Monday, June 3, 2013
Traveled today, we left
North Dakota at 9:00 this morning and didn’t get into Billings, Montana until
around 5:00. Should not have taken that long, but old Murphy was sitting
heavily on Phil’s shoulder today.
It was raining when we got
up this morning, and it rained nearly all day. Pushing the rain showers was a
super strong headwind (is there any other kind??). A headwind of any kind kills
your gas mileage!! Added to the mix were some really long steep climbs. Do you
see where I’m going with this?? Yep…it happened again!! We ran out of fuel!!
Only difference was, this time we were paying attention to it. The engine
warning light is going off again, and I truly think that it has something to do
with the computer. When Phil noticed that we might have a problem with fuel,
the readout said we had enough fuel to go 71 miles and we only had about 55
miles to go to reach the RV Park. Then the available miles started to rapidly
fall and damn, we are on the side of the interstate again!! Fortunately, this
time John and Fran were behind us!! John drove up to the next town, picked up
fuel and brought it back to us. When we finally got the truck going again, the
computer said we had 71 miles of fuel left!! On five (5) gallons of fuel!!!
Yeah, right!! Lesson learned…don’t trust the computer, trust the gauge!!
But, wait…there’s more!
When we pulled off of the interstate to get fuel, Phil noticed that the trailer
is leaning a little bit. I didn’t see it, but when we got to the gas station,
he got under and looked, sure enough, we have a busted spring on the passenger
side of the rig, and we are in the middle of nowhere in Montana! Our
destination for today was Billings, MT, so our only choice was to try to make
it. At least we have a full tank of fuel, but the wind is still blowing a gale,
and now the trailer is going down the road at a slight angle. We are only going
50 miles per hour on the interstate trying to keep the tires from blowing with
the added stress of the broken spring.
A very stressful 45
minutes later, we pulled into the RV park that will be our base camp for the
next four nights, that is, provided we can get the spring replaced and get the
truck looked at for the engine warning light.
After we got settled in
and relaxed a bit, our friends, Eric and Connie Johnson came over and we
followed them to the Red Lobster for dinner. We had a great dinner and really
enjoyed our time with Eric and Connie! After dinner we found the local Wal-Mart
and did some grocery shopping. So, it was late when we got home and got
everything put away. Been a long day, glad it’s about over!!
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