Home at Last!

It is so good to be home after traveling so much. I've lost count of the trips to Arkansas to visit son. DH works at son's store a lot. We've also visited daughter and grandchildren in Tennessee a number of times.

Our biggest trip was in July. The two of us took the motor home to the West Coast. We went through the State of Idaho using the same route that Lewis and Clark used to get to the Pacific. That is some beautiful country! The most beautiful were places we could not get a GPS or cell phone signal, in a deep valley of the Columbia River. The National Park Service maintains some campgrounds there and I am so anxious to go back and spend a few days there again.

We weren't able to spend as much time as we wanted as my sister's daughter, was getting married in Washington State and since it is just me and my sister now, we wanted to support my niece by attending the wedding.
Daughter and grandchildren flew into Portland, Oregon and we met at my sister's home in Washington. It was a civil ceremony at the Courthouse there but I was impressed with the solemnity of it and how spiritual though non-Christian it all was.

The reception was held at a Grange hall in the small town where my sister lives. It was a very casual affair with lots of food and music. Both in their thirty's but first marriage for both. It was a joyous affair.

After the wedding, our daughter and grand-children joined us in the motorhome to explore the Olympic Peninsular and Oregon Coast. More breathtaking views! If you are ever traveling on the Oregon Coast, you must add at least 3 days to your schedule. There is so much to see that you have to keep stopping.

One stop we made was unplanned tho. Hubby started having chest pains. We were in a very small seaside town at the time. I gave him an aspirin and we found a small clinic. He was not having a heart attack, but his blood pressure was very high. They gave him something to bring it down and said they really would like to keep him overnight but they did not have a bed or cardiologist on staff. The closest facility that did was 70 miles away. Hubby said he felt fine and the chest pains had stopped and signed a release that he would not hold them responsible to letting him leave. So-o we traveled on.

Next major stop was Yellowstone National Park. One of my most favorite places on earth. If anyone doubts that the earth is really very young-that is the place to go. It brings to our attention how the earth is still in a formation stage. I feel strongly about Biblical Creation and a worldwide flood. You can really see the evidence of both at Yellowstone.

Then we dropped daughter and grandchildren off at Omaha Airport so they could get back to Chicago by a certain date. Hubby and I drove the motorhome to Iowa to visit his sister there.

I had the best corn on the cob I have ever eaten at her house. She had bought it at a neighborhood roadside stand; I think it had been picked that morning. Each cob had both white and yellow kernels and was absolutely delicious. I will forever compare corn to that now.

Traveling in the motorhome is so comfortable. No suitcases to carry in and out of motels. Your own bed, bath and kitchen. While parked at hubby's sister house we did use her shower since we were only hooking up to her electricity. And she would fix breakfast for us but hubby could fix his morning cup of coffee before getting out of the camper.

Then Hubby's sister and her hubby and grandson, followed us on to a campground near Chicago. Daughter's husband had been given a box suite at the ballpark for a night. It was my first experience in a box suite. The food and service is so much fun. Daughter's friends from Nashville had flown in too. It was like a big party while watching the White Sox win over the Toronto Blue Jays. The children also had a wonderful time. Hubby's sister seemed to really enjoy the experience too.

We had taken a train to the game and got to the station just after the next to the last train back left. We had to hang around the station and that too was a new experience for us.

I had also planned to meet up with some online friends at Schaumberg near Chicago. On Saturday, my hubby and hubby of one of the online friends went to the ball game while my friends and I hung around the pool at the motel where they were staying. It was the first time most of us had met. It is really unbelievable how close you can get to someone on line. Meeting was such a joy and seemed so natural. We still keep in touch on our little website that one of the gals had set up. It was unbelievable to get to meet so many wonderful ladies.

Well, there is more but I'm going to stop here for today.

The Maiden Voyage

First of all let me say that it was a wonderful trip. We had decided to take hubby's brother up on an impromptu family reunion at his home in Florida as one of their sisters was going to be visiting and it would be a rare opportunity to get together without it being a funeral. We invited another sister and husband and daughter, who live near us, to travel with us in our motorhome.

We started out about 9:00 a.m. on Thursday, March 22. At least we tried to start out. We had parked the motorhome on our lot next to the Lake house. Since the lot is lakefront, it slopes down toward the lake. Hubby had worked with the local road district and paid to have a culvert installed, taking water from a ditch across the street to a culvert on the edge of our lot. But the lot is probably the lowest point in the immediate area and still catches quite a bit of water when it rains. Well, we had had over 3 inches of (much needed) rain on Tuesday and the ground was soaked.

We were also carrying over 300 pounds of clay shooting targets to our son in Arkansas. He had been unable to get any from his suppliers and asked us to buy some in our area for him to sell in his sporting goods store.

Well, to make a long story, short. We had to get a wrecker to pull us out of our own lot before we could leave on our trip.

