's always better to hire women and people of color when possible because they have to be better than white men to succeed, so they're probably pretty good at what they do. If you're ever in Eloy, Arizona in need of a mechanic, I can definitely recommend a good one!
We left around 1pm, behind schedule, but still early enough to make it to my dad's tonight. We grabbed takeout lunch at a wonderful little hole in the wall Mexican restaurant in Eloy, and started heading East again. While we were driving, I ordered the part he said we needed to be delivered to my dad's, and found a mechanic in Silver City who could replace the fuel pump (although later Michael decided we probably didn't need it, as the problem that was supposed to solve had worked itself out).
We do two types of camping in the RV: camping at a site with hookups for electricity, water, and sewer, which is really nice but expensive, and dry camping, where we just camp on the side of the road and use our tanks and our generator. We can pretty easily do one night of dry camping between hookups, and we can do two if we are extra careful with water and skip showers. Last night was our third night of dry camping, and we made it, but the water situation was definitely getting tight, and I was pretty desperate for a shower today. After we filled up the water at the mechanic's, I could finally wash the dishes!
We stopped at the Texas Canyon rest stop, where we always stop when we drive through Tucson because there are awesome rocks that the kids like to climb:
I took a few pictures of our RV, which we named Sea Lion. It looks huge compared to a person or a car, but it looks tiny next to commercial trucks:
Then we stopped at The Thing, a bizarre roadside attraction that is advertised with giant billboards for hundreds of miles and that I really can't describe, except to say it fit with our dinosaur theme. The only picture we took there is of this weird wine holder in the gift shop:
And then we headed into New Mexico! We'll be spending the next several days visiting my dad near Silver City, New Mexico. He has two houses in the woods outside of town that he uses for vacation rentals. Normally we all stay in the same house, but due to covid, we'll be staying in one house and my dad and his partner will stay in the other house. We are pretty excited to have a bit more space for a while, and are ordering supplies and scheduling work to be done on the RV while we are stopped for a bit.
We finally made it to my dad's driveway around 8:15, but it took another hour to figure out how to get it up the steep rocky driveway (we had to take the bike rack off), and haul all our stuff in. My dad had left dinner for us, and we had a delightful dinner and even more delightful shower, and finally made it to bed not in the RV.
Our route for today:
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