Morning came with sunny skies and all of us on time and ready to go. Jo, Karens friend who will be going along with us for 10 days or so showed up right on time. Karen had already moved her coach up on the driveway and hooked up her Jeep. And with a bit of tire inflations was ready to go the night before. We moved up and hooked up our Jeep and we were all looking at each other 30 minutes before planned departure time. We had found out the campground where we had a reservation for the first night out had a 4pm checkin time, and we were told it would be no problem checking in early except for a $2.00 FEE!! Absurd, we never had experienced anything like that in all our travels.
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| Jan and I ready to go! |
So we didn't want to leave early, as it turned out we needn't have worried...
Our mighty caravan headed north towards Cincinnati on our first leg, a beautiful day, all of us excited to be moving. So a little south of Cincy we stop in a rest area and do a walk around and find there is oil dripping out from under Karen's rig, and on closer inspection, not only oil, but coolant too! Her Jeep is pretty much covered as well. Damn! We take a look and I see the coolant leak is minor, just a leak where a fitting goes into her reservoir. It appears that an o-ring has disintegrated. But I think I can fix it with some teflon tape, but we'll have to let it cool a bit so we can drain the anti-freeze down to where I can pull the fitting out. As to the oil leak, after peering around that appears to be the oil dipstick tube has become detached from the engine. Most of these that I've seen are held in with a o-ring type fitting where the tube's form holds it in. Needs to cool for this also. Karen decides to call roadside assistance, and while we wait, time for an early lunch. After lots of calls, and conversations with Cummins, they feel it will need parts which they don't have, but can she drive it to their shop or does she need a tow? She will have to wait until Monday morning for them to look at it. Damn!
Jan and I tackle the coolant leak while she is on the phone. Get that taken care of. Then since she has decided she will have to go to Cummins I crawl under after we jack up the rear a bit so we can see if there is a way to cut down on the amount of oil she will lose getting it to their shop, and lo and behold, the oil dipstick tube is actually held in with a flare fitting that has just loosened and allowed the tube to pull free. 3 minutes of work and it is fixed! So as it turned out we didn't have to worry about our 4pm arrival after all. The rest of the trip to Seville, OH was uneventful, the campground quite tight, but pretty and quiet. Toasted our adventure's beginning and had a good night. Off to Niagara Falls!
Tomorrow's the big day. We finally begin our summer trip, lucky it's still summer, huh? Off to New England. We haven't been back there for a long time, in fact, since spring of 2004, the same year I ended up retiring from Delta. So we are looking forward to it, and the lobster and the clam rolls but not the bugs:-)
Karen is going with us with her motorhome, so it will be like our caravans of old. Her friend Jo is going along for a couple weeks, then Tom is supposed to meet up with us in Boothbay Harbor over Labor Day. We are just going to meander through Upper state NY, and revisit Indian Lake where Jan and Karen spent a lot of time growing up. And where Jan and I lived for a short time after I got on with Delta between when we sold our house in PA and were building our house in NH, also where Karen lived for a short time while flying for TWA in NY. It will be interesting to see all the changes since, ahem, 1978 or so, when we all were there last.
Then across VT and NH into Maine. Short days and nice stays as we go. I'll keep you appraised of our adventure. It will be SO nice to be moving again. It's hard to keep that nomad philosophy when you sitting still.
We've got 3 motorhomes sitting in 2 sites, so we will juggle around today for our launch tomorrow. Karen has only a million things to do, the disadvantage to actually owning and running a farm, so it will be a busy day for her. Meanwhile Jan and I will help where we can, and not be pushy or anxious, but we will be chomping on our bits all day.
