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| Cutty Lake at our Campground in Iowa |
I was originally going to call this particular post "To Hell and Back"; but decided the Hell part was a liitle mis-placed (well we did go through Amarillo, not my favorite Texas city, but still!...), given that we, and the truck and trailer, emerged safe and sound to enjoy the real treat at the end of the trail, namely our wonderful little family in Urbandale, Iowa. So let's just call the "problems" enroute mere Bumps, some larger than others.
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| Sara with the Boys in Iowa |
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| Drew and Jonah build a Lego Masterpiece |
Around the middle part of April, we set out from Tempe for Iowa,
hoping to arrive there a week before Grandson Isaac’s first birthday (on April 22nd). Things went according
to plan UNTIL they didn’t. First “bump”
in the road came in Heber, AZ, a little junction town up in the highlands of NE
Arizona. The trip up there from the
Phoenix Valley was very pleasant, meandering our way up State Hwy 87 out of
Mesa. This is quite pretty country,
reminiscent of Central Oregon in a lot of respects, albeit with blooming cacti,
a sight not often seen in Central Oregon.
Anyhow, we needed to refuel old Bertha (the Chevy diesel) by the time we
reached Heber, so pulled into a Chevron Station.
There was a diesel pump there, but it was a
little tight maneuvering around some propane tanks on one side to line up with
the diesel pump. A little TOO tight as
it turns out. I thought I detected a
slight bump from somewhere in the rear of the 5th Wheel as we slid
by the steel posts protecting the propane tanks. Long story short, the trailer bumper, one of
those extendable types used to hold bikes, storage boxes, the spare tire, and
such, was fully extended behind the trailer, and one of its corners snagged a
steel post. The post WON this tug of war
in an instant; and by the time we pulled up to the fuel pump, the bumper was
dragging on the ground, broken and soon to be discarded.
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| Uh Oh! "Houston, we have a problem!" |
We needed to take the stored items loaded on to the bumper
off in order to discard the bumper; but there was a further problem; namely
Lanie’s bike was locked to the bumper, and the key to the bike lock had apparently fallen
off my key chain somewhere before we had taken off in Tempe. But, we were out in the boondocks, and some
grizzled rancher type came along in the nick of time to cut through the cable
locks with his big bolt cutters. I
thanked him profusely, and we were off, absent the back bumper on the 5th. For the record, the spare tire now sat in
Bertha’s truck bed, the cooler that used to reside there, was stuffed into the
back seat, and Lanie’s bike rode the rest of the way that day inside the 5th. But we made our Eastern New Mexico
destination, some lonely outpost called Santa Rosa, with no further problems.
The “Further” Problems would come the very next
morning.
We set off from our Santa Rosa
RV park, heading East on Interstate 40, our intended destination for the day a
KOA park just south of Wichita, KS.
But
barely 15 miles out of Santa Rosa, I noted some bluish smoke coming up from one
of our trailer wheels.
We pulled over briefly
to the freeway shoulder, then decided to limp down to the next freeway exit,
some 4 or 5 miles away.
Made it there to
a pretty much deserted little town, but at least it had an off-road parking
area near the freeway.
Eventually we
connected up with a repair shop back where we’d started our morning, Santa
Rosa.
Joey, the owner of the company,
Big Rig Truck and Trailer Repair, came out himself soon enough, stated the obvious, our one
wheel was shot, as in shot bearings, and we soon made it 20 miles back up the
freeway to Joey’s shop in Santa Rosa on 3 wheels, after Joey rigged the axle to
keep it from dragging on the ground on its wheel-less
side; said he did this all the time with the
Big Rigs (Semis).
We spent the better part of the day there while Joey and
crew replaced our wheel, discovering in the process that one of our other tires
was also shot (see below)…
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| "What Next"? |
It was about this time that Lanie and I looked at
each other and mutually stated the obvious, as in “What Next?”
But Joey and crew took care of all the
problems, though it took all day; and at some point I contemplated trading in
the old, wounded 5
th Wheel for this vintage rig, undoubtedly owned
by Cuzzin Eddie of National Lampoon Christmas Vacation Fame.
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| Cuzzin Eddie's upgrade |
Fortunately we didn’t have to go that route. By 4 PM we were ready to go; and we decided
to go as far as we could in the few remaining hours we had available to us;
making it to Eastern Oklahoma after dark.
We didn’t even unhitch, getting up early the next morning (Friday, April
15th), and deciding to make the big push to get into Iowa on
time. And we did, 660 miles, a new
record length for us for a one day haul with the 5th, bringing us
into the Des Moines area and a reunion
with our little family there.
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| Our Campground in Iowa |
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| Fun at the park, Jonah using a bike rack as a jungle gym |
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| While Isaac crawls on Bertha's dashboard |
And it was a great visit, thankfully devoid of any further
“What Next” questions.... for the most part..
Isaac turned 1
years old the following Friday (April 22
nd), and things were back to
normal as we prepared to head West at the end of April.
But the morning of our planned departure
West, the “What Next” question re-surfaced all of a sudden as Bertha barely
turned over when trying to start her.
Batteries, both of them (Diesel pickups have two) were soon replaced at
a Firestone tire shop and we were only slightly delayed getting out of Iowa.
Despite all the equipment problems enroute
from Arizona, we enjoyed a nice, long visit with our little family there.
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| Birthday Boy Isaac (1 yr old) goes all "Green" all over! |
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| Jonah at a nudist camp for toddlers, Urbandale, IA | | | | | | | | | | | |
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| One of the Goose families at our Iowa campground |
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