October Surprise

We decided some time ago that rather than wait till the snow accumulates in Elkhart in January, we would take our trailer to Florida this month and store it there. We won't have to dig it out of two feet of snow as we did last year in January. Now we can just drive the truck to pick up the trailer in Florida and pull it a few miles to Emerald Beach in Navarre.

So, on Saturday the 22nd of October we picked up the trailer from Wana RV in Shipshewana, IN and hit the road. We had taken it to Wana for a Fall checkup. Since we were twenty five miles East of Elkhart we didn't go toward Indy on Rt. 31 as we've done in the past. We were close to I 69 and decided to take 69 to Indy with plans to spend the nite at the KOA south of Louisville. Alas our plans were about to change.

I've come to the realization that our FLAT TIRE in the Muncie, IN area has become somewhat of an annual event! You heard me correctly. We had our 6th flat in 5 years. None of our Florida friends can match that. To add to the misery, we sat in our truck along I 69 for 2 hours and 15 minutes waiting for Good Sam to dispatch help. Part of the problem was that Good Sam dispatched the 'tire fixer man' from KOKOMO. If you know Indiana, Kokomo is about 50 miles on country roads to get to the Muncie area. It took the guy another thirty minutes to accomplish the task. When he finished we resumed our journey. We had to find a tire store and buy another tire. God knows we wouldn't dare drive very far without a spare.

My friend Jeff Bloss is my tech support guy when it comes to everything you need to know about RV's. This includes tires. Turns out I have 14 inch wheels. Don't get me wrong, I did know this. What I didn't realize was that Jeff's former trailer from the same manufacturer as mine came with 15 inch wheels. Jeff believes my trailer is too heavy for the size of the tires. Rather than bore you with more details, suffice it to say that Jeff is doing in depth research (at no cost to me?), in order to come up with the best possible solution to my tire woes.

Discount Tire in Muncie sold us and mounted our new tire as a spare. We were there for about an hour. By this time Louisville was out of the question. We camped near Muncie. We were both in need of sleep.

Sunday the 23rd was uneventful. In other words, no more flat tires. We're at the KOA in Bowling Green, KY. We've stopped here a number of times, but it's under new management and it didn't meet our expectations. The site and grounds were OK, but they now close from noon to four every day. They don't have a brochure. They sell propane but they didn't have any. The women's shower room was a mess. Just so you don't get the wrong idea, Mary Ellen told me about the shower room!

Tomorrow we're planning on getting to Birmingham South. I'll let you know how that turns out. Wish us luck.

Jim