Held Captive in Klamath Falls Oregon by Ontrac…

Well the Tuesday our new tire was due to arrive came and went. We were told it might take 3 days instead of 2 but we sure hoped for the two day delivery especially since the Fairground we were staying at technically has a 3 night maximum. Unfortunately the delivery service (Ontrac) doesn’t deliver to Klamath Falls until after 4:00 pm and by the time the shop closed at 5:30 there was still no tire so we were screwed (excuse the phase).

The first thing on Thursday morning I called Ontrac to find out where the heck my tire was and even after 30 minutes of hold time I was told the company didn’t know where it was and would call me back. Later when they called us back they simply explained it was accidentally mis-sorted and went to a warehouse in Reno instead of to Klamath Falls. Next I was told not to worry as another truck could deliver it on Monday. MONDAY!!!! What did they just say? That was four more days for this two day delivery!

Normally I would just go with the flow but here is the problem… remnants of tropical cyclone Songda was aiming straight for us and to stay until Monday meant we would have to endure the wrath of the cyclone with up to 70 mph wind gusts. I became a bit terse with the supervisor I asked to speak to and told her in no uncertain terms that the Monday delivery was unacceptable. I got cut off.. and after another 30 minute hold spoke with her again. Amazingly she told me she would arrange to have our tire on a truck for a Friday morning delivery.

Friday morning would work out perfectly since the storm was to arrive in Klamath Falls on Saturday morning and the Fairground was kind enough to let us stay given our situation. Finally things were looking up… That is until Friday morning came and went and I once again called Ontrack (insert another 30 minute hold) only to be promised that the tire would arrive by 3:00 pm or earlier if she could arrange it. This meant we had to move to another site on the other side of the Fairground because a dog agility show reserved all the spaces in the lot we were in.  Sigh…

Having little choice since we were being held hostage by Ontrac and their crappy delivery system we simply waited hoping for the best (have I mentioned how horrible their customer service is?) . Our new challenge was that after the tire would be  installed we would have to leave and drive after dark about 165 miles to beat the storm south. Then, the next morning ,we would have to wake up extra early and drive another 150 miles to stay ahead of the cyclone to be in an area I considered safe.

Well the tire finally showed up at 3:15 pm and was installed rather quickly so we left the facility at 4:25 pm. I really can’t thank Basin Tire enough for making our tire installation a priority thus allowing us to get on the road as quickly as possible. Unfortunately this meant we would be driving at night from Klamath on 139 to Susanville California over some mountains and down a skinny two lane road. We never drive at night but made this sacrifice and certainly after driving down that long winding steep hill into Susanville we admit we never want to do it again!!! Thanks a lot Ontrac…..sheesh!

To be continued…

NOTE: We are now in Hawthorne Nevada and glad to be here… These pictures were taken at the Link River Trail on our last nice day in Klamath Falls OR.

A South Florida Drive; Next… Tampa for Tires!

Wrapping up our four day stay here in Labelle means we will be heading northwest toward the Camping World in Tampa, Florida. I called around several places before finally finding a place that was able to get the Goodyear G670 RV tires we needed. I really wanted to switch over to Michelins but since we already had to replace two Goodyear tires this past year it didn’t make sense to not to go ahead with the more pricey Goodyear  tires.
While staying in Labelle we visited a few of their restaurants in town. We tried the Log Cabin Bar B Q to try their highly recommended pulled pork dinner and I have to admit it was pretty good. Not as smoky as I would prefer but certainly above average even by our Texas standards. We also tried a local Mexican food restaurant but found the food there to be simply average and but nothing to write home about.
We also took a drive over to Clewiston, Florida and checked out a few more of the interior RV parks along the way. We didn’t find them to be as nice as we had expected  but we did find one that was really nice near Labelle called River Bend Motor Coach Resort. It is a motor coach only park but it is exquisite with great water features, large sites and impeccable landscaping. It is however, a bit out of our price range. The Glades Resort was another more affordable park we checked out but it seemed very similar to the one we are staying at in Labelle. Near Clewiston we found Okeechobee Landing RV Park. It was an interesting park in that the entire park was occupied by people from Quebec as we saw very few auto tags from anywhere else. A great park for all you French speakers but not for those of us who don’t speak French!

