September 5, 2013

Klamath Falls, OR

What to do?  Where to go?

We are heading to Utah but I didn’t have an exact itinerary or route.  So this morning we had to decide if we were going to go north to Bend and then east towards Boise, ID or go south to Klamath Falls and then through Nevada to Utah.

After seeing that there is very limited places to stay between Bend and Boise we made the decision to head south.

We hadn’t gone three miles when Monte called me on the walkie to say that a light had come on his panel and that he wasn’t able to change gears.  Oh No!

The road we were on was very narrow with no shoulder so when he pulled over as much as he could, he was still halfway in the lane.  I put on my flashers and held my breath as cars sped up behind me and passed me at what seemed like the last second.  Monte opened up the hood of the truck but couldn’t see anything wrong.

I expressed my concern to Monte about our location and he said he would go very slow and pull over when we got to a safer place. 

Luckily we came to a large pull-over in less than half a mile.

 

We turned on our MiFi so we could use our tablet to search for the closest Dodge Dealer.  The MiFi connection was very poor but we were able to do a search and discover the closest dealer was located in the direction we wanted to go in Klamath Falls.

The person in the service department looked up the code.  It had to do with emission controls.  He said if we continue driving the truck it could affect the engine.

Our next call at 11AM was to AAA.  Within a short time we were informed that a tow should reach us by 12:45.  The operator also informed me that the first 100 miles was covered under our plan but anything over that we would be responsible for at whatever the contracted rate was with the towing company.  She estimated we were approximately 108 miles from the dealer in Klamath Falls.

In the meantime the heavens opened up so Monte had to shift all the things he stows on the passenger side of the truck to my car so I could sit in the truck with him. 

Are we having fun yet? 

I braved the rains to use the bathroom in the rig.

At exactly 12:45, Lynn, the tow driver showed up. 

 

 

 

 

  

He assessed the situation and began the process of hooking up the tow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Because our truck is an automatic, Lynn has to crawl underneath and disconnect the drive-shaft.

 

 

  

It was a rainy slow drive down to Klamath Falls. 

 

 

 

 

 

We stopped at this little roadside station because Lynn wanted to get something to drink.  But it was closed.  Lucky for him Monte had plenty of Mountain Dew in the rig.  They were happy fellas as we continued on.

 

On the positive side it was only 81 miles so there was no additional out-of-pocket fee. 

 

 

 

  

When we arrived at the Dodge Dealer, the tow driver pulled into a next door lot.  Monte went inside to get the paperwork going.  He was informed that the lot was owned by the Subaru Dealer next door. 

 

  

We went into the dealer and asked if it would be okay to stay in the lot overnight.  They graciously gave the okay.

 

  

 

Lynn had to crawl under the truck to reconnect the drive-shaft. 

We unhitched.  While Monte took the truck over to the dealer I did a little set-up inside the rig. 

Monte returned just in time before the hailstorm. 

 

 

Now the fun part of this entire adventure was that we didn’t bother to dump at the campground when we left this morning because we “Planned” on staying at another campground.  That isn’t a big issue because we had dumped when we left Humbug Mountain on Monday so we still had plenty of room in the black tank.  The real issue was that we have NO water.  We had to use fresh water from the bottles we purchased in Walmart.

It had been a tense day so we treated ourselves to a dinner out at Sizzler. 

Of course we ate like little piggies so we went to a few different stores to walk off our dinner. 

We really love our life on the road-the adventures-seeing awesome places-meeting great people.  BUT it is not always rainbows and puppy dogs.  There are days that are stressful.  Things happen-BUT things would happen if we were living in a bricks and sticks house also.  So we just roll with the punches and look at each other and laugh and say, "Are we having fun yet?"