On The Road At Last~

In Chucks words:

We left Springfield Illinois for the south on Nov 23. What a job emptying the house. We only made it as far as Mt Vernon Illinois the first nite. We were exhausted from moving and had to stop. We had been using the coach in the driveway many nites to get familiar with it. And guess what, we ran out of LP for the furnace in Mt Vernon that nite. And of coarse no one has it at 3:30 AM. We took off and stopped at the Flying J north of Evansville, In. We fueled up and filled the LP as well. We caught some shut eye in the noisy parking lot and took off after lunch for Morgantown, KY. We overnighted at her cousin Roberts where we met up with her folks and took off the next day and got as far as Athens, Al. A caravan of 3. Me driving the coach, Candy following in our car & her mom and dad in their car. We stayed at an RV park within viewing distance of the KMart on the north side just off the interstate. The next morning I was up early as it was a work day for me. I finished about 3:30 and we drove to Birmingham and got in late. We decided to stay at the Flying J so I could work that following day in the coach in the parking lot where I had access to internet. Her parents took off from there in the AM to visit with relatives in Auburn, AL. We left in the afternoon to meet up with our good friend Karen who lives on the southeast side of Birmingham. We fueled up at the Flying J before we left. We enjoyed a dinner with our friend at an Italian Restaurant (shoot can't remember the name) where we had Lasagna and Spaghetti. This was the best Italian meal we had ever had. We took off in the dark and we were going to drive until we found a good RV Park. We stopped at Prattville for the night and the next day I worked from my laptop in the store at the park as they didn't have WIFI in the park. We left Prattville at 3 PM and went around Montgomery at rush hour. That was quite a chore as they had heavy construction going on. At mile marker 52 on I65 the coach quit running. Just died. No easy steering or brakes. I managed to get it safely to the side of the road and put the flashers on. We had to be towed back to Montgomery to Freightliner and we spent the night in the parking lot. The next morning they found a couple leaks around the fuel pick up pump. Fixed it pretty quickly & we took off from there heading south again and the same thing was happening 105 miles down the road. We got off at exit 93 at Castleberry as it was running terrible, and had been running funny since we fueled at Birmingham. I limped it 5 miles to an RV Park where we spent the night. The Next day we limped it back to the exit to a closed gas station and called freightliner. They sent a mechanic out with a new fuel pick up pump. I passed the time waiting, working from my laptop and answering calls while Candy fixed breakfast outside on a cardtable. It only took the guy a couple hrs. to get to us & he installed it onsite and test drove and everything seemed fine. We made it to Gulf Shores State Park that nite after meeting up with Candy's folks for a wonderful supper at Lamberts (home of the throwed rolls) in Foley Alabama. We stayed for a week at the State Park right across the highway from the Gulf and Candy's folks stayed in her Aunt Bobbies Condo in Orange Beach, just down the road a couple miles from the park. They left to go home Monday and we were on our own. When we left the State Park in Gulf Shores we drove to Pensacola to visit our friends David and Laura in Cantonment Florida. We plugged in at their house on the street. Our coach blocked their entire Christmas Light display. We left there Monday (3rd) after my workday ended and headed for Holt Floridas Eagle LandingRV Park. We didn't make it far. The coach had been running funny again just past the big bridge coming out of Pensicola on I10. I made it to exit 26 and pulled off. We stayed the night in the Stuckey's parking lot. Tue we were towed to Ward International in Pensacola. They found 2 leaking transmission lines and repaired those. They also found a leaking left rear wheel seal. We stayed at Dave and Laura's. Thursday we were back again to Ward Int. The wheel seal did not make it till late Thursday and we had to stay in the Coach in the parking lot at Ward Int. Friday they installed the parts and finished the repairs and we were on the road again to only breakdown at exit 26 again. Same exit as before (Bagdad/Milton exit) We limped it to Mckenzie GMC in Milton, FL. A mechanic named Tony worked on it replacing yet another filter and again dumping some water out of a fuel filter and we were on the way over the road again. Barely 4 miles from Holt, FL it quit again. We decided this time just to set along the road and wait for it to cool down. And for me to get over the trauma of having to steer this huge baby one more time down the highway with no power steering or brakes till it finally came to a stop on the edge of the road. Candy suggested we play some scrabble so that's what we did. Luckily no police came by to catch her beating my buns over the scrabble board. After she won & the coach had cooled down I sprayed a small amount of starter fluid in the breather and Candy fired her up. I limped it to Eagles Landing RV Park with Candy following behind in the car and we settled in for the nite. In the light of the next day we discovered we were at a very lovely RV park. It's clean & they have really nice shower rooms and a laundry facility just across the lane from us. Monday I drove over to West Florida Truck Service on the recommendation of Dick and Judy at Eagles Landing and talked to them about our troubles. They thought we should check the fuel tank for obstructions and said bring it over tomorrow morning. We took the coach there Tues morning and they started trying to determine the problem. They dropped the fuel tank and drained it and blew out the fuel line. It was getting late so we stayed overnight in yet another parking lot so they could put the fuel tank back on the next morning. The parking lot was noisy as there were trucks going in and out to a business behind there all nite long. We had chicken in the fridge we needed to use up so we got out the barbque grill and charcoaled it right there. Wed. morning they put us back together and we did a test run and again it drove very well. This was after he had let it warm up to 180 degrees on the radiator. We let it sit for 15 min and then shut it down. Paid the bill and took off for the RV Park. 1.5 miles down the road it was doing the same thing again. So we headed back to Eagles Landing and parked it. Put out the awnings, got out the lawn chairs and decided to just stay here and enjoy the neighbors and sites. We are only about 30 miles from the Destin/Fort Walton area. Pensicola is 29 miles west of here. We're situated about halfway between Milton and Crestview. There's a nice little cafe a half mile from here and a post office. I've got internet access and my phones are getting a good signal. The mechanic at the West Florida repair shop had mentioned he thought it was possible we'd gotten bad fuel. We told him we'd done all our fueling at Flying J's and he said that could very well be the problem. They apparently don't have a very good reputation good quality fuel. He said that might be why we had to keep having water removed from the fuel separator. He gave us a sample of the fuel he took from the tank and now we're going to contact the Flying J people to see what they have to say. In the meantime, this is as fine a place as any to be stuck for the winter. There's even a campfire circle right next to our parking space. At least we made it to Florida. We haven't seen any aligators yet but we've heard rumors of bears. We'll keep you posted.

For a slideshow of pictures we've put together for this chapter click on this link

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=enxxrx4.dv0tqa8&x=0&y=vmgbmo