Day 2 of our Drive to Yellowstone National Park

June 2, 2014

(Lake Paradise Resort, Lone Jack, MO)

We left early this morning to head further west on I-70.  It didn’t take long to get ready to leave since our truck was still connected to the 5^th wheel.  The drive through Kansas City
and then Kansas was uneventful.  We did run into some rain in western Kansas but it didn’t slow us down much.
We crossed into Colorado and stopped for the night at Shady Grove WiFi Campground in Siebert, CO.  Again, we stayed connected to the truck in order to be able to leave early in the morning.  It was a small park but it is a well maintained campground.  We did have an issue with the electrical power.

We have an autotransformer that I install between the 50 amp outlet at the campsite



pedestal and the cord from the RV.  It senses the incoming voltage on both legs of the 50



amp service.  If the voltage on either leg is low it will boost the voltage up to an acceptable level.  Appliances and electronics do not tolerate low voltage well at all.  Low voltage can lessen their life span; especially for motors like the AC, refrigerator, fans, etc. The autotransformer has lights that indicate whether or not the system is working correctly.  Other lights indicate when it’s boosting either input.

When I connected the electrical, I noticed that the lights indicated that the autotransformer was boosting one of the inputs.  Also our surge suppressor was making a loud clicking noise similar to when it switches over to the generator.  The electrical circuits inside the RV weren’t working correctly either.

After checking some things I eventually removed the autotransformer from the system and everything seemed to work correctly.  I’m not sure why the autotransformer seemed to be the culprit but I’ll keep an eye on things as we move from campground to campground.  I suspect the problem was with the park power.

We’re approximately 130 miles from Denver, CO so we should arrive fairly early in the day.

Thanks for following along!