Moving On

Today started out rather propitiously. We were hitched up, ready to pull out, by 10:00 a.m. We planned to stop along the way and bike a Rails to Trails Oregon bikeway near Cottage Grove, OR, less than an hour north of Sutherlin. All was well.

Then our TPMS alarmed to tell us that the driver side outside dually had only 9 PSI. Yikes! It’s supposed to have 60 PSI. Ken checked with the manual tire pressure monitor, which indicated no pressure at all. What to do? We looked for a nearby Discount Tire Store, since that’s where we bought the tires, but the nearest was in Eugene.

Next we considered calling Coach-Net, our roadside assistance folks, but that would entail a delay while they located and sent out a tow truck, and all they would do was put the spare tire on. So we looked for a tire store in Sutherlin. Les Schwab Tires was nearby, so we unhitched, plugged back in so the refrigerator would have power, and stopped by the office to explain that we would be delayed a bit in leaving.

At the tire shop we were told to expect a half hour wait. The shop was clearly busy. I thought that meant I’d have time to walk back to the thrift shop, just half a mile away. When I got to the shop, I was disappointed to find that it is closed on Mondays. So I walked back to the Sutherlin Public Library: also closed on Mondays. Back to the tire shop to wait. Along the way I took some photos of "Old 100," a historic train engine that is the highlight of the city park.

And of this memorial plaque in the same park:

After some delay, the service people pulled the F450 in and discovered that the culprit was a nail, so the tire was repairable. They were nice enough to fix and remount the tire, smile at us, and tell us it was a free service.

By now it was after noon, so we drove back to the park, hitched up, and pulled out of our space, but only up to park by the office to eat lunch before heading north. The weather was not looking very good for a bike ride. The “slight chance of showers” seemed to be turning into an overcast, drizzly day. So we passed up Cottage Grove and drove to our destination park outside of Springfield.

Getting into our space took longer than usual. We couldn’t make the tight turns around trees, so we had to approach our site from the wrong direction and maneuver around to get facing the right was to back in. Of course we had help from the neighbors, all of whom were quite impressed by the Majestic. People are always surprised to learn that it is only 38’ long, since it looks like a behemoth.

When we put the Big Foot levelers down, we lifted the rig off the ground so we could check the driver side brakes. We'd heard some suspicious rubbing sounds. Sure enough, the middle tire scraped loudly when I turned it. Darn! That's one we've never had a problem with. Besides, we thought that our brake problems were over. Think again. Now we're planning to find a brake repair place in Portland, so we'll be able to stay with Chris and Anara while the work is being done.

We’re at a lovely park in the woods which is surrounded by Weyerhaeuser forest land, so it’s quiet and peaceful. However, it has no Verizon service at all, and the lovely trees block our DirecTV satellite, and there’s no broadcast television. The result is that we’ll be catching up on some of the programs we have recorded. We’ll also be using their public wi-fi, which isn’t the strongest ever, but we’ll probably survive.