Ashes, Ashes… Part 2….

Everyone who knows us has heard the Tale of the First RV Trip (someday, I promise, I’ll post that on this blog… even the most experienced RVers who hear it shake their heads and say… “Oh, that’s terrible.”) and know that ever since then we’ve packed up the fifth wheel and held our breath.

If you’re driving down the road and see two people in a truck driving a fifth wheel, and those people have blue faces, that’s us. We’re holding our breath, waiting for the next thing to go wrong and hoping that it won’t.

Less than two weeks on the road, Bob looked up at our Fantastic Fan just after turning it on because it’s always sticking, and saw the gasket hanging…. We’re now well practiced in finding the nearest hardware store, thanks to our GPS, and Bob spent at least an hour getting the gasket secured around the fan:

Another version of home ownership — if it’s not one thing, it’s another.

About 50 miles outside of Sioux Falls, with three weeks and one day under our belts, Bob noticed a bulge in one of the driver’s side RV tires. We’d had the tires checked out before we left Michigan, of course, and Bob’s diligent about checking the air pressure (daily at the start and every few days after that), so it was a surprise to see this tire tumor show up.

He babied the RV into the campground where we were going to stay, and as soon as we were set up we started checking for a Goodyear dealer. Goodyear had treated us so well with tires on the Avalanche before we parted with it that we decided to give them more business. After describing the tire to one of the retailers (silly me — in all the excitement I didn’t even think to take a photo), he said it should be fine to drive into the dealership the next day.

But at about 4 in the morning we were awoken by a huge *!* bang *!* We looked at each other in the dim morning and Bob said, “Sounds like the tire went.” Sure enough —

So we used our Allstate Roadside Assistance card and a very friendly man came out and changed the tire for us. Learned a few tricks, but as long as we have the assistance plan, might as well have them do it! He had the bad tire off and the spare on in about 15 minutes — practice makes perfect and efficient work of a job like that.

Then it was time to pack the rig and drive it to the Goodyear dealer. We’d decided to replace all four tires rather than wonder which one might be next…. There went our budget!

But if it means we can drive with pink faces (rather than blue), it’s all worth it.