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.

Four States, Then Wind is Knocked Out of Our Sail

The wind can sure do its wonders on the sky…  Today was like the past few days, windy, windy, windy.  When we awoke in Kansas, the wind had not started up yet.  We even got trough that small portion of Oklahoma with no wind, and almost the small portion of Texas we drove through too…but that is where I first noticed the wind.  By the time we entered New Mexico around 10:30, it was windy, windy, windy.  By the time we got on I-40, it was as bad as it was in Kansas yesterday.

    

Marcia got these pictures of the dogs…if one was looking up, the other wasn’t.  Most of the time this is where they travel, although sometimes Skruffy gets on the bed, or on Marcia’s lap if she is real lucky.

At 12:30 the wind was let out of sail.  About 6,500 feet in elevation, and 226 miles from the Arizona boarder, the motorhome stalled out at 60 mph.  I got off the road easy enough, but did not make the exit which was a quarter mile down the road.  But our roadside service, Blue Sky (comes with our insurance) had a tow truck out within 90 minutes, and by 4:00 pm we were at the repair shop.  My initial thought was it was not getting gas…which means bad fuel pump.  Called Arnie, he agreed.

The Ford Dealership in Albuquerque would not be able to even look at it until Thursday or Friday…so we picked Unique Automotive Service Center in Moriarty, NM, about 30 miles away.  When I called, he said he would get a guy on it right away “if” we got it there early enough.  Tow truck was dropping it in front of the bay (above), and within minutes Sean was working on it.  He first checked for gas pressure, there was none.  He then checked to see if the pump was getting an signal to send gas, and it was.  New fuel pump should (fingers crossed, prayers said) by 10 am in the morning.  So far, very happy with our repairman Sean, very knowledgeable, and very nice.  As for us, we are sleeping in the motorhome like always…generator blasting away without anyone to disturb. 

Speaking of prayer…our tow truck driver was having a heck of a time getting the bolts of the drive line.  We were safely in our HHR watching, and I decided to go out and see what the problem was, which is how I found out.  Got back into the car and Marcia says, “We are going to pray…”, which I did.  Asked that he would have the strength and knowledge in removing these four bolts that would not budge.  Four minutes later he gets out from under the motorhome, and walks back our way.  I asked what he thought, and he said, “Oh, they just came right out that time!”  Amen

Anyone who has RV’ed enough knows what it feels like to follow your RV while it is being towed.  It is not a good feeling, but we are grateful that it broke down here, in the middle of New Mexico, instead of somewhere in the middle of “on the way to Alaska”.  It does not change our plans, although we will be late getting to Phoenix, that’s for sure.