On Tuesday we left the familiar and beautiful Meaford Memorial Park for the road to the south. The first part through southern rural Ontario is pretty until you get to the Toronto burbs and have to work around the end of Lake Ontario and then on to Fort Erie and the crossing into the US.

After crossing into Buffalo a wrong turn got us into some side streets in a pretty rough part of Buffalo … if there’s even a good part; but we muddled along until hooking up with IH 90 to the west along the Lake Erie shore. The border crossing was so quick and smooth that we really didn’t realize that we were in the US until we arrived in the crappy part of town.

About when we crossed the border we noticed that the AC, while not really needed, was only blowing hot air and we opened up the windows and vents. About the same time the cigarette lighter outlets in the dash as well as the radio, ceased to function. As we pulled into our planned stay at the KOA in Westfield, NY, we noticed the slides were very difficult to extend and the leveling jacks took a bit to work. All of this pointed to some serious problem with the 12V coach battery system and the possibility that our batteries were dying or at least failing to charge.

We got up this morning and made some calls for the service help. Erie, PA, was about 30 miles from our KOA and a fairly large town, so we thought that we could get some help there. We left the KOA and made it over to the Boyer RV repair place in Erie and they worked out our slide and level jack problems. Basically they had to rewire the battery leads to the coach battery supply, clean the batteries, and build a substitute battery post connection. Super service and personnel. The bottom line is that we had about a maximum of about one more day with the melted battery terminals and leads before something nasty might have happened. So we got that fixed by noon and then headed over to the Ford dealer to see about the AC and the dash 12V problem as those parts are under separate warrantee.

About 4 this afternoon we were informed that they had ordered a new AC compressor and that it should be here by Friday and that they had fixed the dash 12V problems … blown fuse I couldn’t find. We agonized for a while and decided not to wait here in Erie until maybe Saturday for the potential of a compressor and the prolonged installation while we were trying to live in the “Flying Scotsman” while they were working. We will deal with the AC when we get back home when we have more time to install the compressor. We then booked the KOA in Erie off IH 79 tonight, which is actually very nice, and will leave tomorrow for home.

Tomorrow somewhere in West Virginia and then the next night in Knoxville.