Birthdays and Breakdowns

Today is our son Eric’s birthday. Hard to believe that boy made it to 33 – but he did! Happy birthday Eric!!

Since Eric and Jenn gave us a gift certificate to our favorite traveling restaurant – Cracker Barrel – and since there was one not far from where we were staying at Geneva-On-The-Lake – we decided to have breakfast there this morning. A good start to an interesting day for sure.

We spent most of the day traveling through Ohio around the southern tip of Lake Erie. We had a relatively nice day for traveling with temps in the low 80s and only brief rain showers a couple of times.

Then just to make things interesting – shortly after we bought some more of that $3.60 gas near Toledo – while cruising down I-80 minding our own business – suddenly a rapping sound starts coming from the engine compartment. Uh – oh --- off to the side of the road we go. A quick look at the engine revealed that about half of the width of the serpentine accessory drive belt was missing!! Since one serpentine belt drives all accessories on this engine (water pump, alternator, power steering, air conditioning compressor) - losing this belt would be a major problem! Knowing that we weren’t going to go far with the belt in this condition – I checked the GPS and found a Workhorse Chassis repair center about 25 miles away. We drove the motorhome to “Smitty’s Automotive and RV Repair Center” in Toledo with no problems. It didn’t take Chris long to diagnose the rapidly failing belt and he ordered a new one from NAPA that arrived within about a half hour. Another half hour or so and the pieces of the old belt that had wrapped themselves around the fan pulley were removed and the new belt was installed. No matter how much I try to anticipate the maintenance that should be done before we travel – I guess you can’t anticipate everything. As long as the belt was going to fail – I consider myself pretty lucky.

First - It didn’t fail all the way which is pretty amazing. By making some noise and leaving half the belt in place – I was able to know the belt was about to go and get it fixed before it failed all the way.

Second - It didn’t fail in the middle of nowhere Wyoming, Utah, or Nevada!

Tonight we are staying in Elkhart, Indiana. Elkhart is kind of a home for the RV industry and many RV companies and their suppliers have their manufacturing facilities near here. I suppose that is the reason the RV/Motorhome Hall of Fame is located here – right off I-80. Since we are here – we plan on another Cracker Barrel breakfast tomorrow – and then a visit to the “Hall of Fame” before heading west again. We will probably make a few less miles tomorrow – but we can’t miss the “Hall of Fame.” We’ll let you know tomorrow if it was worth it!

Life is never dull when Maineiacs are in Motion …