Camping World El Paso, TX

It has definitely been a while since I added a post, but we've been out of town, broke down, and wind blown all over El Paso, TX!

Most currently we are in the Camping World RV Park in El Paso, Texas. We left Casa Grande on Tuesday, spent a night in Benson, AZ and started out for San Antonio area on Wednesday. We took a little break and I tried to turn on the water pump - no go. Then we found we didn't have ANY 12 volt power.

This happened to us a couple years ago. We took it into a large RV dealer in Junction City, Oregon for repairs. They fixed it but couldn't really tell us how or why it happened in the first place. We also needed new house batteries so we thought this latest failure might be related to the old batteries (no such luck). But at least we have replaced the house batteries.

Not to interrupt the story, but John priced batteries all over the place and was coming up with prices like $125 - $150. We stopped into the El Paso Sam's. They were $61.48. Of course there was sales tax, a $2.00 "battery fee", and the core charge (which we got back when we returned the old batteries). Such a huge difference. We haven't had a Sam's membership in several years but the $40 membership fee paid for itself right off the bat.

Back to our tale. The 12 volt was still lost after the battery replacements. We had been seeing some signs for Camping World at Exit 2 just over the New Mexico - Texas border. We pulled in late (after dark). The security guard parked us first in line for service the next morning. We slept in the RV without 12 volt but the inverter worked.

Next morning, we checked in with the Service Dept. They said they would get us a diagnosis within 30 minutes and invited us to the "Cantina" for coffee and muffins. True to their word, they said we had a problem with the wiring and they were chasing it. We spent the day in the show rooms and Cantina. The culprit was the house disconnect switch panel. It had burned up. I guess we were lucky not to have a fire.

They got the part ordered to be in on Monday. In the meantime, we were parked in the service yard with full hookups until they have us fixed.

Now we aren't done with this process yet, but I have to say that it has been a great experience with this Camping World location. Courtesy, free full hook ups, free coffee, etc and, get this, a free lunch. Yep, they gave us tickets for lunch in the Cantina. Homemade enchiladas, pintos, rice, the best salsa I've had in a long time, cookies. They have a lunch every day except Sunday.

The staff seems to be really glad to be here and they really seem to know what they are talking about. If you need service in the El Paso, Texas area, I can really recommend Camping World. Exit #2 on I-10 in Anthony, TX (suburb of El Paso).