Expensive Day

The day started out innocent enough. I called AAA to come out and change the flat tire. The plan was to remove the flat tire wheel, put on the spare temporarily while getting the flat fixed, and replace the spare with the repaired tire. No problem. AAA could only remove the wheel as they couldn't wait for me to get the tire repaired to place back on the trailer. Kristine and Philo came over and we all drove down the street to Les Schwab Tire to get the flat repaired. They couldn't do the repair while we waited, so they said to come back in about an hour.

We drove to Walmart and picked up a collar and leash for Jenny, their new puppy. She didn't like the leash at all:

After stopping at the local Windermere office to pick up some info on some properties, we returned to Les Schwab to get the repaired tire. This is where the costly part of the day began. There was nothing wrong with the tire. The problem was that the wheel developed a crack and would have to be replaced. Sure. You can't buy just one wheel that doesn't match the other three wheels on the rig, plus, any one or all of the other three could develop the same problem, so I had to buy 4 new wheels! Les Schwab graciously consented to come to our site at the Fairgrounds to do the swap.. This is where other problems developed. The spare that was placed on the trailer had one lug that was stripped and had to be broken off in order to place the new wheel on the rig. Obviously, the problem was created by the guy who placed the spare on the trailer. Anyway, to make a long story short, the company that put the spare on the trailer relented to pay for putting a new lug on the wheel. That will have to be done before we leave here next week.

The next problem was a water leak that developed in a plastic tube that runs to the refrigerator. Water was spraying all over the back of the refrigerator outside and I spent the rest of the day trying to find a solution to that problem:

Nothing I did would work, so we spent the night with no running water in the trailer as it appears that our water pump is not working either. The water problem is the priority for today.

We are getting very frustrated with the frequency and severity of problems with the fifth wheel. It is over 8 years old, but these problems are beginning to get us down. All we can do is handle them one at a time and hope that things stabilize and we can have some smooth sailing. We had a brief storm at the end of the day and to end the day on a positive note, we saw this beautiful rainbow: