The Final Episode

We turned the corner in Eugene, OR and headed west stopping for two nights in Sisters near Bend.  We didn't have much smoke in Junction City, but as we drove we had more and more.  We had received a lot of advice that our generator woes were most likely a bad fuel supply hose, so we had a new one made in Bend and took it with us to Ennis, MT where we were supposed to stay for a month.  At this point I was spending a lot of time thinking about the generator, we had already replaced almost everything and I wasn't truely confident the new fuel line would solve our problems, so after doing a lot more research into a new control board ended up ordering one to have sent to Ennis.  I found out the board from Cummins was almost $1000 and backordered for a few weeks, then found a company called Flight Systems that made a replacement for $635 with a 2 year warranty compared to Cummins 1 year, and they had stellar reviews.

We replaced the fuel line, I should say Jan replaced the fuel line, I did the connection at the fuel tank but she crawled under and did all the hard work, it turned out to be pretty easy, but it didn't solve the problem.  As we were running the generator and listening to the continuing surging I got a text from the office that a package had just arrived for us, our new control board, what timing!  It went in quickly and........no more surging, and has been working well to this date, a long road, but, knock on wood, it looks like we finally solved it.

New line on the left, old in the middle

It was in Ennis that we changed everything.  We had grown frustrated with the smoke and wind and dust and heat, the Madison river was under tons of restrictions for fishing which had never happened before, so no fishing, we just had to go.  So we shortened our stay to a week, changed a ton of reservations, and decided to go across the country first to see our daughter Kelly, and Brian, then to Buffalo to see our son Jason, and Joanne.  Lots of miles but we were done.

First went south to Durango for a few days and found fresh veggies, very hard to come by in Montana, and managed to even get in a couple hikes.

We had our galley sink drain hose break for the second time and replaced it with a 1" hose in Kalispell 6 weeks previously and it seemed the sinks were getting slower on the draining when it completely stopped draining when we arrived in Lubbock.  After a few hours of this and that and a pipe snake we got it unclogged and the sinks drained wonderfully again, but it sure made a mess.

But the reason we went to Lubbock was to see Kelly and Brian again on our way east.  We had a nice visit.

Then a mad dash across the country to Buffalo to see Jason and Joanne.  A great visit and we were fed like kings.

Then south we went to try to find an eastern leaf peeping gorgeous fall which we hadn't seen in many years.  First a stop in southern NY, then down through PA to check out fishing, and make our way to Luray, VA and the Skyline Drive.

Somewhere along the way we were invaded with stinkbugs, in fact, we are still fighting them, but our son-in-law Brian showed us a cool bug weapon which we got, a Bug-A-Salt.  It shoots and kills bugs with salt, very effective and fun.

This was the year of some frustration, the generator, the alternator, and the truck braking system light burning out the fuse.  We have replaced now the switch, the wires and fuse holder in the truck, replaced the ground wire in the coach, and since we still haven't fixed it will run a completely new wire from the rear of the motorhome to the front.  Jan, the diesel mechanic also works on the truck:-)

Then on to NC for the Blue Ridge Parkway and color.

And since you were wondering where the food pics were, we even found seafood.

We had stellar days and we had rainy, foggy days, glorious!

Found some more great food in Waynesville, NC, saw a beautiful chapel in Lake Junaluska.

Reservations were very hard to come by, so we bounced around quite a bit after Waynesville, we went farther east of Asheville to Marion, found great Vietnamese south of Asheville, managed to get new tires for the truck, had another wonderful lunch in Blowing Rock, then back to Sevierville, TN before moving to Murphy, NC.

We were lucky as the color followed us along!

Our site on the water in Sevierville.

Then back to Murphy, NC where we had visited in the spring.

Then down the road 30 miles to Blue Ridge, GA, a very cute enjoyable town, where we were met by friends John and Diane.

Then down to Atlanta for more dental work and more visits.  Then south to Florida.

We stopped in Cedar Key for our oyster and clam extravaganza:-)

Meanwhile Karen and Tom had arrived in Nokomis and were met by friends, Debbie and Harold.

We cheered them for cocktail hour and joined everyone the next day, even had a chance to join Debbie and Harold at the jetty for lunch before they returned to Canada for the holidays.

So yes, the torture is now over, back to our regularly scheduled show:-)