It's Always Something

Wednesday, Aug. 1, 2018

Well, today is the day we are packing up to leave on what was planned to be our longest RV trip yet-- 5 weeks on the road. But true to tradition, "it's always something," because we never leave without SOMETHING cropping up to cause worries.

So far in the past week or two we have dealt with tires (replaced them all) and then yesterday, discovered one of the tires was completely flat. So that involved a trip back to the tire dealer, where the culprit was deemed to be a kinked tire pressure monitor cable. Could have been worse, and we were so glad to find that out while we were still at home. Today it's a bigger problem-- our refrigerator seems to be completely dead. Joe is currently reading through the owner's manual to see if he can ascertain what the problem is. But I really can NOT imagine traveling without it. Considering how hot it is everywhere, ice chests are not really going to do it for me.

And then there's the background issue-- all the wildfires burning out west. Our farthest destination was planned to be Lassen Volcanic National Park, but I see that the Carr Fire is within 50 miles of there, and I hear that the smoke is causing breathing issues all the way up into Oregon (also on our route.) So I'm pondering alternative destinations, all of which need to be someplace that has a chance of NOT being 100 degrees when we get there. To me this boils down to northern Idaho (we're already routed through the southern part of the state), northern Montana (not on this year's itinerary), or the Rockies-- Wyoming or Colorado. Of course, we could come back east faster and try Minnesota-- we've really never explored there, especially up north where all the lakes are.

So that's where we are as of 1pm today. Originally we were scheduled to leave tomorrow morning (sometime between 10a.m and noon), but the refrigerator is now the big problem. And if we can't get it fixed, this trip may be over before it begins.