On the Road Again, Fall 2013

    This past summer we spent many, many hours and over $8000 out of our retirement fund to fix up our home so we could sell it.  The renters we had in it, had pretty much destroyed it.  We arrived in April and thought we could be finished by July so we could get to our jobs with the Cradle of Forestry in Virginia.  That never materialized.  July crept into August, then into September.  Finally in September, with our repairs nearing completion,  we had several couples who were very interested in buying the house and it raised our spirits.  One of the most interested people was a you man we had known since he was 16 years old and worked for us as a carryout boy in a grocery store we had moved to the area to manage.  He was an extremely nice young man then and is still so today.  He convinced us to sell the house, on land contract, to him. He gave us a down payment and then we will finance it for five years for him until he can get the loan to complete the transaction.  The little bit of money we got for the down payment was supposed to be used to start paying back our retirement account once we reached our winter work camper jobs in Florida.  He took possession on Oct 1st and we hooked up and went to the campground in Lima to camp until we could get ready to take off.
     Our journey south finally started.  We traveled to Lancaster, OH to Speciality RV so they could do a minor repair to our water heater, awning and toilet.  That didn't take long and we were off to spend a night at Fork Run State Park in Ohio, right down on the Ohio River.  Our second stop was a place in West Virginia and then on to Pisgah National Forest in North Carolina where we made a stop at Cascade Lake Campground to meet the people there for a possible job next summer.  When we left there we headed to Myrtle Beach State Park, South Carolina to begin our leisurely pace to our winter destination of Koreshen State Historic Site, in Estero, Florida.
   Needless to say"'the best laid plans of mice and men often go astray". We began noticing that the car was having difficulty going into 3rd gear on some of our climbs as we were headed south.  The problem progressively got worse.  We stopped for gas just 101 miles short of our destination and called our mechanic at home for some "on the road" advice.  He suggested we stop for awhile and let the transmission cool down, that possibly it had overheated and so we did. When we started back up things seemed to be working better until we got near to Conway, SC which was just 15.3 miles short of our goal.  A loud clunk when we were trying to climb a hill pretty much told us we were dead in the water but low and behold, we pulled off the road right in front of an Aamco transmission shop. Remember our "let go and let God" motto when we started this lifestyle?  Was this an example of that?  So on Thursday afternoon about 4:30 they helped us back the trailer and truck into their shop area. They disconnected the truck and took it in to look at it.  There was no conclusion drawn other than there were a lot of codes showing and it was closing time.  We were welcome to stay in their lot that evening but since we had a reservation at Myrtle Beach State Park I started the lengthy process of trying to contact Good Sam Roadside Assistance to see if we could be towed to the state park.  That was eventually accomplished and we arrived at the state park with the assistance of a large tow truck driven by Scott who expertly got us in our campsite in the dark.  He was a real sweetheart and had tons of patience.  So we were set up for the night.
     On Friday we waited almost all day to hear from Aamco and nothing.  Finally Jim called them and they said it was the transmission but because of the weekend they wouldn't be able to finish it. Okay.  Well we had reservations for Thursday, Friday and Saturday but then we were supposed to go to Hunting Island which couldn't be done without a truck.  Jim went down to pay for one more day on our site but that was all that was available.  He told the lady in the store/office about our plight and she immediately started to remedy the situation.  She somehow got rid of our reservation at Hunting Island and we got our money back.  Then she got ahold of Ranger Bob who came and talked to us.  He  had a site we could use for a week and even found a camphost Wayne Roach who would use his truck to move us to another site.   Thank God for both of them.  Once more "let go and let God" seemed to be working.  We moved to the new site on Monday.  We waited all day Monday to hear from Aamco Transmission and once again nothing so Jim finally called them.  They said they would have it done Tuesday.  Well okay we had paid for Monday and Tuesday on the new site so we were okay.  Tuesday dawned gray and cloudy and once again we waited to hear from Aamco Transmission.  Finally around 2 PM they called.  Our truck would be done on Wednesday before noon.  Oh and the original estimate of  $1600 had more than doubled.  Great where do we get they money for that??  Well it just so happens they have a credit card available for repairs so we can apply for that. One year same as cash so there is no interest unless you don't get it paid off.  Of course since our credit score is less than a mole we both have to get one for $1200 and then write a check for the remainder.  Such a deal!!  But we have to take it.
     So tomorrow we will drive up to Conway in our rental car, sign the paper work, I will take the rental car back and sit at the rental car dealer's until Jim can get the truck and come back and get me.  This may be a real circus.
     My sister says we wouldn't have any luck if we didn't have bad luck. It is bad luck I guess because we sure didn't have that amount of money laying around, but there was a lot of good luck in this deal that we need to be thankful for.  Getting to the campground, having the staff take wonderful care of us, getting the last rental car in Myrtle Beach this past weekend, being able to go to Mass and well the liquor store, as well as breaking down in front of a transmission place just as we blew our transmission. We need to be thankful that we had the trailer and stocked with food to stay in and we have to be thankful we have each other and our dog,"Rory", to keep us company.
    Because we have decided no more site seeing we will go straight down to our son's house in Okeechobee, Florida, where we can camp for free and spend time with our grandchildren.  We will even get to see their soccer matches.
     So while it may be true that we do have bad luck I think in the long run we have to realize we have a lot of good luck to offset the bad.