Travel Update and Herd-Ball Results

Well, that did not go as planned.

          I’m sure that you all know Murphy’s Law,

          “Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong, (at the most inconvenient time.)”

          There is a Society attached to this corollary and of that, I am a card-carrying member.

          First I should report that our first leg of the journey has been completed and we are safely ensconced in the warm, snuggly, confines of the Tomboy Farm farmhouse.

          This was after setting two traveling records yesterday:

          Longest Traveling Hours (13+) and

          Longest Daily Mileage (766)

          The reason we needed to jam all of those traveling tid-bits into one day was that we were determined to arrive in Durango not a minute later than we had planned notwithstanding the fact that the fix of the DEF System did not go as well as we had originally thought.

          It, in fact, went much worse and was exacerbated by an untimely flat tire on the Honda.

          Oh, and for those of you that are eagerly awaiting the outcome and score of Madison’s Herd-Ball game, well, in the words of Kaitie (her mom), “The Feral Kitties (previously known as the Wildcats) were frosted by the Rainbow Donuts.”

          No worries Madison, there’s always next week.

          Back to the DEF System trials and tribulations.

          We showed back up at 8 am the following morning as instructed by Larry the Service Manager to have the new DEF Header (that I had with me) installed.

          This was supposed to be the be-all and end-all of the fixes that were needed to put us back on the road with only a slight delay. Once the new hardware was installed with all of its new silicon ships and do-dads, the computer would say to itself,

          “Hah, There it is! I’ll now re-set myself so that these fine folks can get on their way!”

          That was what was supposed to happen.

          What really happened was something other than that.

           After all the work was done, the “Faults” cleared out of the computer, and the “Labor Only” bill was paid, we hooked the Honda back up, waved good-by to Larry, Sam, and Billy, and proceeded north-bound on Rt. 36, headed for Lubbock and points west.

          About eight miles into the trip the same “Faults” came back onto the dashboard blinking their warning lights while saying “We saw Murphy down at the shop, he said to say ‘Hi” when we saw you!” or something like that.

          I called Larry from the Bat-Phone, he just repeated the same expletive that I had just uttered a few moments before and followed it with, “Bring it back in….” A few minutes later we arrived and the guys once again, abandoned the work that they were doing and started looking for anything else that may be causing the Faults to appear.

          Meanwhile, Paula and I went to lunch. While we were driving, a light came on the dash of the Honda! (You can’t make this stuff up!) It was the Tire-Pressure light indicating that there was an issue. I looked around at the tires when we got out and determined that the right rear looked a tad low, and I would check it when we returned to the Truck Center.

          Sure enough, it was by now, noticeably lower. Good thing I carry a plug kit and air compressor with us. I can fix most issues without even taking the tire off of the car.

          But not this time!

          I located the sharp metal object that was responsible for making the tire feel low and dejected. I succeeded in extracting said object but lacked the leverage to insert the plug while the tire was still on the car.

          Out came the jack, and we soon had the tire off and plugged. I then wheeled it through the Truck Center front door and through their showroom. Larry took one look at it and pointed to the back of the service area where their compressor was located. A few minutes later, inflated and spit-tested for leaks, we installed it back on the car.

          We still needed to wait for the outcome of the renewed efforts of the courageous repair guys before we could try all of this again.

          It turns out that Sam went through the whole system and found a wire that was a bit corroded. Things like that can keep the computer from getting the ‘full story’ and indicate such with a ‘Fault’. They also found some extraneous build-up of DEF remains in and around the injector parts of the system. When all of this was finished they performed a “SCA Whole System Test” which is where a service computer takes over the engine and runs both it and a diagnostic test at the same time. This requires an additional hour to complete.

          So, here we are, it’s about 3 pm by now and we still haven’t hit the road yet.

          A few minutes later, Larry came over to me and said, “The test came out good, why don’t you take her for a spin, check it out, and if it ‘s all good then come back and hook up your car and get outa here.”

          Good idea.

          Off I went, leaving Paula as collateral for the work that was done this afternoon and I drove a total of about fourteen miles with no issues!

          Back I went, “thumbs-up” to the crew, and hooked the car up. I then went to Larry and asked for the bill for the additional time that they spent on it this afternoon. He said, “No charge, just get going and have a safe trip.”

          They will all get presents from our trip upon our return in September.

          We obviously could not travel as far this day as we had originally planned. We had lost about nine hours of travel time so what was supposed to be a leisurely two-day excursion was not to be. We drove until about eight or so, and were finally getting too tired to continue. We found a Walmart in Brownwood, Texas which now holds a Five-Star Rating from the Paula and Don Traveling Circus Rating System for no noise, no annoying lights piercing our windows, no loud, unmufflered cars, (it seems that one of the pre-requisites of being an employee of a Walmart night shift is that you must possess a car that has no muffler and your number one priority when you report to work is to drive by the motorhomes in the parking lot several times before punching in), and only one train whistle all night!

          We arose early and were on the road by 5:30 am, headed west towards Lubbock, Texas and Clovis, New Mexico on the way to Albuquerque and finally Durango. As most of you know, Wind is the bane of our existence when it comes to driving. We have surmised that when we detect, Oh, say thousands of windmills in a particular area, that it does not bode well for a peaceful traveling experience.        

Apparently they do not put windmills in areas that have little wind.

          Oh well.

          But the Motorhome and her DEF system performed flawlessly 😊and we only stopped once for a splash of fuel and a few other times to change drivers. We have not yet perfected the Switch Drivers While the Cruise Control is Engaged and One Holds the Wheel While the Other Slides in Behind Them trick. Other than that, we eat and do other “important” things while the other person is driving.

          We made good time, all things considered, as we pulled into Tomboy Farm around 5:45 pm to a raucous welcome from CubScout, Ling-Ling, Munchie, Nibbles, Chloe, and all of the Chickens who thought that we had arrived to feed them.