Snafu

Sunday, June 10th, 2012

As is the case for most big RV trips there will be the occasional snafu here and there.  Sometimes the "challenge" is serious, such as the Harmonic Balancer incident.  You may remember it went out in Montana and we waited several days for the part to be shipped to the dealership.  Other times the obstacle involves a minor, but nonetheless very important, A/C unit going out and us having to make a detour through West Virginia to get it replaced. Through this last snafu we discovered that West Virginia is a very pretty state.  Maybe one of the most beautiful!!!The most annoying "event" involved the ABS sensor going out when we were at the top of the Smokey Mountains.  The sensor had a warning buzzer, like the one that goes off if you leave your keys in the ignition, that sounded through the entire RV by way of the stereo system.  The only way we could get relief from the incessant noise was for Randy to switch the RV into neutral, turn the engine off, and then restart it.  It took several stops at different repair shops for someone to finally figure out how to fix it.

We've encountered our first and second obstacles of this trip already. Hopefully they will be our last! Prior to leaving for this year's cross country venture Randy had new tires put on the RV.  Traveling down I10 Saturday morning we noticed that the tires were out of balance.  By afternoon, we decided that the tires would have to be balanced.  Everything in the RV, including us, was vibrating with such frequency that we felt as though we were driving on an old fashion washboard.  Of course, it is not easy to find a tire center that can service an RV.  Today, we were successful.  Balanced tires are a night and day difference to unbalanced tires!

The second snafu involves our rear RV license plate.  Somewhere between the unbalanced tires causing the RV to shake and the wind storms that produced numerous dust devils, we lost our license plate.  At least the tow vehicle has its plate!! Thankfully, these are both minor issues.

We are still on I10 West.  Headed toward California and Joshua Tree National Park.  This stretch of I10 is very pretty, especially as the sun is setting behind the desert mountains.