Starting our Trip with a Bang

July 16 – August 21, 2020

Like everyone else when Covid-19 hit, our travel plans for summer 2020 quickly fell apart leaving us in limbo. After quite a few weeks of indecision, we finally set out for Indiana on July 16 for some RV repairs and upgrades (originally scheduled for April). We spent the first night just south of the Georgia line at the Jennings KOA. The next morning, Bill decided to call FMCA Roadside Assistance to arrange for someone to come and change out a tire that was showing an odd wear pattern. After a successful swap, we were on our way again.

As the roads were very rough and the temperatures were in the high 90s, Bill was checking the Tire Minder system often. We passed two or three vehicles along the side of the road with blown tires and commented how awful that must be. Ten minutes shy of a planned fuel stop we suddenly heard a big BANG. Sure enough, we had blown the rear RV tire on the drivers side. Did the Tire Minder give us any warning? Not a peep until after the fact! Bill managed to get us safely to the shoulder of a nearby exit ramp. At first the damage appeared to be minimal but as we all know, looks can be deceiving. Here we were, placing our second call of the day to FMCA Roadside Assistance and waiting until they could send someone to replace the blown tire with the spare (i.e. the tire that had been taken off earlier that day). Finally we were once again on our way to our planned overnight stop in Rossville, GA (Holiday Travel Park of Chattanooga).

When we finally got a good look at the damage from the blow-out, this is what we discovered.

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The next morning (Saturday) Bill located a Goodyear tire dealer where we could get two new replacement tires – one to replace the tire with the odd wear pattern, the other for a spare.

Once again, we were headed north. Our overnight that night was in Coumbus, Indiana at Columbus Woods-N-Waters RV Park.

Since our drive the next day was only about 4 hours and we needed to arrive after 3 p.m. we took our time before hitting the road. We were making great time until just south of Franklin, Indiana on I- 65 when we suddenly heard a small pop and the truck began to shimmy. Bill immediately pulled to the shoulder and we hopped out thinking we had another RV tire blow out. Instead it was both passenger side dually tires on the truck.

We were incredulous. FMCA Roadside Assistance was no help this time. Luckily Bill was able to find a really nice tire tech from a nearby Loves Truck Stop who came out, took off the flat tires, drove Bill several miles to a tire store (which happened to be open on Sunday and had the tires we needed), picked up the new tires, drove back to our rig, and put the new tires on the truck. Wow, talk about service!! The diagnosis on the tires indicated that something must have gotten between the tires and cut both sidewalls. Needless to say, we were late arriving at Twin Lakes RV Repair in La Grange but Jay had a power cord out for us so we were able to plug in and settle down for the night.

We had to be up and out early the next morning so Jay could start replacing the bedroom slide floor which had been damaged because of water intrusion. We backed our RV into the service bay and headed to a Holiday Inn Express for a couple of nights.

Jay did an amazing job replacing the slide floor plus taking the time to diagnose the damage caused by the tire blow-out. He then started the process of getting the necessary replacement parts, paint, and additional workers (for items that he doesn’t handle in-house). By the time we picked up the RV on Wednesday, we not only had a new floor, we had a plan of attack for fixing the damage. The only unknown was the timeframe.

From La Grange we drove about 9 miles to Shipshewana and checked into the Shipshewana Campground South.

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The Shipshewana area is beautiful with gentle rolling hills covered in trees and crops, and dotted with Amish and Mennonite homes and farms. Horses and buggies ply the roadways along with bicycles and motor vehicles with plenty of tourists. This is the place for Amish handcrafts, furniture, cheese, meats, and baked goods. We made several trips to Yoders Meat and Cheese Shop, Rise’ n Roll (fantastic donut and pastries), and the Blue Gate Restaurant (for take out dinners). We also made several trips into Sturgis Michigan for incidentals and to let Dawn stretch her legs in a nice dog park.

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A week later, it was time for our second scheduled appointment – suspension work at MORryde in Elkhart. We arrived a bit early that day but didn’t have to wait long before they had an open service bay for us.

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Here, we could have stayed in our RV at night but, given that we would be staying inside the service bay (dark, noisy, no satellite service) with a morning wakeup call prior to 6 a.m., we opted for a hotel instead. This time a LaQuinta.

Two days later we reclaimed our RV. Our previous plan was to go to the Wisconsin Dells after MORryde and work our way west to Utah. Instead, we decided to return to the Shipshewana Campground South (after a quick stop to replace all of the remaining old RV tires with new ones) and wait until Jay could work his magic at Twin Lakes. When it became clear that we were going to have to do a four day cross country press to get to Utah and potentially miss up to a week of our planned month there, we decided it was time for Plan C.

When all the pieces fell into place, Jay had us drop off the RV at Twin Lakes on August 19. When we picked up the RV two days later there was no evidence that it had ever been damaged. Kudos to Jay and his staff for working it all out and doing such an awesome job!!!

After a month in northern Indiana, we were finally “on the road again”.