SATURDAY,
8/25: HELLUVA DAY . . . or . . .IS THIS
WHAT’S CALLED AN ADVENTURE?
Got up very early, so we could be on the
road by 5:00, knowing we had at least 600 miles to cover. Wanted to get to San Diego (Santee Lakes)
before dark, as our site is a back-in.
Rolled up to Flagstaff, turned west . . .
next thing I knew we were on the Calif border getting gas (crazy how time flies
when you’re asleep!)
Back in non-descript, plain ugly desert
scrub country. Adventure A: About 30 miles from Barstow, heard a big POP. Pulled over, saw that a tire on the RV had
blown – shredded. And the one next to it
looked like it was ready to go. Of
course, called Good Sam. Their response: it’ll take from 1 ½-2 hours for the guy to
get there, and his price for the 2 tires was $175 each (fair enough), + $200 to
mount them. That’s when we were
outraged. Providentially, we were maybe
¼ mile from what looked like a gas station.
Bill decided it was worth a try to see if there were anyone there who
could refer us to somebody closer and who wouldn’t gouge a traveler. The gas station was closed – but there
“happened” to be a sign there from a tire store! That guy was out in 20 minutes. Put on used tires, as he didn’t have any new
ones in the model we needed. So, even
with the $75 service call fee, the total price was $175. So, we felt thankful. Rolled on down the highway, after band-aiding
up some loose wires that were dangling from the bottom of the RV – when the
tire blew, some hard rubber must have ripped something apart. But Bill thought
that would be a minor repair – probably Jonathan could fix it.
Stopped in Barstow at McD. Hadn’t eaten anything but a granola bar since
5:00, and was now 3:00. But mostly, we
were ravenously thirsty and hot. We’d
drunk most of the water we’d put in the truck that morning. Have I mentioned that we had no A/C in the
truck?? Oh yeah! We discovered that a couple of weeks ago. Didn’t know what in the world was wrong,
since Bill had taken the truck to have the Freon filled & checked out
before we left. But we concluded that we
could live without A/C til we got home.
The only really big challenge would be crossing the Arizona desert
without it. And it really didn’t cause
us too much discomfort while we were
in Monument Valley and travelling to Sedona.
Stay tuned for more on the A/C.
Hunger and thirst satisfied, and having
cooled off, we headed south out of Barstow onto I-15. Stopped for gas in San Bernardino about
5:00. Bill hops back in & says, “You
won’t believe this, but one of the new tires is flat . . .” he’d barely said the words, & while
waiting for me to moan/groan/explode, he turns the key in the ignition to go
across the street to WalMart to decide what to do, and the engine won’t turn
over. Three times. Nada.
We just looked at each other, waiting for boils to erupt on at least one
of our bodies. (refer to Biblical Job).
New call to Good Sam. All we’re thinking we need is a battery
charge & the tire changed. Again –
will be an hour. We’re in an urban area,
for crying out loud! Not in the sticks
somewhere. We’re realizing that we’re
probably not going to make it to San Diego tonite. I start looking in the Camping Directory for
RV parks around.
The guy shows
up, and of course tries to jump start it, charge it . . . nothing. Looks some more under the hood, while
pointing & talking to Bill. Not a
good sign, I’m thinking, as I’m in the cab reading my book about a female
sociopath who frames her husband for her staged murder. Aura of lightness & well being all around
. . . I guess we didn’t take seriously enough the vortex points in Sedona and
let their good energy soak in. Let’s see
. . . is car trouble (in multiples) a lack of male or female energy??
Anyway – the pronounced verdict: the battery isn’t being charged because the
belt which connects it to the alternator isn’t moving. The belt isn’t moving because the A/C condenser
unit, around which the belt also moves, is frozen. Dead. So the house that Jack built – all falling
down. Explains 2 problems: why no
battery function, and why no A/C. Yippee!! Two for the price of one.
The guy has located a new belt – but the
larger problem is finding a new compressor.
He mentioned the possibility of trying to find a belt that by-passes the
compressor, but thought that unlikely with the age of our truck. By now it’s 8:00. So concluded that we’d stay in the WalMart
lot (the guy could give us enough juice to get us over there), the mechanic would
locate what he needed in the morning, and our jolly trio (+Pappy) would
reconvene then. Oh, he did change the
tire –used our spare. He said the reason
it disintegrated so soon was because the fellow who put it on back by Barstow only
inflated the tires to 65 lbs, when they should have been inflated to 110 lbs. Says so right on the side of the RV. Considered disputing at least some of the
credit charge from the tire guy, but Bill felt it was an honest mistake, and to
just let it go.
So we
dragged into the WalMart lot. Thank
goodness, it was cooler outside, with a nice breeze. Very comfortable outside. But, of course the inside of the RV was an oven. And we couldn’t run the RV A/C, as our RV
batteries couldn’t sustain that. So we
just opened up all the windows, left the door open, cooled down with wet washcloths,
and by the time we were ready to go to bed, it wasn’t too bad.
I think we both dreamed of what we will
say in a letter to Good Sam, letting them know that their service stinks (not
the technician/mechanic himself, but the fact that they apparently don’t have
enough available contractors within a reasonable radius to respond timely to
the EMERGENCY service we’re paying for.)
We’ll be going with AAA next renewal.
Bill says this is the kind of thing we’ll
laugh at down the road. Hmmmmm . . . just hope we’re laughing when we’re paying
for all of this.
SUNDAY, 8/26:
Then he worked on it for 2-3 hours, while
Bill spent the time by kind of monitoring, walking across to a Verizon store to
replace his phone (battery worn out), and reading some. I finished my book last
night (a sad but brilliant ending. The
very last page, especially, was perfect!).
So I wrote out these last 3 journal entries by hand while sitting in the
shade outside the RV enjoying the sun and not too hot temperature yet, looking
right across to the San Bernardino mountains.
Some smog smearing them a little, but not much. Starting to feel like my home state.
2:30 – we have lift off!! With A/C, even! We feel that the kid (looks like a kid to us)
who worked on the car did his very best to take care of us. We feel he was competent, trustworthy, &
fair in his pricing. Those things are
huge when you’re totally dependent on a stranger in a strange land!
As we’re on our way now, traveling south &
west, more and more coastal mountains emerge, and everything looks a little
less arid, the sky a little bluer. And
more & more classically Spanish Southern Calif – the architecture, street names.
Got to our campsite about 5:00. Santee is a San Diego suburb maybe 30 miles
inland. Santee Lakes is a large public
park, run by a water district. The park
has a day use area with 2 lakes, lots of picnic areas, and then the camping area,
which is huge. Our site is #295 – I think
there are 300 sites. Ours is in a
perfect location – shady, backs up to a tiny creek, with nice green grass surrounding
us. Another winner!
Hannah
& kids drove up just as we were finishing backing up into the site. So good to see them! The kids of course have grown. First thing Autumn announced was, “I’m 6 now!” Rachel, Eric, & Lupe soon followed, with
their new puppy Daisy, who’s adorable.
Rachel & Hannah brought dinner, so we all initiated our picnic table
here. Pappy was a perfect gentleman and
let the kids play with him and take him for a walk. It was reassuring to see
how well Eric is doing with his prosthesis.
He runs, swims, etc, and has only minimal pain. He & Bill talked quite a bit about that,
as well as his overall experience in Afghanistan, which was very fulfilling for
him; he found that he had real leadership ability.
No comments:
Post a Comment