Is The Trip Over??

Well, we thought we were going to get an early start home on Friday and get to stop and see my brother in KY. Good intentions right? Anyway, when we left at noon on Friday we noticed an oil leak. No phone service so we had to disconnect the car and drive up the mountain to call for service. We were told about a place not to far away for the service. YIKES! The guy was very knowledgable but his shop was scary. He was able to stop the leak, but the engine was really dragging and we think we picked up bad fuel in GA. So we decided to drive it as far as possible and deal with what we had to deal with.

We had to drive up and over Fort Mountain and it had lots of twisty curvies with a lot of elevation thrown in for more of a struggle. We made it to Knoxville TN around 9 p.m. and decided to wait it out and get an early start on Saturday. The mechanic advised us to let the fuel go as low as possible to eliminate as much of the bad fuel as possible.

Saturday 5:30 a.m. we decided to get an early start... the engine would not start. We called for a tow and he arrived around 10:00 a.m. Since no one would be able to work on it til Monday we decided to seperate and I'd head home and he'd wait get the repairs and head home later. Wish we hadn't made this decision, but it's over and we'll deal with it.

I did stop and see my brother and had a nice but short visit. They were talking about severe winter storms in KY and I was anxious to get out of town. I drove 3 hours to their house (even managed to get up their steep rutted driveway) and reluctantly left around 2:00 p.m.

Wanting to get home before dark and outrun the storm I didn't stop for anything but fuel once. I drove for 6 straight hours. A total of nine hours and I can honestly say I don't know how MM does it! The weather did hold out... it was actually sunny in Ohio and southern Michigan and I was home by just before 8. Had to stop to replenish groceries and I was starved! I had breakfast around 9 in the morning and that was over 11 hours without eating.

Talked with MM and he's waiting in the parking lot of the freightliner repair garage til Monday. I feel so bad and I don't think I'll ever make this decision again. I should have stayed with him even if I wasn't able to get back to work on time. But, decision is made and hopefully they'll be able to get the coach in right away and he'll be on his way home Tuesday or Wednesday. So I guess it was a nice vacation with a horrible ending. Lesson to be learned is watch where you buy fuel from. Think we'll stick with Flyin J or Pilot..... no stations in cities that really don't use diesel as quickly as they should. Stay tuned .... MM will be home soon and I'll be as excited as he is.