Monday, 28 August – St Louis IL – still….

Nice sunny morning. We pack up and are ready to head off before 10am.  Hmm… the fridge is beeping - it doesn’t want to run on LP!!  So check out the propane tank and find the cut off switch/solenoid is not switching over so no gas is getting through to any appliance!  It’s not the end of the world as we know it, we just turn on the generator and run the fridge that way!  But we google - shed loads, make multiple phone calls, U-Tube and everything else we can think of!  The phone calls aren’t getting us anywhere (we aren’t even exactly sure what the Americans call such things) so we get on the road - it’s about 11.30 now and we need to either leave or stay another night here.   

Enroute we stop off at Lowes (kiwi version of Mitre 10) and buy a magnet, maybe that will reset the solenoid switch - but it doesn’t!  However we do get some more local knowledge suggestions on where to go next.  After another drop in and some more suggestions and a few more wild goose chases (Apache Village RV Center a few miles away in Missouri are booked out until October – seriously!!  Are you at all efficient??) we decide bugger it, we will just find a campground with electric and internet. We are in Missouri now, having crossed the Mississippi River which is the state line.

Missouri state line in the middle of the Mississippi

Hope we get a nice welcome!!

It’s already 3.30 pm and the black clouds have yielded thunder and the rain has just started tinkling, so we head across the Mississippi back to Illinois (many more overnight options in this state rather than in the same 30 mile radius in Missouri) and book in at the KOA at Granite City, IL.  They are very helpful they have a tame mobile RV service guy – Dan’s Mobile RV Service.  We phone Dan and he will come tomorrow morning at 9.30am, bless him!

After the rain shower stops, Kim goes out and has another play and manages to fix said solenoid thingy!! So we phone Dan and cancel tomorrow, save $70 for call out and $70 per hour labour!!  It’s been one of those 'I need a wine days'!!