Tuesday, November 25, 2014

New Orleans, LA - The Great Dry Ice Adventure

Today is the Great Dry Ice Adventure. Why would anyone need dry ice? Well, to put in a refrigerator to keep your food cold. Not just any old refrigerator but a refrigerator that doesn’t work as it should. We noticed a few days ago that our refrigerator was not as cold as it should be. We turned the temp gauge down but the inside temp kept rising. Luckily, I had just gone shopping and had it jam - packed with perishable foods like milk, yogurt, produce, etc. The freezer seemed to be holding its own but the refrigerator was heating up and heating up fast.

Now, if you’ve been following our story over these last few years, you’ll know that we’ve had our share of problems with RV’s from awnings that fall off because they are not anchored to any studs. to slide mechanisms that break, to windshields that seem to be falling. In fact, we just had the Leaky Leveling Jack Adventure and the Broken Heat Pump adventure last week. And, I’m not even counting the self-inflicted wounds due to choices we made like the floor that was installed wrong which we had to tear up and replace or the broken motor in the front MCD shade which we also had to replace. But that’s just a short listing of the things we’ve had to contend with and only in the last 2 RV’s. We should have paid attention when we bought this RV and noticed that the bathroom exhaust fan blew in and the stereo wires under the counter were attached to - nothing. Maybe those things should have been a clue. Yep, you say, they bought the last RV off the line on a Friday before a long weekend. But, how do you tell? How can you look at an RV and say, oh, yeah, the refrigerator will die in 3 years. Or, oh, yeah, the jack seal will break in 2 years. Maybe you’ve got future glasses and can see those things but Gary and I just have present glasses. And, our present is a refrigerator that is not cooling our food.

Thus - the Dry Ice Adventure. I look up dry ice in Google and find 3 dealers in the New Orleans area, all miles away. I called a local grocery store chain and they did not carry it. I heard that UPS might carry dry ice for shipping fish or whatever, but the one I called did not. So, across town we went, bought our dry ice, put it into our freezer and refrigerator along with 2 thermometers and we’ll wait. Our freezer dipped rapidly to 10 degrees but our refrigerator is holding steady at 50 degrees. And, we’re eating that produce and yogurt as fast as we can. Salad for lunch one day and veggies for dinner. The next day I mixed it up and we had veggies for lunch and salad for dinner. Yogurt for snack. No, it’s not that bad but we are concentrating on those items since the freezer is holding its own.

Dry ice comes in 10 lb chunks wrapped in plastic. Here you can see that we’re all ready with the ice in our freezer compartments and in the refrigerator. Look how full that refrigerator is. Compare it with the picture on the day we get the refrigerator fixed December 6.
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The next day, I checked and the freezer had dipped down to 29 degrees. I picked up a yellow pepper - hard as a rock. The orange pepper was the same. Pretty to look at but it ain’t gonna be pretty when it thaws. And, the carrots - rubbery and grainy. Aha - pepper/carrot borscht. Nothing like a good soup but a soup with these ingredients - well, we’ll see. I also cleaned out the rest of the produce that would go into a soup and cranked up the crock pot. It was ok. Again pretty to look at but interesting to the palate. And, how about a salad? Gotta use all the produce.
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Now, you’re asking why we don’t get the refrigerator fixed while we’re her in NOLA? Good question. But, there are not many RV service facilities here and, when we called one, they told us they had time to look at it on Wednesday. But we leave for Alabama on Saturday. We don’t have the time to wait for them to analyze, order parts and get them in. Besides we will find more people to look at it there in RV land. NOLA is not RV land. We already have an appointment with a guy who lives in the Escapees park where we are staying in Summerdale. He probably can come and look at it when we arrive. How handy is that? Much better than hieing ourselves across NOLA only to find out that they need to order a part which will come in after we leave.

Yes, we seem to have our share of RV problems. But, there are much worse problems in this world that the little RV annoyances we have. I had a co-worker who told me that every problem she faced at work could be solved: some took time, some took money and some took both time and money. How right she was. I’m thinking that this problem will take time - AND lots of money. Somehow, I’m not sure I worked all my life to spend my money on a broken refrigerator. I thought I worked hard to have fun later in retirement. Silly me.

This adventure will continue. Keep tuned.

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