5C's Que Pasa

Day 6, April 1st

We had a leisurely few hours at the Inn enjoying their complimentary breakfast which was very good. Colin left me to start  packing while he went to check in the RV. The girls sat out the front door in their pen taking in the sun and a ll the activity around them. Colin was told that the RV wuld be ready by 10;30AM. The second part, the sensor  inside the RV was installed first thing while the mechanic was still clean. He then proceeded to complete the dirty hard to reach area within the engine area itself.

How we spent our days in the Jeep at Empire Trucking.

Finally able to put some photos in the blog. Carlie is so photogenic.

Tuesday the 29th, handing the RV over to Mike the mechanic.

They pulled the RV out of the bay for us once we arrived. It was full sun sun and very hot. Colin moved everything from the Jeep to the RV and I put thinks away inside and Colin did the outside. It was very hot and despite having the RV running the A/C did not keep the coach cool. Once organized we took the RV off a test drive on I10.

Long day sitting in the Jeep. Too hot to be outside.

The girls have been so patient.

Ciela is our vocal one and so full of energy.

Feeding them in the Jeep on Day 3.

Day 3, off leash dog park with artificial turf. Good for about 15 minutes. It did stink of urine but the girls got some good runs.

It was a good break for all of us. Amazing that the Flying J in Ehrenburg created this for their guests. It also had 4 or 6 covered fenced in smaller dog runs.

Very very long story short the same check engine light came on several times. Back to Empire Trucking where the mechanic checked the engine on the computer. Code 0132 came up. The mechanic, Mike told us that three codes had come up the first time he ran it last Tuesday but he figured that replacing the two parts should fix things. Well it did not. Basically there are approximately 60 wires that run from the front end to the engine along the underside of the chassis. The mechanic had no idea where to start – he also did not have a pit to stand in. The shop pretty much did nothing for then on. The girls and I stayed inside the sweltering RV in the bay while Colin called Spartan, after a long wait he got a mechanic who got cut off and then Spartan closed for the weekend. I got another mechanic ( took 30 minutes ) online via Spartan roadside assistance  and Colin eventually sorted out that if we ran on cruise we could bypass ” the bad wire circuit “.  Mike said hey why didn’t he think if that. We went back and forth and decided to go for it. Spartan and Empire were closed for the weekend and there really was nothing more that Empire could do. We paid that bill which was as expected.

Back on the computer April 1st after the highway test run. FYI the mechanic never test drove it and did not come with us!!

We started driving north to Las Vegas at 3:30PM on the really wonderful mostly newish highway 95 on the California side. All was well as long as Colin kept it in cruise but we did have to slow for a few intersections and of course lost power. Stop the engine, rest, reset and back on the road – okay as long as you have a shoulder. We drove non stop to Vegas and exited on Flamingo about 7PM just as the sun was setting. The RV does not idle as low speeds. We drifted to a stop a few times, fortunately there was a bus lane that we used without flashers on. The engine died a few times and we gritted our teeth with each intersection that we crossed. We did make it to the Las Vegas RV Park. I was a nervous wreck. Once checked in we idled to our site which was right next to the dog park. Our girls enjoyed all the activity and much to our surprise only barked a few times. Had a bit of a glitch when I discovered that we had no water, an off/on drain valve had broken. We found an RV tech to come first thing in the morning. The 21 year old plastic part was brittle with age.

It would have been lovely to see this cacti bloom but we were not sticking around Blythe a moment longer.

The ribbon of highway north.

Day 7, April 2nd

Mostly a quiet day but first we had to change sites once the RV tech completed the plumbing repair. The park was so full that with our constant changes of arrival date they had not choice but to separate our two night there. The girls really enjoyed their walks around the park and even had a good run in one of the penned areas.

Today was our scheduled return home date and our medical travel insurance expired at midnight. I was able to extend that with no issues. We did a small food and wine restock and called it a day, enjoyed a tasty meal and went to bed early, well t least I did.

Easy and inexpensive fix.

Day 8, April 3rd 

A bit of a dicey day as we decided to drive to Cummins here in LasVegas and throw ourselves at their mercy. The difficult part was the actual 14 mile drive but we did not want to be towed again. Back along Flamingo in the bus lane ( never saw a bus ) with the expected stops due to no power. The most difficult was making it though an intersection without the engine dying. Once on I515 we were until everything came to a very very slow crawl as we merged onto I15. That took almost tree miles and with construction there were only two lanes and no shoulder at all.  I was grinding my teeth. We almost did not make it, I would watch the traffic ahead and advise Colin if it was slowing or moving. Somehow we made it the correct exit and then just idled into Cummins. There has to be a stronger words than extremely stressful. Fortunately it was only 81F and cloudy which made things more tolerable. Camp Cummins has four sites specifically with 50AMP power.  We had no idea but it felt like winning the jackpot. There was no one around until the end of the day. The girls even got to run around the huge parking lot off leash for a short period of time. Had one of our last tuna pot pies for dinner.

Day 9, April 4th

Cummins opened at 7AM this morning and Colin was first in line.  However others had appointments and we were on standby with a possible 10AM or 1PM diagnostic time. About 9:30AM we were told that they were ahead of schedule and they could get us in sooner. That did not happen, somehow the day went sideways for Cummins. We hung around waiting until about 4PM when we let to do some errands and pick up Subway for dinner. Very hot today. Of course more appointments were changed again.

There is a new policy here ( we were last serviced here two years ago for some small thing ) that RV’s can’t be older that ten years and that the fridge needs to be empty and a bunch of other silly stuff like the batteries need to be off. We are not worried about our six kilos of shrimp in the freezer. I guess they are letting us in as we are scheduled for a 7AM drive into the bay with both a diagnostic and a repair set for tomorrow. It was a week ago today ( we had already been towed twice ) that we are taken into the Empire Trucking ( an approved and recommended to us as a Cummings dealer by Cummins ) bay.

It is apparent that the girls are slowly losing their spirit. Carlie has started to bark at different things which is not like her. We are too far away to get the free wifi and our ATT service had been slow as molasses in January as they say.

So early to bed and early to rise.

Too tired to do a proper review, edit and grammar update but I figured that you want to see this sooner than later. Off to bed. Yeah tonight is shower night, we are conserving water just in case.