Westward Ho!

(sort of)

 

On the 3rd of January we got Jo-Anne's allergy shot so she was good for the month and then on the 4th we fired up the Flying Scotsman and hit the road for Arizona. Nice 50 degree day and only the desert to slow us down. Not so fast!

 

Ten miles later as we approached Fort Worth the RV heated up rapidly again ... wait a minute, didn't we just pay $1400 to fix that? Oh well ... off to the side of the freeway, call a repair shop (different one this time) and slowly creep down city streets to the place trying to keep the temp below 215 degrees. So that was the extent of the westward trip for that day.

 

We crept into the Freightliner garage on I-820 in Fort Worth and lined up with the other ailing machines. They got to us about 1pm in the queue and started the process of diagnosis, part ordering and hopefully repair.

 

As the Flying Scotsman was tucked into the garage with some of its new friends ... the fire engine, the garbage truck, the ambulance, etc ... we then tried to find a hotel that would take us as well as the cat ... not easy .... but fortunately the Joint Reserve Base Fort Worth was about 10 minutes away on Lake Worth and would take all the homeless. Pack the cat and the clothes into the car and go. Definitely need the wine!

We spent nights of the 4th, 5th, and 6th on the base which was really great as they had a Navy Lodge similar to a mid-range hotel but with a full kitchen and quite pleasant and very pet friendly. Oh yeah, the weather. The first night it hit about 22F and I asked the repair guys to tuck the bus in to an empty bay for the night as it wasn't winterized and it leaks enough without busted pipes.

The next 48 hours it remained below freezing actually hitting 14F and staying there. The picture below is out of our room on base with the new sleet/snow covering the grass at about 14 degrees and the 22 MPH wind ... brrrr.

We checked out of the base hotel on the 7th with the promise that the bus would be done sometime that afternoon ... pack the cat ... pack the clothes. About 4pm the repair guys finished up the repair and we hit the road again after paying another $3100 for a fan clutch ... oh plus the hotel.

The afternoon of the 7th turned out to be quite pleasant at about freezing and so motored about 40 miles to Weatherford which is west of Fort Worth and came to rest at the Oak Creek RV park pictured above. Very nice place with super management.

On the road again!!