Thursday, May 26- Another adventurous day- Breakdown #2!!!!

The day dawned overcast and dreary, we were up at dawn, and ready to head out by 0730.   We waited until 8 to fill up the propane tank on the way out, only 4.6 gallons after a month!

The original plan was to head on down towards Canon City, then over on Route 50 to the Gunnison Colorado area for a stay at Curecanti National Recreation Area...  193 miles....

Leaving at 8, the GPS said we should arrive around noon or so, no worries...
Beautiful scenery along the way, up through a couple of passes, heading to our destination...  The weather was turning out to be beautiful, temps in the mid 70's!

The route paralleled the Arkansas River along the way, and Bette spotted these rafters having a great time in the pretty weather:

On a whim, we decided to pull over on the side of the road to make a quick pit stop, pretty much in the middle of nowhere.....and WHAM! the exact same symptoms that we had a month or so before... no acceleration at all.  Depress the gas pedal, nothing, plus a yellow engine light. 

Fortunately, we were 50 yards away from an RV campground, and a nice lady bid us to come in, have a coffee, and shop!!!  Bette found several very nice gifts for our Coquina crowd, and I began the calls to get us fixed. 

Call to Gulfstream/Coach Net got us the information that a tow was on the way from Canon City, and would be there within the hour-  excellent!  this was at 1130- 

Finally at around 145, a very nice fellow showed up with a shiny big Boss tow truck to give us the hook....and back DOWN the road we go, 75 miles to Pueblo Colorado to our current home, McCandless International. 

We got to Pueblo around 345 or so.. Within 15 minutes they had the coach in the shop-  and they were open tonight until 9!  No worries we thought, just plug in another accelerator sensor and off we go, back on the the trip!

                                                          NOT

The two techs that were checking the coach were mightily confused..  the coach was spitting out codes, indicating for sure a problem with the suspected sensor.  Then, things got very interesting... 

There was much head scratching about the sensor- and then the mystery was solved... the shop in Tennessee that replaced the sensor apparantly installed the completely wrong sensor for my model of truck.  The guys here expressed amazement that I had gotten as far as I did without conking out. 

They showed me the schematic on the computer, and sure enough, the numbers did not match...  What they should have done in Tennessee was replace the entire pedal assembly, which includes the sensor. 

Well fine.  

Did they have the part, well no.  there is one maybe up in Denver, that may or may not make the morning parts shuttle truck, and there are 16 of them in Las Vegas Nevada.  Hello, overnight air. 

Another surprise-   they said that when the part got here, hopefully by 10 in the morning, it should be a 15 to 20 minute plug and play repair.  Funny, the shop in Tennessee charged me an hour and 4/10 labor to plug in the bad sensor.....

They also thought for a minute that the rear wheel seal that had been replaced was defective, but a further inspection revealed just plain sloppy work done at the Tennessee shop, where they didn't simply clean up after themselves. 

On the plus side, one of the codes the engine was spitting out was something relating to battery performance, so since the batteries are on their third year, I authorized a complete battery check, and voila!  turns out there were several loose and corroded bolts, cables, and such, and they were repaired by someone who knew what he was doing, and now, all is good-  They didn't need replacing, and now I have my interior cab lights all bright and shiny again!  He changed out a relay or two, and now the batteries are humming along at peak performance, and no more low voltage warnings when I crank up !

I called ahead to the National Park campground, worried that I might loose my spot for the Memorial Day weekend.. and at least one thing went right today, I was nicely assured that I had prepaid for the spot, and it would be held for us!  We had managed to get the last available spot in the campground for the weekend, so big sigh of relief if it holds up. 

Sooooo- rolling with the punches, we are currently esconsed in the parking lot of the International Dealership- awaiting the alarm clock for in the morning, and at 0700, we'll check in with the day crew at the shop, and let them know what our status is, and hopefully, the part will be here by 10 in the morning, and they can do a quick repair, and we can be on our way, properly fixed. 

We would love it if we could be on the road by not later than noon, and then make the campground by 4 or 5, and get on with the trip.  I had planned for today to be a rest day anyway, so we didn't loose anything.  Tomorrow, we had planned to do Curecanti, then the next day Black Canyon of the Gunnison, then on Sunday perhaps a trip up to Crested Butte-  Loosing most of tomorrow means we'll just do the two National Parks on Sat and Sun, and not go to Crested Butte it looks like-  no worries.... 

Monday and Tuesday, we are due at Grand Junction Colorado for a visit to Colorado NP.  Might leave Tuesday and head over to Moab Utah.  then Wed and Thursday, we are at Delta Utah, Friday is a boondock at Cabela's in Salt Lake City, then Saturday at 455 we pick up Brandon who is flying in from South Carolina! 

In spite of our coach problems, all is good.... we roll on

Happy birthday to son in law Tony,  and we have a good report from Grandson Cooper with his new braces, that his mouth isn't bothering him too much.