bobanddenisewanderlust

We were able to sleep in until 6:30, but we had to be ready for the RV tech to arrive to take the motor home into the repair bay. Our appointment was at 8AM, but the guy arrived at 7:40. We were not ready! So we hustled, and were ready by 7:50.

We packed up the dogs, had the bikes on the back of the car, and took off. We drove to Fred Meyer for gas, then headed to Liberty Lake park. We are actually staying in the city of Liberty Lake, west of Spokane. This is a beautiful lake, but they charged for the park, as they have camping and a swimming beach. So we went to our second choice, Pavilion Park. Wow, what a nice place! Since it had our 3 requirements: allows dogs, shade, and bathrooms; we set up our ‘day camp’.

This was one busy park!  It had a lot of open space, trees, tennis courts, basketball courts, picnic tables, parking, a skateboard park, Frisbee golf, horseshoes, and a large pavilion which has weekly Saturday evening concerts during the summer. The real draw, was this water park!

We arrived early, and had our choice of shade trees! So we set up and watched the crowds arrive. There had to be over 100 people there, at any one time. I am not sure why more places do not put one of these ‘water parks’ in, as this was a very popular place for mother’s with their kids, day care’s, and even a German Sheppard Training team, who brought in 3 very large German Sheppard’s for a training exercise! Watching the kids was a hoot! Bob was almost the only man at this park, we spotted 2 others.

We had run out of bread, so at lunch time, I drove to a local San Francisco Style Sour Dough Eatery. Well, at least I tried too! The GPS first took me through a nice sub-division, landing me on a cul-de-sac surrounded by the golf course. After re-setting the GPS, this time it took me to an empty lot. Okay, re-set again, and this time it sort of found the sandwich shop, as I could see it, as the GPS instructed me to drive past it. I picked up lunch for the two of us, Bob had an Italian and I had a turkey, we both had our own bags of potato chips this time. After all that driving around getting to the shop, all I had to do was drive 1/8 th mile and turn left, go about a mile, to get back to the park!

We stayed until 2 PM, the packed up and went to Mickey D’s for an ice cream cone. We returned to R&R, and could see the motor home, partially in a bay. So we put our chairs in the shade near where we are parking the motor home, and waited. At 4PM, Bob went over to the office, at the other end of the facility. While he was gone, a woman stopped and asked me if I had seen an older gentleman in a white sports coat, walking on the road. I told her no, and she took off. He came back, about 20 minutes later with the news. Just as he arrived, one of the repair guys came by in a golf cart and asked the same question. Of course, it was an older man with dementia, who had wandered off from his Assisted Living Facility, a few blocks away. Hopefully, he did not get on the interstate, as it is just behind the repair facility! I feel for the gal I talked to, as I had this situation when I was a Director of Nursing and with Dad when he was a patient. Nothing on the news, so I assume they found him.

Now, for the good and bad news, our initial problem was that the valve that you put the Freon in was loose, causing us to lose our Freon. Not a major fix, that was the good news.  BUT, while they were checking the pressure and looking for leaks, they found we had leaking exhaust manifolds.

We have been extremely lucky! There are two main reasons for fires in motor homes. First is the refrigerator, and second is the engine. We have added fire extinguishers in the main compartment and in the bedroom; plus, on the suggestion of Mac (The Fire Guy) McCall, we added a smoke detector in the bedroom. Since you can be driving down the road and have a fire start in the bedroom,(the engine is under the bed in the rear, calling these motor homes, diesel pushers)  and you do not know it is occurring until it is too late.  As I said, we were very lucky, as this could have caused a fire while we were driving down the road, or after we stopped for the day. Now we are not happy with the Freightliner facility, as they obviously did not diagnose our problem correctly, and of course, we had to pay for 1 hour of service, and wasted a whole day.

So, the really bad news, was that they do not expect the parts to come in until Monday. We were planning to leave tomorrow morning, for Columbia Falls MT and Glacier National Park. I had to call and change our reservation. The gal at the park where we will be staying was very nice, and changed it to next Tuesday. We can stay here, at R&R until the repair is completed.

At 4:30, they tech brought the motor home back out to the ‘campground’, so we set up again, and settled in to stay until, hopefully, we are repaired on Monday. We ate dinner in the motor home, and went to bed early, as again, we were exhausted. You would not think sitting around all day would be so tiring, but it really is!

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