DAY 3

Josh had a 6:30 AM flight to Peru. He is studying physical anthropology and goes down there every year to dig up skulls and skeletons and stuff. Since Roy was still on Iraq time, he was awake and took him to the airport while I sort of slept, (They always say that the 3rd day after an accident or surgery is the worse and boy are they right!)

Now it is time to head off to Cedar City for a big family reunion.  So we finished loading up the motor home and hooked on the trailer with the 4X4 and scooter and toys. It was 11:00 AM. Roy was too sleepy to drive and I was fine driving because fortunately it didn’t hurt to sit, so off we went.

We figured it was about a 6 hour drive because we only go about 60 MPH in old Bessie here.  Everything was fine and dandy and I made it through Salt Lake and Provo and all the traffic and then…..

Believe it or not ,  THE BACK DRIVER’S SIDE WHEELS CAME OFF!!!  and I watched one of them roll right past me and down the freeway and then over to the side where there was a guy working in a trackhoe. Now there was nothing  for miles on the side of the freeway but of course my tire had to hit and damage the only thing there was.  (Boy did I ever wake up that guy) The other tire just  stopped in the outside lane so poor Roy had to run back and retrieve it out of traffic.  I just sort of pulled over to the side of the road and said a giant prayer  of thanks that we were okay.

Now I know we tightened those puppies up really tight. I have no idea why they came loose. Here is my resident grease monkey tightening them so I have proof… We have a book all about the specifications and we torqued them down good and tight.

Anyway, before we knew it we had the Highway Patrol and Incident Management there to help us. Roy was really impressed at how efficient they were and he now wants a cordless pneumatic drill.

(So do I!)

They put our spare tire on and we gathered up my wheels and I apologized to the trackhoe driver for the millionth time and we limped into Springville where we spent several hours trying to find a new rim and new studs and other things to the tune of $286.48.

Of course they never could find us a new rim because older motor homes have an odd size. So we just used the one off the spare tire.  Here’s what I did to it…

 

So by now it is 6:30 PM and we had only gone 100 miles but our adventure is not over yet.  We carried on and made it to Scipio.  (It’s in the middle of nowhere and if you blink you miss it.) We stopped because the engine was making a very funny noise. Roy checked the oil and it was dry!  We added 6 quarts!!!!!! I had checked the levels the day before and it was full. Very weird because it has never used oil like this before. 

Then it wouldn’t start but I got out and gave it a really good talking to and hit the starter with a wrench and it actually started.  So off we went again.

Somewhere around 10:00 PM it started to run funny again so we pulled off in the middle of nowhere and added two more quarts of oil. We finally pulled into Cedar City at 11:00 PM.  Twelve hours to go 300 miles.  But of course the troubles aren’t over yet, Day 4 brings more…….