Wednesday
Our first day on the road began at 8:45 AM. We had a nice - and uneventful - trip through Wickenburg and up route 93 to Wikieup where we stopped at a favorite location for a "potty" break:
Once we were back on the road, we started to run into some high winds which steadily increased all the way through Kingman and well past Las Vegas. It was probably 20 miles or so past Vegas when we stopped at a Love's truck stop for gas. I wanted to make sure we were still ok with our tire pressure so I went to the service area in the truck stop to have a pressure check. When I got out of the truck I immediately saw where the high winds had torn out the entire front section of our RV underbelly and insulation was flying out all over the road:
Of course, we had to have that tacked back up again:
So, we had that repair done and also added a little air to a couple tires before gassing up and heading out again. That little repair and tire pressure exercise resulted in a $88 unexpected charge.
We weren't even on the road again heading for Mesquite, NV, when our "check engine light" came on. I noticed an immediate loss in power. We limped into Mesquite, NV, checked into our RV space at the Casino/Hotel and contacted the Ford dealer that was located on the other side of the freeway. Of course, the service department was closed so I left a phone message and also an online email message for the service department explaining our problem.
We then decided to have dinner at the hotel and go to the casino to play some slots. The dinner was very good and we broke even on the slots which is always good.
Thursday
I received a text from the service advisor at the Ford dealer at about 6:30 AM. She said to bring in the truck asap and they will take a look. They were terrific. They checked out the problem, discovered a cracked hose in the emissions system and indicated they had the part. $388 and an hour later and I was back at the RV ready to leave for Heber, UT.
Fortunately, the trip was uneventful and we ran into some light rain as we arrived at our location at the Deer Creek State Park in Heber. Here is a shot of our view:
It rained, and rained and rained some more the entire night. We also discovered that the episode with the wind damage on our front end resulted in the loss of use of our propane tanks as the winds most likely pulled a line loose somewhere in the system. That meant we had no heat and no way to use our stove top for cooking. It was a challenge to stay warm during the night.
Friday
We were on the road by 8:15 AM yesterday. I spent some time chasing down a Mobile RV Repair guy in Jackson before we left and tried to connect with him. I got the message that his message mailbox was full and was not accepting any messages. Wonderful.
It rained the entire day and we contacted our manager at the Visitor Center (just before arriving) who was meeting us at the Elk Refuge to show us our space. It was nice to see Jackson again and we took this shot as we went through downtown:
We met our manager at the Elk Refuge entrance and followed him to our space. It is about a mile away from where we stayed the last time and is in a new area for RV spaces. The views are tremendous:
and this is what we will be looking at for the next 4 months:
hopefully, with some sunshine and warm weather. It was in the low 40's in Jackson and we again tried to connect with the mobile RV guy without success. We went into town after setting up and bought a space heater - we left two of them at home thinking we wouldn't need them - and now have to figure out the next step to get our propane system working. The really good news is that the new TV antenna, and DISH service works like a charm.
Our fingers are crossed that everything will work out and it will be a fabulous summer...
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