Without beaches nearby we figured it would take a pretty fabulous, activity-filled park to lure us away from the Bonita Springs area.  None of those we visited fit that bill.
Another day we drove west of town to check out the Caloosahatchee Regional Park and took a very nice hour long hike along the river. Since we were close to Seminole RV Resort, a place we stayed at two years ago, we also stopped by there to take a look. The owners have done some nice upgrades since we left and the park is looking pretty spiffy. If it wasn't so far from the beach I am sure we would happily stay there again.
To finish off the afternoon reminiscing about this area we decided to visit Hogbody's, a small mom and pop restaurant/bar near Seminole. Afterall it was Tuesday night and they were running their wing special along with their normal happy hour making for a fun and inexpensive dinner…
We have a 1:00 pm appointment at Camping World, Tampa for the new tires then will check in to Hillsborough State Park. We will stay at the state park for two days unless we can somehow hopefully extend through the weekend…

Invite us to your next blow-out…

We were not able to celebrate our 2 1/2 year anniversary very long… As we were leaving the Hollywood Casino RV Park near the town of Joliet, Illinois I stopped to dump at the dump station and to check out the motorhome for the day's travel. Earlier that morning we called our next planned stop only to discover what I had read on the internet was wrong (Geeesh and I thought everything on the world wide web was true) The campground had no hookups so we found our alternative, a state park nearby.  So instead of driving our typical 80 miles in a day we would be driving about 35 miles.

So with plan B in hand we finished dumping and started south down the road.About five miles or so down the road I heard an unfamiliar noise as did Sharon. I was worried we had developed another leaking wheel seal and since we only heard the sound while driving slowly we pushed on... after all we only had 35 miles to go…

Every time we slowed the disconcerting noise would reappear but there was nowhere on our two lane Illinois highway to pull over. I asked Sharon if she could tell if the sound was forward or near the back of the coach. When she said it sounded like it was coming from the rear I became a bit more concerned since our problem wheel seal was in the front. When we entered the park and slowed down, we again we again heard the noise..

So I had Sharon drive the motorhome very slowly as I walked all along the coach and discovered the sound was coming from the rear tire area. I had her stop and when I checked it was obvious that we had had a blowout on the inner rear passenger side tire. Odd to have a blowout and not even know it while driving down the road. Odd yes… but also we were lucky that no damage was caused and that the other tire held up  to carry the load until we got settled into our site here at the Kankakee River State Park in Illinois.

We made our second call to Good Sam’s Roadside assistance and quickly arranged to have a service rep come out to check out our situation. About 80 minutes later our service guy, Donovan, pulled up and in less than an hour had our tire replaced and properly inflated. I had a nice chat with Donovan as he replaced our tire and he told me his uncle had taught at nearby Chanute Air Force Base where I went to training school in the mid 70’s. It seems as if there was a good chance his uncle was one of my instructors… small world once again…

At least when the tire was fixed we were able to enjoy ourselves here at Kankakee River State Park. Although our site is electricity only (50 amp) the sites are very spacious and we practically have the park to ourselves.

They have an excellent 10 mile hike and bike trail that we were able to ride our bikes on. We rode nearly the full length of the bike trail which took us along the very scenic Kankakee River. There were lots of turnouts where we stopped to take in the views…

We enjoyed our nice and peaceful bike ride immensely and as we reflected back we are sure glad we had the tire repaired and were glad it was no worse an event than it was. Good Sam’s did a great job getting us taken care of once again and as much as we were happy about that we sure hope we never need them again…

Auburn University…

We hadn’t planned to be in the Auburn area this long but had stay to for a couple of reasons. First and foremost was a tire issue with one of our front tires which we were planning to tend to while we were at Gaffney Freightliner in SC. I have been watching the tire closely and it now appears unsafe for any further travel adventures down the road. We decided we really must have it replaced right away. The other reason we lengthened our stay is that we like this state park and the college town of Auburn.

