August 4th Wicked change of plans.....

First thing that went wrong today was the weather-  we woke up to a massive thunderstorm, heavy rain showers, and park flooding, but it was over in a short while- fast moving storm.

Next thing that went wrong was I noticed that the gauges on the dashboard weren't working.  In addition, the Medallion Smart system was flashing a message, no data.  Terrific.  I called down to Alliance, got a hold of Mike Hawkins, who walked me through what it might be, and he suspected a bad controller for the system, worst case scenario.  Best case, a soft reset, or maybe even a bad fuse.  

We agreed to call Coach Net-  they have saved my life so many times!  Put in a call, got a very nice tech fellow-  he called me back in a half hour to say he was not making progress, that the earliest anyone could see us was August 18th, 2 weeks from today.....  but he said he was determined to find someone close by.  Called back in a few minutes, and he did!  The fine fellows at Ira Smith Truck and RV repair, in South Easton Mass, about 35 miles away.  So off we went, arriving there about 11 am or so.  

Vic, the service writer, was very nice, and got me in promptly.  His tech Jason was very able, and tore down the system and quickly analyzed that the unit was putting out juice, but not getting any back, hence the dead gauges.  Net result, a bad controller, just as Mike at Alliance thought it might be.  

They were not successful at finding a part right away, seems that they look on EBay to find it, before they call Monaco.  They didn't call me back yet with any luck on that.  We left it that they would locate a part, get in touch with me, and then we would decide what to do.  Either mail it to me, ship it to me, or stop back by on the way back to Florida and have it put in.  

Think I'll call Mike tomorrow and see what he thinks we should do, and if it can wait to get back to Florida to fix.  

So now, its about 3 pm, and we are 252 miles from our planned stop for the night at Wal Mart Brewer Maine.  

We started out, and hit a gigunda rain storm, and lots of 60 miles of stop and go traffic, and wound up stopping for the night at 820 or so just as darkness was settling here in Augusta Maine, the state capitol.  Nice big Wal Mart, no problem with them for us to park.  Big lot.  

So the score for the day is about 254 miles all in, and about 2.5 hours to Sullivan Maine tomorrow.  

Saw a couple of plates today, post them later, and traveled to one new county in Maine today, Androscoggin County. Also have seen 30 plates in last two days.  33 more to go!

Here are the plates, plus a Massachusetts Ambulance plate for which I couldn't find a picture: