Our First RV Trip

In 1998 we headed to Gettysburg for a McBean/Carter family reunion.  This was our first trip with our new fifth wheel which was also our first RV.  In an attempt to make sure that the trip was uneventful we took our older F250 diesel truck to a Ford garage to be checked over and service.  Mind you, we made sure we told the service folks that we were headed to the east coast pulling a 5^th wheel and needed to be sure all was in order.  Later that afternoon they called to say the truck was ready.  We had asked them to check the oil, brakes, and all the usual things and never received a call from them about any problems or cost.  We arrived to pick up the truck and were presented with a bill for over $800!  Yes you read that right – and no phone call prior to any work to let us know about this.  Needless to say, we left there pretty confident that the truck was in good working order. 

We decided to leave town after work and get a few hours on the road.  Our first trip out and you guessed it, there is a problem already with an RV tire.  Thank goodness we were still in town.  We drove to the dealer expecting the worst as it was just about closing time, but were pleasantly surprised - they were still open.  They dropped everything to fix it.  We were on our way in less than hour. 

The trip east was totally uneventful until we were about one hour out from our campground in Gettysburg.  Lesson One – when using a routing service you might want to tell them that you are pulling or driving an RV and to avoid mountainous drives when there is a more reasonable route even if it means a few more miles.  We were routed off the highway onto a mountain road with a very steep incline and practically no shoulder.  It’s about 2 pm and we are not far up the road when John notices smoke coming out from under the truck.  We pull over and there is actually a fire burning on the front axle.  Remember, we are totally new to this and cannot remember where the fire extinguisher is and did not have one in the truck.  Following that trip, in addition to the fire extinguisher inside the door of the RV, we carried one in the truck cab as well.  I was fortunate enough to have a very large glass of iced tea handy so I crawled under the tuck and dumped the tea on the fire successfully putting it out.  The transmission fluid apparently was too hot and was dumping out onto the axle which caused the fire.  We didn’t know what, if anything, was wrong but didn’t feel we could take a chance on driving as we must have dumped a good amount of transmission fluid for it to be overheating.

Remember I said there was no shoulder?  There just happened to be a long driveway coming out to the road where we were stopped so we walked back to the house to ask them if we could park on their property.  Of course we are in the mountains, they don’t know us and I’m sure we looked like major criminals so they wouldn’t answer the door.  We could tell they were home so we persisted and stood way back from the door trying to look harmless.  Eventually they came to the door and allowed us to explain our predicament.  We told them we didn’t need anything from them, just permission to back down their drive a bit to get off the road, which they granted to us.  We also had paid for a well known RV towing service prior to our adventure east.  Cell phones were somewhat new so there were expensive roaming fees and we didn’t have a phone charger for our cell phone.  After calling our towing service the company they called sent us a tow truck which was smaller than our own truck and this guy intended to pull both our truck and RV with this half ton pickup up the mountain!  Add to that the driver was hooking his truck up to the bumper of our truck.  John is remaining cool as a cucumber and I’m freaking out.  I told the driver to put the truck down as I watched our bumper start to bend.  He explained that their big tow truck had broken down and he had nothing else to offer.  So he left and we were back on the phone with the towing service.  The poor operator was becoming a bit frantic as she could not find anybody to help us so she sent us a sheriff’s deputy.  Not sure why but maybe that made her feel better. 

By this time we are realizing the towing service is not working too well.  So we decided to figure out if we could actually move forward or backward.  We started up the truck and put it in gear and didn’t hear anything bad and it moved.  We then placed a call to some of the relatives at Gettysburg and asked them to bring 15 quarts of transmission fluid and hopefully rescue us.  Yep - those big diesel rigs take 15 quarts of fluid and we had no idea how low we were.  We just knew we were way down.  When they finally arrived we had been stuck on that mountain for 8 hours!  While waiting on our rescuers we also called the KOA to see if per chance somebody there might be willing to come and tow our RV in if we could not get the truck driven in.  They told us they would check and call back and then our phone died.  Remember – no charger! 

When our help arrived with lots of transmission fluid we found we were down 7 quarts!  So obviously it was leaking somewhere and that’s what caused it to overheat.  We went ahead and drove the truck with the RV up and over the mountain top and hang on – you aren’t going to believe this.  Yes, just over the mountain top was a Ford dealer which had been open at least three hours while we were stuck on that mountain but not one single person put that together for us.  Not the towing service, not the local tow truck driver, and not even the sheriff’s deputy.   Odds are that if we had known and called the Ford dealer they could have helped us out.  As we passed through that town we encountered yet another mountain road that we had to climb up and over but thankfully we made it.  We arrived at the KOA at 11 pm but intact.  We found out the KOA had located somebody to tow our unit but could never get hold of us because our phone had died.

We were able to enjoy the family reunion and the KOA we were staying in sent us to an ASE certified truck repair shop in town on Monday morning which was the day we were supposed to be headed home.  These guys were wonderful.  They set aside all their jobs and focused on us so we could be on the road that day.  They found that the tube the dip stick for the transmission fluid goes into was broken.  Remember that $800 we paid the Ford dealer before heading out on our adventure?  They seemed to have missed this.  These folks in Gettysburg fixed that, replaced all the fluids we needed, and increased the size of the transmission cooler and only charged us $300.  What a blessing and answer to prayer.  This doesn't say much for the Ford dealer that never caught the broken tube nor did they suggest a larger transmission cooler.  I'm sure all this was in God's plan because those repairs would likely have cost hundreds more at the Ford dealer!

Our trip home was pleasant and uneventful but we did get a $600 cell phone bill.  We quickly learned that the old adage about your RV costing you at least $1,000 every time you leave town might be true.