FIRST RV Continued

Back to that 24-inch refrigerator and the 24-inch door opening. Friends from the East coast arrived for a visit, saw our motorhome and wanted a tour. Little did the poor man know what he was getting into. To make a long story short, he looked, saw my problem and volunteered to help. He hadn't even gone into our house. Not too many friends are that friendly. We removed the fridge and had a great visit for the next couple days, reminiscing about our times together in the Bahamas and in Maryland/Virginia.

The fridge was tested and then hauled off to the dump. New RV fridges sell for $1100 and up (outside our budget). We had planned a trip to Las Vegas to visit my daughters for Christmas. We purchased a large cooler and temporarily mounted it in the vacancy made by the departed fridge. I reinstalled the door frame and front door and prepared for our maiden voyage with the old relic.

On our first day out, we journeyed down Interstate 5 to Southern Oregon. In our car, I had never realized how steep the mountain grades are. As we ground it out at 40 miles per hour, I noticed the temperature gage climbing. So I stopped, popped the hood and saw no indication of overheating. I touched the radiator which is normally hot under best of conditions. I could lay my hand on the radiator and it barely felt warm. I checked the temperature gage again and it indicated overheating. Mystery #1-never solved. We made it over the mountain pass and down into Yreka, California for our first night. I learned the joys of setting up a motorhome for the night in the rain.

Second day: we uneventfully proceeded on down I-5 to Redding, California, enjoying the beautiful scenery of Mount Shasta and surroundings. I noticed one time a 5-second, or so, skip in the engine. I held my breath for a while but it didn't reoccur as we continued on. During the afternoon, Arlene said she would like some KFC for dinner so we kept an eye out for a KFC. We saw a couple during the afternoon but always just as we passed the exit. Finally, as it was getting late, we just randomly picked an exit and began to search for a KFC. Oh, yes, we were towing our VW and it was pouring rain so you can imagine the stress of cruising around a strange town with a 40 foot train. We finally saw a KFC sign but it was on the wrong side of a divided street, so we began maneuvering around thru an industrial area to get back to KFC. Finally, we were making the last turn toward KFC when the engine died. We were straddling the lane dividing line, effectively blocking both lanes of a busy thorofare. I could not believe the rudeness. Drivers were driving up on the curbs on both sides of us, honking their horns, yelling at us and making obscene gestures. Finally a good samaritan stopped and he, his teen-age son and I pushed the motorhome and VW over to the curb with my wife steering. Quite a chore for her 100-pounds with no power steering or power brakes. The good sams would accept no reward and left. We called AAA who stated it would be at least an hour. Meanwhile a second good samaritan stopped and towed us to the next side street so we wouldn't be such a traffic hazzard. It was hard to believe the generosity after so much rudeness.

We went into KFC to wait and have some dinner. We had barely begun to eat when AAA called and wanted to know where we were. I told him we were at KFC as we had told him we would be. He was at our motorhome and we weren't there. I hoofed it down to the motorhome and he agreed to tow us to a truck shop that was still open. That was when we discovered that AAA did not cover RVs without a special endorsement. There went $120 down the drain.

The truck shop was still open but getting ready to close so they parked us in their truck wash bay, hooked us up to their electricity and promised to get on it first thing in the morning. We spent a comfy night in our motorhome in spite of our strange surrounding

Day three: Next posting