Montana for a while – On the Road with Don and Paula

**Looks like a nice day today in Seeley Lake, Montana!**

We are nestled nicely thank you in our spot in Seeley Lake, Montana courtesy of Steve and Phillis. This will be a time of “west and wewaxation” as Elmer Fud would say. Our Reserved Pad is right next to the runway here at the airport in Seeley Lake. Steve and Phillis have a Home/Hanger here and we get to tag along.

**We’re still under the Dot, next to that last hanger. It’s a grass runway, nicely maintained and sees fair amount of traffic especially on weekends with folks coming up to fish, etc.**

Last year was our Year of Discovery here in Montana and while there is still plenty to do and see, we’re just taking it easy. We do, however, have a Mechanical Problem of Significant Proportions to report.

Our large Slide-Out is partially fritzified (yes, there’s that new vocab word again!) This issue does not affect the driving of the motorhome unless it gets stuck in the “Out” position, and if that happens we’d need those accompanying Flag Vehicles that travel with the Wide Load crowd! We are not sure why this problem occurred, the candidates are some significant potholes that we encountered back at a campground and /or the fact that we “Full Time” with this rig. Explanations below:

First one is a ‘out of whack” situation.

Imagine a shoe box.

Now imagine trying to slide another just slightly smaller shoe box into the first one. Now slightly torque the first (larger one) ‘til it’s slightly kanked and now try and slide the other one into it.

Instead of the “Wailing and gnashing of teeth” (Matt13:49-50), we get the “grinding and gnashing of gears” (Don9:30-54) which makes everything bind up and grind to a proverbial halt.

The second issue may be the fact that these motorhomes, travel trailers, etc. are not built for full-time use. The average family uses their units a few times a year for long weekends and a vacation or two.

That’s all they use it.

We, on the other hand, are constantly using ours and we put exponentially more use on the components than that average family does.

A Highly Technical Slide-Out Tutorial… the gears inside (red circles) run on a vertical axel (yellow line) which is powered by a motor on top (yellow square). They pull or push the slide-out using the silver horizontal slotted racks on the top and bottom. When something goes kerflooey the whole shebang stops working.

Either way it adds up to our very large slide out having issues and these issues and their consequences are non-negotiable. Although we can survive nicely with this slide tucked into the “In” position, it’s much nicer being able to move it in and out.

The other factor here is that not everyone works on these puppies. And…. even if we were able to find one that does, their wait times for service stretch out several months. I know of just two places that I am positive that they:

A.) know what they’re doing and

B.) are capable of completing the work.

One is Winnebago up in northern Iowa (we’ve been there before) and Country Classic Auto Body in Sussex, New Jersey who only work on motorhomes and other RV’s.

So…. it looks like we’ll be tracking back to the East Coast after this Western Swing because we couldn’t get into Winnebago until the middle of November at the earliest!

Tommy, clear out our Parking Spot…. We’re comin’ home!