September 2015 was supposed to be the start of a new chapter in our lives. I guess it was in reality, it just didn’t go according to plan.
This is where we hope to spend the next chapter of our lives
Just over a year ago we bought a used motor home with the intention of traveling around the country visiting our clients so as to strengthen relationships and help them better with their business. Sounds great right? We outfitted the bus with desks, enough monitors to make NASA think we were the new Houston (it didn’t take long before we were able to really say “Houston we have a problem!”, redid all the valances (well most of them so far), new carpet, new flooring, the works.
Tim's side of the new desks
My two favorite words in the whole English language are 'Road Trip.' It always evokes images of blue skies, open roads, camping in the desert or forest or beach, camp fires, meeting new friends, the open road. So far there hasn't been much of any of that.
Our first week away in our new motor home, Helper, Utah
Last fall we took off for a week to test it all out and to make sure we could live and work together in a 38 foot metal tube with two cats and not want to kill each other. It went very well, even though it rained every day and the cats brought in copious amounts of goat’s head thistles. I must admit I still really enjoyed the whole experience. It's really cozy in the bus in the evenings with the curtains drawn, the (battery operated) candles glowing and me definitely glowing from the cider. We have loads of room and it is nowhere near as claustrophobic as I thought it might be.
Nice quiet evening with a cider, tomorrow it's wine night!
However, after a great week we started for home and were about 25 miles from the campground when we broke down. It was quite scary as we were going over mountains (we live in Utah on the side of the beautiful Rockies) and we were losing power with no idea why. We managed to find a pull off that was safe and although it was a State road and not a freeway we still had great big 18 wheelers whizzing past and rocking the bus. I have better ways of rocking the bus thank you very much!
We are members of the Good Sam Club and have their roadside assistance, thank goodness. One of the best decisions I ever made I think. Getting a breakdown service to tow something that weighs 30,000+ lbs is no mean feat and AAA might have been able to get a tow rig big enough but these guys were great. They made a lot of calls to find a garage that could fix our diesel pusher and made sure the tow truck could haul us.
Towing 30,000+ lbs takes a big tow truck!
The woman on the phone at Good Sam Club was very helpful and knowledgeable and kept calling during the 3 hour wait to make sure we were OK. Kudos to Good Sam Club.
I also have to put a plug in here for Chuck and his gang over at Landon's Diesel Service, Inc. in Price, Utah. They were so accommodating and helpful and really put us at ease that they could sort the problem for us. When something like this happens it’s always worrying and nerve racking but they instilled in us a sense of confidence.
Lindon’s also towed us 25 miles back the way we came and once we reached the shop and they took a look we were told that apparently we have a cracked block. At that point I thought I was going to be physically sick. Especially when he gave us a ball park price of $24,000 AND we would need to leave the bus there for the 3 or so months it would take to get a new engine and get it all put back together.
Our view at Landon's Diesel garage where the tow truck put us. Not exactly what I had in mind when we started this motor home thing.
Now the fun begins as we have to put everything that could freeze, plus all our clothes and all the cat stuff into our ‘toad’ (we tow a Nissan Maxima.) By the time we were done that thing was filled to the gills, including 2 very unhappy cats. But we made it back home.
The Wasatch Mountains on the side of the Salt Lake Valley in Utah.
So we got to spend Thanksgiving and a very white Christmas in Utah. It could be worse.