Broke My Cardinal Rule

We’ve enjoyed our stay here at the Destin Army Resort so much that we extended until next Wednesday, when we absolutely have to “pull chocks” and head to South Carolina.  Our absentee ballots are waiting at our daughter’s house, we want to cast our votes and mail them out in time to be counted.

Despite the lovely weather, we both have come down with colds and laid low yesterday.  Yes, even when you are living your dream, life still happens, including colds.

The sun has been shining and the weather has been so lovely I put out my patio awning and have left it out.  My cardinal rule is that if I’m not sitting under the awning, I put it in.  Breaking that rule has now bitten me in the butt.

Laying in bed this morning, I started hearing rain on the roof.  I got up and went to put up the awning and “Clunk”!  It jammed in the down position.  There was already a lot of rain water trapped on top of the awning.

My type of awning (A & E) has a weak electric motor to get it to retract.  It always has strained to roll up when everything is normal, a design flaw.  It also has an automatic dump feature that if too much water gets trapped on the awning, one end will dip down and shed water.  Unfortunately my awning design does not allow you to dip one end down in advance to drain water.

Of course the best made plans of mice and men often go astray and they have big time.

I’m sitting here, watching the rain pour down, with water draining off the low end.  Marti and I tried several times to help push the awning with brooms to help it roll up unsuccessfully.  Pulling out my owner’s manual, I found there is supposed to be a manual crank at the rear end of the awning to crank the awning up.  Looking it over carefully, I found out my awning is not equipped with that feature.

Further research has left me with two options, one is to disconnect the wiring and install a special wiring harness, connect it to my car battery to help the motor wind up the awning.  The second option is to install an awning strap, then disconnect a screw on the front side of the awning and it should roll up by itself.  Once that is done, the awning is disabled and cannot be used until fixed by an RV technician.

Both the awning strap and wiring harness are in my bag of owner’s manuals.  So I’ll get the awning up one way of the other, but I have to wait out the storm.  Not big on the idea of standing on a  metal ladder with lightening crashing around me. 

Sometimes I have good advice for RV owners.  It would be good if I always listened to my own advice.  Duh!!!

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