Now I need to back up to the previous weekend when we bought the motorhome. We bought it from private individuals. They were a couple, a few years older than we are. They had bought it used from a dealer three years earlier. They had used it very little as the husband was losing his vision, due to glaucoma. His wife was afraid to drive the motorhome. They mentioned that they liked to be present when it was shown as people had been leaving appliances on and running down the battery. He had even recently replaced the battery. He even said he was hoping someone who knew a little about mechanics bought it. They sold it at a very reduced price to us. We suspected something might be wrong but the price was right.

Come to find out, the alternator was bad and every time it was driven, it used up all the juice in the battery. We found that out first hand when it started running rough as we were driving it to the lot in Arkansas, where our trailer is parked. We called hubby’s sister and they came and made sure we made it. We limped home to Missouri the next day and parked it at the lake. Hubby, being a mechanic, among his varied talents, bought and installed a rebuilt alternator.

So, we are off on our trip. We are about 150 miles from home but not too far from our Arkansas son, and nieces and nephews. Picture this. A tall steep mountain road. On our right is only a guard rail to mark the side of the road and a steep cliff about 600 feet deep. On our left is the single lane for on coming traffic and another steep cliff about 400 feet high. The engine of the motor home makes a horrible loud screeching sound and then slapping sound. There is no shoulder to pull off on. The road is curving up and around the mountain and on coming traffic is charging down the road. About half way up on the on coming traffic side is a runaway truck ramp for 18 wheelers who have lost their brakes on the steep downgrade. During a slight break in on coming traffic, my husband swings the motor home onto the truck ramp. It is immediately after a curve and the oncoming traffic looks as through it will run right into us.

The alternator belt has broken. We use our cell phone to call SIL’s son who is a Superintendent of a nearby school district. Hubby gives him the numbers off the old belt and he graciously brings it to us in about 20 minutes. My SIL, meanwhile, is looking out the front of the motorhome at the on coming traffic, exclaiming every time it looks like we are going to be hit. I prefer not to know it and just go about arranging more stuff in the camper.

Hubby puts on the new belt with my help. He crawls under the motorhome and puts the new belt on the necessary pulley then pushes it up for me to place on the alternator pulley. He has removed the engine cover inside the motorhome so I can reach the alternator. Everything seems to be o.k. and we take off again.

About 20 miles further down the road, it happens again. This time we are in the small town where SIL’s son is. We call him again, but this time he is unable to bring a belt to us. Instead, he calls a local O’Reilly auto parts store and they deliver the belt to us. Hubby puts 2nd new belt on, again with my help, and again, we are on the road.

We make it all the way to Pine Bluff, Arkansas and it happens again. We are now too far from nephew but, SIL has been conversing via cell phone with her daughter. Niece had started out the previous day to travel to the Florida Reunion but got called into work. She is a Surgical RN. She was still planning to go the next day and would stop at a parts store on her way and get TWO alternator belts and bring them to us.

Ironically, we have pulled off the road right in the driveway of a RV sales and service dealer. We manage to pull off to a somewhat level spot and settle in for the night. We had talked about spending our first night on the road in a Wal-Mart parking lot rather than paying the $30.00 plus campground fees, so it wasn’t much different.

As hubby and I are lying in bed before we fell off to sleep, I ask him if it was the original belt that first broke. He said yes, he had checked it when he put the alternator on and it appeared to be o.k. I then asked him if there was any chance that the pulley on the present alternator was different than the former one. He replied that he had even asked the guys at our local O’Reilly store if it was the correct pulley on the rebuilt alternator and they assured him it was. We drifted off to sleep.

The next morning the niece arrived with two new alternator belts. She had gone to a local O’Reilly parts store to get them and they had assured her it was the correct belt. As I was helping hubby put belt on alternator, this time I ran my hand over the pulleys and could feel that there were rims with grooves on the area the belt was placed. BUT, on the pulley on the alternator, the belt did not fit inside the rim; it overlapped the edge of the pulley. I told my husband what I had observed. From underneath the engine, he shined a flashlight and confirmed that the belt did not fit properly on the alternator pulley.

Since I am not mechanically inclined but just follow his directions, I usually don’t give any input on something like that. He was very upset with himself to see that I had observed something he should have seen. (hee, hee, hee, chalk one up for me). I did not say anything though. He needed to think this out and did not need any needling.

The niece was still with us and since he had purchased the rebuilt alternator at an O’Reilly parts store and would you believe had brought the receipt with him, the niece took him to the O’Reilly store where she had purchased the belts. They very graciously took a pulley off a new alternator and put it on our rebuilt one. Hubby said he is going to take those broken alternator belts and wring them around the necks of our local O’Reilly guys.

No more mechanical problems for the rest of the trip. O.K. that’s enough for one posting. I write more next time.

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