Western Adventure #41: Fishing Bridge

Day 41–9/12/2024

It was moving day. We moved to Fishing Bridge on the east side of the park on this day. We took the route to Norris and turned right at the junction to go through Canyon, then turned south (right) to get to Fishing Bridge. We turned left before Lake Village. Fishing Bridge RV Park is on the left just past the Visitor Center.

Maybe you can see some of the smoke from the generator in the background of our little hula girl clicking her hips.

We planned to drive separately because we weren’t going that far. I would follow Vince in the Jeep. However, we had to get going first. We had a bit of a problem because when Vince tried to start the engine, it wouldn’t start. 😳 He realized the engine batteries had drained down so much that the engine wouldn’t start. The aux start wasn’t able to give enough juice to get it started either. He started the generator to charge up the batteries. The generator was smoking something awful while it was running. He put a trickle charger on the batteries. But we had to wait until 1:00 before the batteries were charged enough to start. This made me very paranoid for a while because this was going to put us past check-out time. We got on the road before we got in trouble with the rangers for still being there past check-out time. Vince explained to them what was going on, and thankfully, they gave us grace in our trial. 

On the way to Fishing Bridge, we went through Hayden Valley, famous for its bison. We didn’t see bison when we went through there, but the maintenance crew was cutting a tree by the side of the road. They had the road closed briefly while they cut the tree, and Vince got a front row seat to watch it.  Then we were on our way again to Fishing Bridge.

You can tell from the video that we had to use walkie-talkies because the cell signal is non-existent in the wilderness areas of the park.

After we got to Fishing Bridge and got our campsite, we got settled. We were in Loop B, Site 61. I gathered the laundry and loaded up the Jeep to go wash the clothes. That laundry room was huge and immaculate! I actually enjoyed washing the clothes and crocheting while I waited. Vince stayed back at the camper trying to get well and figure out why the batteries were draining. At Madison Campground on the other side of the park, we did not have any hookups. Now that we are in Fishing Bridge, we were on shore power. But he still put a trickle charger on to keep the batteries from draining. 

                                  A picture of our campsite at Fishing Bridge RV Park

That evening, after we oohed and ahhed over the snow falling, I got on the Tiffin forums trying to figure out what it could be that was draining our batteries. I ran across a post that talked about the AC clutch, how it would drain the batteries if something was wrong with the AC. Vince and I looked at each other when I read that. We had had problems with the AC early in the trip when we were on our way to Bentonville. We were in Dardanelle AR getting on the interstate when Vince noticed our idle was going up and down. He turned off the AC, and it stopped. He had decided not to use it again. Now it is making us wonder what is going on with it. He decided to unplug the AC from the engine tomorrow.

                              A mix of snow and rain falling in Fishing Bridge RV Park