When we relocate, we don’t always go out and sightsee the area. We’ve spent time in Casa Grande before – we saw the Casa Grande ruins and Donna toured a working cotton farm. I wrote about it in this post. Our week in Casa Grande this time mostly revolved around playing pickleball. We started our days early, had breakfast and coffee and hit the pickleball courts around 8:30am. The park doesn’t allow pickleball before 8:30am due to noise complaints.

Of course the other thing we did most days was cook great dinners. On Saturday, I got the Traeger wood pellet grill out and cooked chicken quarters. Donna created a honey-sriracha glaze that I brushed on 15 minutes before I took the chicken off the grill. It was delicious. Donna served it with steamed asparagus and sweet potato mash.

Honey-sriracha glazed chicken hot off the grill

Honey-sriracha glazed chicken with asparagus and sweet potato mash

On Saturday evening, we planned to watch a couple of episodes of Orphan Black. We have this new-to-us series on a hard drive that our friend, Joel, in Mesa recorded for us. We run the hard drive through my laptop which is connected to our TV with an HDMI cable. The show started to play, then the sound quit working. I was sure it had something to do with the laptop, but I couldn’t get it to work. Eventually I figured out that the sound worked on my laptop, but it wasn’t coming through the surround sound system.

Our coach is equipped with a DHS Mobile Theater System with QSurround 5.1. This system powers a five-speaker surround sound set-up. The amplifier has been running hot since we got the coach. I always open the cabinet that houses the amplifier to allow good air circulation to keep it from overheating.

I couldn’t get it to work, so we hooked up an external speaker to the laptop and used it for sound. On Sunday, I traced the wiring to the amplifier. I pulled the TV out of the cabinet. When the TV was upgraded to an LED flat screen, the installer did a good job of mounting the new TV. However, I found that he wired it incorrectly.

The TV has a mono audio output jack. He ran a connector from the mono output to a splitter, then ran two cables from the splitter to the stereo input on the amplifier. This created an impedance mismatch, hence the reason why the amplifier runs hot. The output from the mono audio output jack should have been run directly to the mono input of the amplifier. The DHS software would create a five-channel output from the mono input. It seems that the impedance mismatch burned out the amplifier.

The DHS amplifier also receives audio from the radio and creates a four-channel sound system. I tried operating that and it didn’t work either, leading me to believe the output stage of the amplifier is blown. The weird thing is, when I had the TV out, I disconnected the audio output jack and set the TV to run audio through the internal TV speakers. I got no sound from the TV. I’m finding it hard to believe that the TV internal sound system and the external DHS amplifier both blew at the same time. I need to investigate further. Meanwhile, I’ve watched four NFL football games without sound. It’s an interesting way to watch the games, but it can be hard to understand some of the penalties that are called without hearing the commentary. Yeah, I know – it’s hard to understand some of calls regardless of sound.

Donna had a new recipe going in the slow cooker all afternoon. She made pork tenderloin with apple, honey and cinnamon. It came out so tasty – kind of a sweet, Asian-flavored pulled pork.

Slow cooked pork with basmati brown rice and green beans with sliced almonds

We pulled out of Fiesta Grande RV Park on Monday and made the 170-mile drive to Fortuna De  Oro RV Resort in east Yuma (map). We stopped for lunch along the way at the Subway sandwich shop in Gila Bend. This Subway is located next to a truck stop with ample room to park a big rig. It even has a few full hook-up RV sites behind it!

When we arrived at Fortuna De Oro, there was a bit of confusion. I pulled into the driveway with a sign for Fortuna De Oro RV Park. There wasn’t any further signage or parking spaces. I continued down the road between park model home sites. I didn’t see any pull-through RV sites. Then I saw another entrance down the frontage road with a sign that read Fortuna De Oro RV Resort. I circled the RV park and got back on the frontage road and entered the drive at Fortuna De Oro RV Resort. There wasn’t anyone at the guard shack and I drove in. There wasn’t an office that we could see and the only signage was for the golf course and restaurant.

As we drove in, I saw the pull-through RV sites. I stopped and Donna walked over to a building marked Activities Office. She asked where we were supposed to check in. Turns out the check-in is at the office in the first place we stopped – the one with the RV Park sign. We were supposed to park alongside the frontage road across from the office to check in. How anyone would know this without any signage is beyond me. Donna phoned the office – they told her to pick out an empty pull-through site, then come to the office to check in.

We picked site 709. Donna walked to the office while I began to set up. The first thing I do is connect our Progressive Industries Electrical Management System (EMS). We had a problem. It didn’t show any power at the pedestal. I phoned Donna – she was at the office by then – and told her we had a problem. The receptionist at the office said we should have power, there wasn’t anything she does to turn it on. I checked a couple other sites and couldn’t get power at any of the pedestals.

About then, a maintenance guy from the park came up on a golf cart. I showed him the blank display on the EMS. A second maintenance guy arrived and said the pedestals were just reworked and should be okay. I went inside and got my Fluke multimeter. I read the AC voltage from the two hot legs to the neutral wire and read 120 volts on each leg. The pedestal was okay. My EMS wasn’t working. This was odd. It worked fine when I disconnected at Fiesta Grande that morning but was DOA when I plugged it in at Fortuna De Oro. This has been a bad week for electrical gremlins. I plugged our 50 amp shore power cable directly to the pedestal and powered up the coach. I don’t like being unprotected against power surges, but all I can do is send the EMS back to Progressive and have it repaired. It comes with a lifetime warranty and they provide excellent customer service.

They’re pretty serious about pickleball here. They have eight courts and some players that play at a high level. Donna and I hit the courts this morning and will do it again tomorrow.

One of the things I wanted to do in Yuma is get the coach washed and waxed. I’ve read on blogs and forums that Yuma is the best place price-wise to have this done. Apparently the competition is fierce and the prices are the best in the country. I made an appointment for a soft water wash, towel dry and hand wax of the entire coach. I’ll also have the wheels shined up.

We plan to pull out of here on Thursday, spend one night boondocking in the desert, then we’ll check in at Mission Bay RV Resort in San Diego on Friday.