Spring's Great Adventure: Sun City, AZ to Donnelly, ID

This part of the update was “supposed” to read: “DAY 1 - After taking the last three days to pack the rig and close up the house for the summer, we were on the road at 8am Sunday, May 27^th enroute to our friends’ house in Kingman, AZ. It’s only 170 miles – not a normal full day’s drive, but we will be spending the rest of the day at their annual family reunion (seeing their family members that we have not seen in years and eating a lot of scrumptious food.) Then we will take off early Monday morning for the first 300 or so miles of our 1130 mile journey to our MMAP project in Donnelly, Idaho. We should be at the project by Wednesday or Thursday. Our friends will meet us there on Saturday after they stop to see their grandson’s graduation and visit with their daughter and her family in Idaho Falls, ID.”

BUT……….remember my last update about the “uncertainty” of life???

Well…..less than 100 miles from home, in the middle of the desert heading up the steep grades of Hwy 93 our truck lost all power. Ooops. Jim pulled it over to the shoulder and tried to start it back up. No luck. So we tried making a cell phone call to our Good Sam Emergency Road Service….no cell service….double ooops. After looking under the hood and not seeing any obvious problem, Jim attempted to start it two or three more times with no success. So he got out and walked up the road about 100 or so feet. There he found a spot with minimal cell coverage, and after several calls and recalls, got the message to the Good Sam people. Within 2 hours, they sent a tow rig from Wikieup, AZ, the nearest town (or more accurately the nearest “spot in the road” – about 46 miles from where we broke down.) The tow driver and his family also own one of the two RV Parks in the area and one of the three or four restaurants. Since it was a holiday weekend and the Ford dealer in Kingman would not be open until Tuesday, it was determined we should have the truck and 5^th wheel towed to Wikieup, spend Sunday and Monday at the RV Park and then have the tow driver and Jim take the truck to Kingman on Tuesday. So much for Day 1! We notified our friends that we would not be partaking of the family festivities and we would see them (hopefully) when we all got to the project in Donnelly.

Day 2: I also made a statement in the last blog about our change of plans in being diverted to the project in Donnelly – I said we were going on “a trip to a place we had no intention of going”. Ahhhhh…..and so here we are in Wikieup, Arizona (population 77 according to the 2010 census update) with nothing to do and no way to get there in a place we had no intention of going….and having no idea what Tuesday will reveal and what decisions will need to be made.

However, let’s look on the positive side of this part of our “adventure” -

· The location where the truck gave up had a wide shoulder to safely pull off. Much of the road before that did not.

· The weather had cooled down to the low 90’s, so the two hour wait for the tow truck was not as bad as it might have been if it had been in the triple digit temperatures of the week before.

· Even though we were in an area of no cell coverage, we were able to pick up coverage just a short walking distance down the road.

· We have very good emergency road service coverage. We had just changed to Good Sam and did not have any history of their competence, but the Good Sam operator called us back several times to check on us and also took it upon herself to make arrangements for our stay at the RV Park when they dispatched the tow truck.

· The RV Park could have charged us a premium rate. But fortunately they are part of Passport America, a discount membership that we belong to. The daily rate is only costing us $10!

· As far as missing our friends’ annual family reunion……it is (after all) an “annual” thing, so we will try to be there (God willing) next year.

Final thought for Days 1 and 2 - at the time, Jim was wearing one of his favorite caps:

AND SO HE IS! LET’S RELAX AND GIVE HIM THE GLORY!!

DAY 3: Tuesday – Jim and the tow driver took the truck to the Ford dealer in Kingman. Not good news….we were hoping it was the fuel pump that would cost maybe $400-$500. Oh if it could have been so simple. Seems it’s the high pressure oil pump – besides the fact they will have to take off the manifold to access it, it may have damaged other components as well. The estimate is $3000 and the repair time is at least two more days. So, looks like we will be staying in Wikieup through Thursday, and hopefully on the road by Friday (with three hard days of driving to get to Donnelly by Sunday night.) Praying really hard right now that we are doing the God-honoring thing to continue on with this “adventure” – or should we tuck tail and run back to the security of Sun City? Right now I am having a hard time finding the positive….this is definitely a testing of my faith. I think I need the next two days to think and pray….got nothing else to do…..stay tuned.

DAY 4: Wednesday – Waiting….waiting…waiting….Weather is getting hotter, I’ve cleaned the RV top to bottom, front to back (even though it wasn’t dirty), we’ve watched movies we had recorded on our DVR (oh, did I mention there is no TV service here that we can pick up), we’ve played a round of almost every game we brought with us, and we’ve gone up to the restaurant to watch FOX News on their TV (now…that’s a PLUS!!) We did borrow our friend’s van and Jim drove it back from Kingman to Wikieup so we would have a way back to Kingman to get the truck Then, after my momentary “pity party” of yesterday, we prayed a lot, called family and friends to update them on our situation, requested prayer and also asked for some advice.

Two scripture verses kept coming to mind –

The first: Trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight. He promises a straight path – but perhaps not always a smooth one.

The second: Be anxious for NOTHING, but in EVERYTHING through prayer and supplication, WITH THANKSGIVING make your requests known to God. (emphasis is mine)

So after thanking God for where we are, we both concluded (God willing) we will continue on.

Wednesday evening the Ford dealership called to say the truck would be ready on Thursday late morning. There were no additional damages and the cost will be $2800. (Thank God for adequate credit options on our credit card. We had planned on picking up some odd jobs next fall to pay for the trip expenses – looks like we will just have to work a bit more than originally planned.)

DAY 5: Thursday - We picked up our “good as new” truck Thursday morning, dropped our friends’ van back at their house and came back to Wikieup to get ready to start out (again) on Friday morning. Today is my birthday, so we decided that the truck repair was my birthday present……..for the next 100 years!

Dazzo's RV Park and Resturant

Wikieup, AZ