Dec 17

Spent a great night with our son Scott and his girlfriend Liz and awoke to a very snowy morning. We had left our RV at a nearby Walmart overnight thanks to some great pipe laying by Sam. However, we had to get going so we loaded up the truck and moved to Beverly (OK, we went to Michigan).

The morning circle check of the rig revealed that the turn signal gremlins had returned to the truck with the left turn arrow in the mirror not working. I had other symptoms a couple of weeks ago and had replaced the signal module which had fixed everything for a whole week and a half. Not bad for $42! (I bought the NAPA knock off vs. The genuine $120 GM part). Everything else worked so I guess I'll have some trouble shooting to do once we get, if ever, to a place I can work outside without mitts on!

After gassing up we headed out on the 401 for Windsor. I had been tracking weather at several points along our proposed route(s) and determined Windsor was a better choice than going across the border at Sarnia and heading midway across Michigan before heading south. We stopped at a rest stop prior to getting to Windsor and I did a walk around only to discover we had a soft trailer tire. I check them every morning and whenever we stop to ensure we don't end up with a blow out. I have heard that causes all kinds of problems ( read expensive) as the disintegrating tire trashes the fender, brake connections, suspension etc. It's tough to see the tires while driving in the mirror so a walk around at each stop is the best I can do. After checking the tire and finding no embedded objects, I got out my handy compressor and started to refill it, thinking it may just be a slow leak. However, as the pressure rose I could hear escaping air and found a small hole.

So, time to get experience with the jack and spare tire mounted under the trailer. There are few things in life that compare with the pleasure of rolling around in a slushy truck stop parking lot, dodging Bob their Mad Trucker types while torquing lug nuts on in a semi freezing rain storm! (Sorry, no photo, so I included a stock photo from my vast collection (read internet). Our spare was brand new but 9 years old and the wheel was fairly rusty and did little to enhance the beauty of our pristine, immaculately clean RV. But, it held air so that was all we needed.

After the 45 minutes of rubber wrestling was over, we were back on our way with temperatures hovering around the freezing mark and a nice coating of ice covering everything on the rig. Arriving at the border we were greeted by 1 of US Homeland Security's finest who actually took. My keys and had a look in the RV. Maybe he was interested in buying one? After that short battle of wits, we were again off and heading south on I75. Now, our last trip on I75 was in 2005 on our bike and I recall the 30 or so miles south of Detroit was 1 of the worst stretches of road I had ever been on, and that includes dirt roads, logging roads, cow/goat paths etc. I believe in the 11 years which have elapsed the road is even worse with the patched sections actually having pot holes in them now. I'm sure the RV was airborne part of the time and we actually got improved gas mileage because of this.

As soon as we crossed the Ohio border, the road was smooth as silk. We arrived in Findlay Ohio and checked into a Motel with a complementary skating rink for a parking lot. I slid the entire rig into a parallel park at the edge of the lot and we called it a night.