We spent some time leisurely walking around the Auburn University campus and the some of the buildings are quite spectacular, especially Samford Hall. There was also an earth day festival going on in the Auburn Arboretum where we had a nice stroll. While we were walking around admiring the campus it appeared as if the sororities and fraternities were enjoying an Old South themed day in the front lawn of Samford Hall playing croquet.The ladies were in dresses and floppy hats and the men were in khakis and polo shirts.The themed event added to the picturesque spring day.

Sharon also noticed there was a softball series being played this weekend so we decided to watch the Sunday afternoon game.  The stadium was very nice and there was a big crowd there to enjoy the game with us.  It was a slugfest and a back and forth game down to the last inning where Ole Miss spoiled the hope of the home team for a three game sweep.  The final score was 11-9.

We were a bit confused at first with the War Eagle vs. Tigers words printed in several locations. So a quick search on Google gave us clarification regarding these two names. It turns out that Auburn University’s nickname is the TIGERS and "WAR EAGLE!" is their battle cry. Now we understand the campus lingo a little bit better.

With the flowering dogwoods and the azaleas in bloom it was sure enjoyable walking around the campus but not nearly as enjoyable as walking around this scenic state park we are in. We took several hikes in and around the state park and  noticed there are tons of mountain biking trails. One of the shorter but scenic trails took us around the lake over to the spill off to the remnants of an old CCC built dam. The spill off results in a really beautiful waterfall that was quite an unexpected treat.

The rest of our time the last few days was spent on researching RV tires and seeing what was available in this town or nearby.The park ranger was helpful in providing reputable dealers and I finally found a place that can get me a replacement tire like the ones we have now, Goodyear G670’s. Although they are very pricey the next best local option were some Firestone tires that are much cheaper but don’t support nearly the weight load the Goodyear tires do. So we will get the new tire installed and then continue the trek to Gaffney where we will begin the Freightliner school on Thursday…

Things I have learned about tires…

Reading through the many blogs one becomes painfully aware of the fact that between you a good time is where the rubber meets the road… it is your TIRES! Tire blowouts are apparently no fun at all and can cause a tremendous amount of damage to the underside of your trailer or rig when they occur.  So what did I learn form reading all the blogs that talk about their experience with blowouts?

Three key things:

• Learn how to determine the age of your tires
• Install a Tire Monitoring System or develop a plan to always check tire pressure
• know what to do if you have a blowout before you have one

Why do I need to know the age of our tires? Well the older the tires are is one of the key factors that contributes to tires failing. Blog wisdom suggests that If your tires are more than seven years old they need to be replaced. So how do we know how old they are?  We need to know what the DOT number is on the tires (Easy to remember if you think DOT=date of tire :) DOT numbers are usually on the inside sidewalls so use a flashlight to find them. The last three to four digits of the DOT number tell us how old the tire is. If the DOT has three numbers they are older tires and the first two tell us the week of the year that the tire was made while the last number tells us the year it was made. Newer tires have four DOT numbers. Like before the first two numbers are the week it was made and the last two tell us the year. How useful is this! I was looking a a 2005 Winnebago Journey recently and was told the tires were less than two years old.  After looking at the DOT numbers on the tires and seeing 2104 I knew I was being told untruths too since the DOT number told me the tires were made on the 21st week of the year 2004.  This small untruth meant that I would need to spend two to three thousand dollars to replace tires on top of the price of the rig.  Also, it suggested there may be more untruths being told to me about this rig … needless to say I didn’t buy it.

Also, I plan to install a PressurePro Tire Monitoring System on my future home as well.  Again the blog wisdom suggests that no RV should be without a tire pressure monitoring system.  And from what I have read the PressurePro System is one of the best. It consists of a monitor and tire monitoring sensors.  The sensors screw onto the tire valve stems in place of the the valve caps. This allows us to always see the tire pressures before traveling and while traveling on the road we could be alerted when tires experience low pressure helping us avoid costly and dangerous tire blowouts. A must have in my opinion…

… and a last item about tires that is good to know is to better understand what to do if you experience a blowout…