We have finally made it to the cabin for the summer, but it
was quite a journey.
When we last posted, we were in Salt Lake City, waiting out
the weather. We left the next day but
only made it until lunch-time. As we pulled
into a rest area for lunch, a fellow traveler pointed out a noise coming from
our truck. Paige made a few loops of the
rest area while Bob listened and confirmed a strange rattling
coming from the underside, like the 4 wheel drive’s transfer case. The smartphone found a GM dealer about an
hour up the highway so we pulled in there for an examination. They confirmed that a cover was gone and some
type of “keeper” was loose on the front driveshaft. They didn’t have the needed parts in stock,
but thought they could get them overnight.
We “boondocked” in their parking lot, counting on our batteries and
generator while waiting for the parts to come in the next morning.
The parts did not arrive.
Rather than have us wait another full day, the service writer suggested that
he pull the front drive shaft off so that we had either 2 wheel drive or
neutral. That plan worked for us so we
left about noon, loosing one day of travel time. We went down the highway about an hour or two
when “low coolant” and “check engine” icons came on in the motorhome. Another check of the smartphone helped us
find a diesel service outfit on our way.
This stop only cost us about 2 hours (and $200) where they checked the
on-board diagnostics, reset the fault codes, and added a gallon of coolant. We were
once again on our way. Having proven
that we could spend the night without full hookups, we decided to do it again
by spending Thursday night in a WalMart parking lot in Casper Wyoming.
Bob’s cousins had planned a family reunion for mid-day on Saturday
and we figured we could make it if we could get at least halfway across South
Dakota on Friday. With an early start on
Friday, we planned a big driving day. A
highlight of the day was when a herd of 30 to 40 antelope decided to cross the
highway in front of us. Zoom In to see them better:
We got cell phone service late morning as we came into South
Dakota and got near Rapid City. Most of
South Dakota was hard hit by a snowstorm last week and we soon found that the
RV parks around Mitchel and Sioux Falls are not yet open, so we planned on boondocking
once again. Sioux Falls has 3 WalMarts
to choose from, but none of them allow overnight parking due to a city
ordinance. Worthington Minnesota is less
than an hour further east, and on our way, so that became our target
destination. We first planned on parking
at a restaurant on the edge of town, but it was too full of idling trucks and
mud, so we backtracked into town and found their WalMart, which allowed
overnighters. Three nights in a row off-the-grid!! Wow, that wasn’t planned at all, and neither
was 650-mile day in a motorhome.
On the bright side, we had only 100 miles to cover on
Saturday morning, and we could make it to the reunion, where we had a good time
seeing most (11 of 16) of Bob’s cousins and siblings. After that gathering broke up, we had another
100 miles to Brett’s place, where we had a 20-amp electrical connection waiting
for us. We spent 2 nights there, catching
up on the activities of his family, touching base with Dave, and getting a
spring-time motorcycle ride in.
We needed to get to Duluth on Monday morning for a number of
medical appointments, both for us and Paige’s mother. We parked for 3 nights outside Paige’s cousin’s
house while all these appointments were taken care of. On Thursday, we re-parked the motorhome at
the cabin. It was a fine spring day for
settling in and unloading the motorhome.
The lake is still frozen, but most of the snow is gone.
We had a number of social activities back in the metro area
for the weekend, so we only had a one-night stay at the lake. Friday morning we awoke to the pitter/patter
of droplets on the roof, which quickly transitioned to large, wet snowflakes. By the time we left for Minneapolis there was
a fresh inch or two of slippery snow on the ground.
We had a great weekend in the Twin Cities, with Anna’s
History Day competition at the University, and Olivia’s soccer game at St
Johns, plus breakfast with David, LaJoy, and Kaylen while Brayden had to work. We got back to the cabin in time to join Steve
and Deanna for turkey burger supper. It
was good to get back to the lake for a few days of quiet time before another
round of medical appointments later this week.
No comments:
Post a Comment