Thursday, October 15, 2015

Where Have We Been?

Can't believe that summer is over.  After the gate we headed to Virginia.  Met up with the kids at Ed's sister Carm.  We had a great time.

By a water falls in Shenandoah State Park

Going was easy, it was downhill, coming back was really hard

Everybody had a great time

enjoying a water park

"The Gillespie family" well sort of, some of
them are Lehman's plus one friend.
We even had time for games.  

We picked up this girl in town at the post office.  She came in to
pick up a package and was going to hitch hike back to the
park.  She was part of a Veteran's group that were hiking
the Appalachian Trail.   

A neat tunnel in the Park
We park at a friend of Carm's.  We did this the last time with no problem but this time he had us park on the grass.  The last night we were there it poured all night.  As soon as Ed tried to pull out we sank in the mud.  What a sinking feeling as you see your tires up to the rim in mud.


This is what the yard looked like after we got out.
We had to call a tow truck.
Than Ed tangled with a boulder.  Another sinking feeling.  More like horror as I stood there and watched him run over it.  When he finally stopped it was up underneath the motor home.


Rock under coach

At first we weren't sure how we were going to get it out.

This happened with the tire.
We used the motor home back jack to lift up the rear and than
put a strap around rock and pulled out with the Jeep.  This
was the tow truck drivers idea.  But realized later we should have
used both jacks.  This make the windshield lose it's seal.  
 After the tow truck guy got us off the rock and we started down the road, Ed realized there was rain coming in through the windshield.  When he jacked up the rear end of the motor home, he only did one side and it made the windshield come out of the seal and caused a gap.  At least it didn't break it.


That evening we had a blow out on the inside back tire.  We figure the rock must have punctured the tire and made it blow.  After waiting several hours, our road side service, Coach Net, was able to bring us a new tire and put it on.  The service call was free but the tire cost $800.  It was a week end so you take what they can find.
What a split
 We got to Elkhart and called the insurance company.  Found out we had vanishing deductible so no out of pocket expense  We had a tire hazard warranty on the tires and they paid for the tire.  We were thinking maybe the repairs would take about a month to do.  Wow, were we wrong.  It took a month to get the bay doors and side panel from Tiffin and another  5 weeks to get the repairs done.  We have spent the whole summer in Elkhart.  Our original plans were to go to South Dakota.  We were going to do some site seeing and hopefully some gold digging.  Oh well, we are trying to be flexible and go with the flow.
side looks good.

Well the motor home is looking good, my only complaint was how long it took.
While we were in Elkhart, we were able to get solar panels on.  This is something we have been wanting to do for some time.  When we first started traveling, we were told solar would cost about 5 to 6 thousand and that you would never recoup your cost.  Ed did it himself with the help of a friend for a little under 3 thousand and there is a tax rebate on it right now.  So that was at least something we got accomplished while in Elkhart.

So here we are, heading back to Texas.  I wanted to get there before October, so we could work a gate before heading to Arizona.   Still trying to be flexible.  


Safe Travels and see you around.


:Love Ed and Lyn    

2 comments:

  1. Looks like you've had one "interesting" summer for sure. Would have like to have met up with you but flexibility only goes so far. :)

    Hopefully, you've got the bad things behind and everything is smooth sailing ahead.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I hope so. I am sorry we couldn't have met up with you. Maybe later.

    ReplyDelete