The best laid plans...

Steve’s been pretty good at posting to Facebook since he can do that on his phone, but here’s the update for the rest of you.  Thursday we left Charleston at noon and just on the far side of Columbia (about 100 miles from Charleston) the RV engine died.  Steve was super calm about it – he even called me on the walkie-talkie to let me know that he was pulling over.   Long story short, we got towed into a repair shop where we spent the night in the RV then got a new fuel pump installed the next day.  We headed out again at about 4 pm on Friday (about when we were hoping to be arriving in Wisconsin!), aiming for a campground in Kentucky which we were hoping to arrive at around midnight. 

At 11:15 pm Friday, we blew a tire on the RV…and I mean BLEW.  It sounded like a shotgun blast and I saw parts of the tire go flying (since I was driving the truck and was following the RV).  The shredded tire did some minor damage to the underside of the RV and took off the door to the electrical hookup bin.  It was dark, and we were sitting on the side of the interstate with semi trucks flying by.  It was scary!  We tried to change the tire, but our bottle jack wasn’t working.  For the second time in two days we called the roadside assistance (Good Sam) program.  They sent out a truck to help get our spare tire put on.  We limped to the next exit, pulled into a gas station and slept – it was 4 am by the time we went to bed. 

Saturday morning we got 6 new tires put on the truck, then we drove to the campground we had been hoping to get to on Thursday night.  They honored our reservation, so we plugged in, showered for the first time since Thursday, and slept for a few more hours.  We headed out again around 6 pm, hoping to drive until just before sunset (no more driving at night if we can help it!).  We slept Saturday night at another gas station parking lot (somewhere 60 miles south of Indianapolis) then FINALLY got to Madison, WI at about 3:30 pm on Sunday – two days later than we hoped.  We had hoped to spend several days in Madison and several days in Minneapolis visiting friends and family.  Given the rough start, we’re a bit nervous about the distance we have to cover so we’re going to cut the visits short and keep moving onward.

Some random notes –

We bought walkie-talkies for the trip so Steve and I could both stay in contact since we’re in separate vehicles and it was a good idea.  It is much faster, easier, and safer than cell phones for quick messages back and forth. 

Purchasing a Good Sam roadside assistance plan was the best decision we’ve made yet!  It was about $80 for 2 years (we got a buy one year, get one year free deal).   The plan gives free towing and free roadside assistance, which we’ve used twice (and I saw the bill for the flat tire assistance and it was $260, the tow was more, I’m sure).

We are driving pretty slow – averaging about 60 mph.  So far we’re getting about 8 mpg in the RV and about 25-26 mpg in the truck.  

Gas was $3.11 in Charleston, and is now $3.95 in Madison.  Ouch.