In Indiana – HUGE change of plans

First we were going to go up the coast…got to Savanah and realized winter is the time to visit the southern east coast.



Then the first of what has become three nights at three different Cracker Barrels in four days.  This one was in South Carolina.  Last night we stayed at a Cracker Barrel in eastern Tennessee.  Tonight it is a Cracker Barrel in mid-Indiana.  We had breakfast at the last two…tomorrow we are having lunch with a cousin of Marcias.  But WAIT, what happened to the Smoky Mountains???

    

After getting into camp on Saturday, and my brief adventure to Cherokee to post the last, short blog, we slept all night during a nice, mild rain.  Next day I decided to pull out and go back to Cherokee where we had Internet to catch church and so that Marcia could talk to her good friend in Phoenix who was in the hospital, and her daughter who was trying to sort everything out.  A phone call Saturday and on Sunday gave us the word that it looked bad…probably Leukemia.  So after church we headed out, figuring it was faster to go back to I-40 near Ashville than to travel over the Smoky Mountains in a a motorhome.  Hence, the night at Cracker Barrel in Tennessee. 

    

Even that plan did not go well for us.  There is a rest area around the 7 mile marker in North Carolina where we pulled over for 10-15 minutes.  Got down the road to the 4 mile marker and everything was at a stand still…and remained that way for 2 1/2 hours.  Sometime while we were at the rest area, two trucks collided, turned over, and stopped up everything.

It took an hour for this update to hit the NCDOT website.  Had we not had the ability, thanks to the new aircard, to sort out 4G and 3G, we might not have even seen this because the 4G, with a signal of 4 bars, was so overloaded you could not get anywhere.  EVERYONE was on their smart phones clogging up the cell tower with 4G…but that same tower had 3G, and it was running smooth…so I switched the card to 3G mode and we enjoyed Internet, sitting on the highway, watched people go off into the woods from time to time, watching people walk up to the crash site just to run back when it started raining.  For 2 1/.2 hours!!!!

   

According to a news account, a truck “lost” its trailer.  Here is the trailer (left), and the cab slid down the roadway a bit and landed up against the barrier on the left side of the road.  Did I mention the 2 1/2 hours wait on the highway????

So our plans are as follows:  Visit Marcia’s cousins in Indiana and Michigan.  Meeting one at this Cracker Barrel we pulled into tonight for a early lunch tomorrow.  Then we move up 150 miles to Michigan to meet with another cousin tomorrow.  Then make our way to Cedar Lake Indiana where we will have two nights of full hookups and meeting with the third cousin, one we saw back in 2012, on Friday night.  Saturday we head for Arkansas where I have a Doctor’s Appointment on Thursday, and we are having the front brakes and new grease boots put on the front of the RV at the same place that did the work on the back brakes last October.  After that we head for Phoenix…and that is as far as our plan goes for now outside of trying to fit another short visit in here and there along the way. 

Of course, everything is subject to change…but you have to have a plan.  Sometimes you don’t plan to pull over at a rest area…you don’t plan to call your sister’s house…you don’t get smashed by a truck which loses its trailer.  It all is in someone’s hands who is greater than us…

Fell on our Face, Got Right Back Up Fighting

You KNOW you are out in the middle of nowhere when the best place to eat breakfast is a brand new Denny’s.  So we get out of the RV before 8 am, and turn it over to Unique Automotive Service Center and off to Denny’s we go.  About done with breakfast and we get a call…

“Dave, we got good news and bad news...the part is in, but as we started looking at dropping the tank, well, we just don’t feel qualified to do it because it requires removing your leveling jacks, which are hooked up to hydraulics, ….”   I felt like loosing my breakfast, which, was a typical Denny’s breakfast.

By the time we get back to Unique Automotive Service Center, Gene has found a place down in Albuquerque which can do it all.  Since he was only 90% sure the part he had in hand was the right part, he suggested that we just have them get the part down there.  And boy oh boy, there is no charge….   WOW!!!!  Might just have to send a batch of donuts through overnight mail...

Our towing service is offered through Blue Sky.  Something I read once long ago was telling me that once towed, they won’t tow you again for 3 days.  I call, talking to three different people, and when I explain the situation I am finally told that perhaps customer service “might” have pity and make an exception…after all, the place it was towed to “should have” been able to fix it, but are now refusing due to the hydraulic situation.  Finally, after ten minutes with customer service, we are given a one time waiver, and they agree to tow it another 32 miles to Albuquerque.  Hallelujah!!!

Here is our “now favorite” tow truck driver from Tavenners Towing in Moriarty, NM, hooking us up to take us from Unique Automotive Service Center, to Duke City Automotive and R.V. Repair in Albuquerque .  By 12:30 we are there, and before we drive off to a motel…yes, we cannot stay in the motorhome at this place due to the locked fence around the place…they have already started working on it.  We forgot a few things, so I drove the nine miles back over to Duke City Automotive and R.V. Repair (Aaron of Duke City told me that getting a motel on the north side of town was highly suggested), and surprise surprise, they were already putting a new fuel pump in it!  "Ford had one in stock," said Aaron, "should be done by mid-morning finishing it up and testing it out."   We should be on our way tomorrow … or perhaps not.



We still have a problem with our towing service.  Do we dare drive another 1,100 miles without towing service?  I don’t think so, that could cost us hundreds and even a thousand dollars or more depending upon where we need a tow from.  So instead we are going to get an RV park in Albuquerque through the weekend, and while here, turn the engine on and off a number of times just to be sure it is working again…and test the levelers, and the generator…then we will head directly to Sacramento where we hope to be there for my dad’s 88th birthday.  I have not seen my dad on his birthday for a long, long time.  We have been lucky enough to make mom’s birthday three out of the last four birthdays…but dad, born 24 days earlier, was always out of luck.  This year will be the year we make it.  And anytime you travel by RV, you just have to realize that plans change, breakdowns occur, live goes on.

Marcia has told me over and over the following saying....



So we have one night in a La Quinta, right near a Cracker Barrel...the same Cracker Barrel we watched the Hot Air Balloons from a couple of years ago.  If all goes well, and we will know tomorrow morning, we will be back in our motor home, and sitting in a park in West Albuquerque for a few days.