An old joke: Children are hereditary; if your parents didn’t have any chances are you won’t either.

We are going to pause here to bow down to our parents. For without them we would not be here.

Ryan’s folks did ALL THE WORK of finding this RV for us. They researched the makes and models, told us to go to RV shows to figure out what features we wanted, searched Craigslist daily, flew to Texas to buy it, drove it to San Francisco, and even registered it in Minnesota for us. Plus, they’ve been over generous with their time and counsel as we’ve been troubleshooting our latest problems. They are miracles, the both of them. If you don’t already have Midwestern parents, do what ever you can to acquire a set. They’re godsends.

As for my parents, Dad is a mechanical genius and Mom does my taxes every year (don’t judge me). Dad has isolated at least part of our problem – a blown fuse. There are dozens and dozens of fuses on an RV and from where they’re located you’d think they were installed by a sprinkler system.

There’s a set under the driver’s side floorboard, another under the driver’s seat, another tucked into the chassis, another in a compartment next to the stairwell, and another under the stove. We basically took apart the RV trying to figure out where the problem was (the offending fuse is under the driver’s seat, for the record).

We’ll get the new fuse in the morning. This will likely solve the problem of the batteries not charging when we’re driving, but we’re not sure yet if it will also allow us to charge when we’re plugged into shore power.

So a giant THANK YOU to both sets of parents, and indeed to parents everywhere for possessing the skills we do not have. Also, for letting us do our laundry.