The day is Sunday April 24, 10:40 am. Its a beautiful day, no traffic to speak of, and we are headed to Rawlins, WY for 2 nights. The travel was good, that is until we got to mile marker 115, 90 miles from our destination. We went over a bad piece of uneven road a few miles back and soon noticed the motorhome was making a strange noise and we could feel a vibration. It didn't feel like a tire but something strange has happened. We like traveling secondary roads, which normally isn't a problem, but they don't have rest stops and pullovers like the highways. We drove a few more miles and, as luck would have it, there was a huge pull off on our side of the road. Rob pulled over to evaluate the situation. Not good! The backend was sitting a lot lower than the front which could only mean we lost the air in the rear airbags. Seems like deja vu. Nothing to do but call Good Sam for roadside assistance. That was kind of useless:
1. We were nowhere near a big town. Closest was Rawlins, 90 miles away.
2. It was Sunday.
3. No place around had mobile service. In order to tow our motorhome the driveshaft has to be disabled.
Good Sam said if we were in a safe location, then we should call them in the morning and they would get us some help. Thank you very much for your help Marcus Lemonis!
Luckily, we did have internet service...not always so going through the hills and farmland. I started surfing the web for Mobile Repair service. We found 2, and not close. Called the first and closest one. His reply was he could help us maybe in a few days because he was so busy. Uhhh, I don't think so, we'd freeze to death by then. We called the second one, explained the problem and he agreed he could come out that day but he was on a service call he had to finish first. We were so thankful to find him. All we had to do was wait. And wait we did. On a positive note - the sun was shining, it wasn’t windy and the scenery was pretty. We were even blessed with a pretty sunset.
The downside - Baxter is particular where he does his business and trust me when I say there was no place in sight. Everything was fenced and major shoulder repair on the road. We could see a National Forest road not even a half mile up the road so I put Baxter in the car and drove up the road a bit so he would have some place to walk. Have you ever walked in mud that was like cement? I got out of the car, stepped into the road and could feel squishy mud under my tennis shoes….white tennis shoes at that! They instantly felt like I was walking in quicksand….my feet were very heavy and muddy. Baxter started walking and looked up at me like I was crazy. The look on his face said “what in the world is this stuff? I do t like it.” I immediately put Baxter in the car and looked down at my feet. All I could think of was Clarabell, the clown! Big, floppy feet. Well, I got as much mud off as possible and we made our way back to the motorhome. I left my shoes outside and we put the dog in the sink and washed his feet! My shoes are as good as new, thanks to Rob who accepted the challenge of cleaning them. Needless to say, Baxter still needed to do his business, so just before dark I drove him into the next small town, about 10 miles away so he could walk around a little and find that perfect spot. Most dog owners will know exactly what I’m talking about.
9 o’clock we turned the phones off feeling defeated and disappointed. No show and no phone call Not much we could do except start making calls in the morning. Luckily, we are self contained with a 12 volt furnace and a generator. It got cold during the night but we stayed toasty warm, thanks to Rob for monitoring everything.
Morning came sooner than we liked, but being on the side of the road listening to trucks wizzing by doesn’t afford you a lot of sleep. Rob turned on his phone and found a message from Mark, the repair guy. He had just finished his job at 12:15 am and he would call us in the morning. Fast forward, he called and made it to our place by 11:30 am. It appears the support for the rear air bags got dislodged when we hit the bad piece of road, deflated the bags and they landed on top of the support. After about an 1 1/2 hrs he had repaired it and balanced it out and the bags were inflated again. Hallelujah! We pay the bill (which was not cheap), he leaves and we get everything ready to travel and are on our way. Or so we thought. We aren’t on the road 5 minutes and Rob knows it’s not right yet. He drives a little distance but is afraid of damaging the driveshaft. He says its not level. I hurry and call Mark back, he turns around and meets us in the small town of Baggs, WY. He is able to do whatever it took to correct the matter in no time. When he is done though, this time he says he’ll follow us a bit to make sure it’s good. I said a prayer, crossed my fingers, and I think held my breath until we got it going and realized it was smooth sailing once again.
Both of us were ecstatic, to say the least. We were able to keep our previous reservation and extend it another night. Boy, it sure felt good to be “plugged in” that night at the campground. This was quite an experience but not totally unexpected. Living this lifestyle you need to be prepared for the “unexpected”, be flexible, stay cool and be safe. We were all of those and we are once again happy campers.
We may need to change our travel times by not leaving on a Sunday, especially since we like to travel the secondary roads and we don’t always know for sure where we will be. We’ll see what the future holds. For right now our future will be one more stop before we end up in Spearfish for the summer. Oh, and by the way, the Fish Hatchery just got 6-10” of snow. Now you know why we haven’t been in a hurry to get there. Wish us well.
My next blog update will be after we have landed, gotten acclimated to our schedule and have good things to report. Thanks for “listening “ to our tale of woe. Just wanted to share it with you. Hope Spring has sprung wherever you are and you are able to get out and enjoy all the wonders God has provided us. Be happy, be kind and don’t forget to look up, it’s amazing out there.
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