The travels of the Rambling Roses: April 13

Yesterday, when I woke up in Amarillo, it was so foggy, you couldn't see across the road. So I and my fellow campers delayed our departures until the fog started to burn off! Once I got back onto the road, I got to see hundreds of windmills, cotton fields and cattle! I don't think I mentioned in my first post that as I was climbing the mountains out of Mesa, I was losing a lot of power in my engine. (At the time, I just thought I was carrying a heavy load.) Well, as I was traveling through Texas and into Oklahoma, the roads are rolling, not really mountainous, but my poor motorhome was struggling and throwing check engines lights on and off! Not good! When I was about 60 miles from Oklahoma City, I was struggling to go 55, and the light was coming on more frequently, and staying on longer. I did not want to break down in the big city, so I limped off an exit in Hinton, OK that had a Loves truck stop. I parked with the trucks, shut down and removed my bike from the ladder rack so I could access the engine. My thought was that maybe I developed a bad oil leak, and so I checked the oil, but it was good. So then I went into the truck stop garage that dealt with tires, but they said that they did other things too. They said they could run the computer on my engine, but I had to bring it into their garage. So back I went, disconnected the jeep, hopped into the rig, turned the key, and.......nothing! I was dead in the water! So the mechanic came out to me, did some looking around, ruled out a fuel line or filter problem, and said it must be my turbocharger since I mentioned that my boost psi was low. He said I needed to get towed to a Cummins engine place. Fortunately, I have Good Sam Roadside Assistance which paid for the entire tow! Yea! We also purchased a Good Sam extended warranty when we bought the motorhome, and it would cover the turbo! So Good Sam called around and found a Cummins shop, which was 35 miles back from where I came from, and also arranged for wrecker to come and tow there. It took them over 90 minutes to hook my baby up and to get her ready to tow. It broke my heart! Anyway, by the time we got to Clinton, it was 730 pm, and the wonderful owner of Challis Diesel Service, came out and unlocked his gates so that the motorhome, jeep and a very tired Pam could get dropped off. As they were dropping the motorhome, Ray Challis, the owner asked me some questions about my problems. He then said he thought that it wasn't the turbo, but the fuel filters. If I didn't mind, he was going to run diagnostics on the rig in the morning, and would change out filters and go from there. So he locked me in the yard and I was in bed by 9!
Eight this morning he and his workers got to it, and sure enough, when they dumped the fuel filters into a container, the fuel was dirty. Somewhere along the line, I got bad diesel fuel and it clogged up the filters. They took the rig for a test drive and she was better!!! So I paid my bill, and proceeded to hook up the jeep. Ray came out to help me check my lights on the jeep, and bam! No brake lights! So he and his guys went through my fuses, checking them until they found the bad fuse. New fuse later I had brake lights again! When I asked what I owed them (it took some time to find the problem), Ray told me to have a safe trip! Talk about good, down home people!
So long story short, I got back on the road around noon, got through Oklahoma City at a good time for traffic, and pulled into the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino RV parking lot for the night. Was it a good trip? Oh hell yes! My baby had her power back and we cruised that interstate!!! After a rough 24 hours, I went into the casino, had an awesome steak at Toby Keith's and won some $$$$.