Sanborn County Park Campground- Saratoga, California (July 2018)

“There's your problem,” said the county electrician as he pointed at our surge protector. Then he added, “We've never had a complaint about voltage problems before.”

One of the first things we do when setting up at a campsite on warm days is to connect the electrical power so that Rosie’s air conditioner can start cooling things down. (Rosie is our 25 foot Airstream trailer.). Rosie is connected to the electrical box via our surge protector, which will switch off the power if it detects a problem. A common problem is that the voltage is too high or too low. 

When we connected to the power in this park, the surge protector clicked off and gave us an error code that the voltage was too low. The surge protector cycled back every two minutes then would pop off again with the same problem. We found the park ranger and he said that the county maintenance staff would check with me the next morning.

Rosie at Sanborn County Park Campground

I was impressed that the county sent an electrician out to work with us. After his initial observation, he disassembled our power utility connection box to measure voltage and current. 

It didn’t take long to see the look of concern on his face. The problem wasn’t our surge protector, it was the park's wiring. We were in one of the last three sites in the campground, meaning we were located a long distance from the park’s power distribution point. The wires used to connect our site to the electrical distribution point were designed to carry 30 amp electricity short distances and not as far as our site. 

My answer as to why no one had complained before was that not all RVers use surge protectors and most surge protectors only look for high voltage issues and not low voltages. 

The solution for us was simple. We needed to move to a site closer to the power distribution point. The maintenance crew worked it out with the reservations staff and we were reassigned to a new site that was much closer and didn’t have the low voltage problem we saw at our original one. 

I never thought about it before, but I learned a few things about how the electrical systems at campgrounds were wired. I think I will be able to talk semi intelligently to a park's maintenance crew if we ever see a similar problem. 

We felt very fortunate to be able to camp in this park as it was less than 10 miles away from our son, daughter-in-law and three granddaughters' home. This gave us an opportunity to bring our granddaughters out one-a-time for a Rosie adventure. It was hard to tell if we or our granddaughters were more excited about spending the night in Rosie.

Our oldest granddaughter (face not shared)

Our middle granddaughter (face not shared)

Our youngest granddaughter (face not shared)

Here are some specifics about this campground:

• Our site was paved with asphalt and needed some leveling tools 
• Our site had a 30 amp electrical service. We had some problems with voltage regulation (voltage dropped below 104 when Rosie used 10 or more amps) at our original site. We moved to another site and didn’t have similar voltage issues.  Our site had a water connection 
• Our site did not have a sewer connection 
• The campground had a dump station 
• The campground had dated restrooms and showers that were clean and well maintained 
• We were able to watch only one TV station using Rosie’s antenna 
• AT&T placed no signal over our site

This turned out to be a great place to camp. We were able to watch several deer and their babies every evening near our site. We also heard the actors practice for their next Shakespeare in the Park performance. We also loved seeing the big redwood trees in this park. Of course, the best part of this park was being able to visit with our son and his family and having our granddaughters spend the night with us in Rosie.

Deer at the campground

We were impressed with how the staff of this county campground responded to our power problem. A quick visit to the campground host brought the ranger to us. The ranger alerted the county's maintenance staff. The maintenance supervisor was there the next morning along with a county electrician. Once the electrician determined our site wiring was at fault and identified a site that would not have the same problem, the maintenance supervisor worked with the reservations staff to transfer us to that new site. Yes, it was a great little park with a very helpful and responsive staff.

Several weddings took place at the park while we were
there. One wedding party, including the bride and
groom, spent the night in the tent camping area.

Rosie parked in front of our son's house in California

Visiting the dump station on the way out of the park