Peggy and I left Tucson last Tuesday on a lovely sunny morning and pointed Winne east on I-10. It didn’t take long for us to make it past Benson, AZ and shortly thereafter we had kind of an interesting few minutes when we came upon a motorhome pulled over on the shoulder of the road with thick black smoke billowing from underneath! Yikes! Fearing the worse, we pulled over and I went back to see if everyone involved was OK and if I could help. When I arrived I could see a man (turned out to be the only passenger) frantically talking on his cell phone. I could also tell by this time that the motorhome was not on fire and that the black smoke was coming from the running diesel engine. About this time the man on the phone informed me that he couldn’t get the engine to shut off! The engine seemed to be running on a high idle and was continuing to belch black smoke so something was definitely not working right with the fuel system. As the man had just been told by his mechanic friend on the phone and as my past training on diesel engines would suggest - if the engine couldn’t be turned off with the key - the only way to get it stopped would be to starve it from getting any air. I helped the fellow get the rubber boot disconnected leading from the air filter to the turbocharger inlet and then he stuffed a bunch of rags into the turbo inlet pipe which ... after about 30 seconds finally choked off enough air and the engine stopped running. Whew ... that was fun! Since the motorhome driver was safely (sorta) off the road and had already called for a tow ... we said our farewells, I walked back to our motorhome, and Peggy and I continued heading east.
After that little event the rest of our travel day was pretty uneventful. We traveled into New Mexico and then stopped for the evening in Deming, NM at the Dream Catcher RV Park ... yet another Escapee Club Park that we have visited in the past.
I wanted to get off the road rather early on Tuesday since the winds were forecasted to get pretty high in the afternoon —- and they did for a while — but then they calmed down overnight. We awoke Wednesday morning with outdoor temps down around 24 degrees! Brrr!
We got back on the road Wednesday morning - another sunny (but chilly) day. We finished our drive through New Mexico, stopped for fuel at the New Mexico - Texas border near El Paso, and then made it past El Paso using the Highway 395 bypass route. On our past trips through El Paso we have gone straight through the city on I-10 with lots of traffic everywhere but this time I tried this bypass route around the east and north side of the city which was much nicer ... although there is fairly steep climb and decent on the north side as you transit the Franklin Mountain range.
Once we found our way back on I-10 south of El Paso we settled in for the remainder of our calm drive across West Texas. Well it was calm after we dealt with our own semi-emergency! There we were cruising along I-10 when all of a sudden a very loud alarm screech goes off in the motorhome! Yikes again! So I pulled off onto the shoulder of the highway and found the coach Propane Sensor alarm going off. We could faintly smell something that we thought was propane so we opened the door, and turned on the roof exhaust vent fan to ventilate the coach and the alarm cleared. We checked that the stove burner valves were off ... and they were ... and I shut off the main propane valve at the tank outside. We weren’t really sure what had caused the alarm - but all seemed OK for now - and I felt safer knowing the tank valve was shut off ... and I didn’t like sitting there doing further troubleshooting while parked on the shoulder of the road ... so we closed things up and continued on down the road.
We made it about 5 miles when the alarm went off again! I pulled off onto the shoulder again and this time I could definitely smell propane. It then dawned on me that we had another source of propane on board besides the main frame mounted tank ... our portable BBQ uses those little 1 pound propane bottles ... and sure enough ... the bottle that I had left connected to the BBQ was leaking propane into the basement when the valve had gotten bumped by something else stored in the basement! Once that problem was fixed and the basement and coach area was aired out ... we were back on the road again! Although I have carried our portable BBQ with the bottle connected plenty of times in the past without a problem ... I won’t in the future! And it was also nice to know that the propane sensor and alarm works quite well!
We finished up our trip across some of West Texas ... back to Fort Stockton without further incident.
We decided to take a day off from driving on Thursday and just poked around Fort Stockton a little with our travel companion Curious George ... who found some mischief to get in to when he met Paisano Pete ... Fort Stockton’s mascot Roadrunner.
We were back on the road Friday — finishing off West Texas and making our way here to Fredericksburg in the Hill County Region a little north and west of San Antonio. We have visited Fredericksburg several times in the past but this is our first time staying in this area. Fredericksburg is a neat little town - founded in the mid 1850s by a group of German immigrants. The German heritage is still very evident today in the names of the places, the restaurants, the breweries, and yes — even the wineries that have become quite prevalent in this area over the past 20 years or so.
Yesterday we played tourist a bit in downtown Fredericksburg. Peggy bought some gifts, I bought a new Stetson, we visited the Pioneer Museum downtown, and we had some fairly decent smoked brisket and turkey at Mac’s BBQ.
Today looks to be another nice day temperature wise with a high in the mid 70s but the clouds have really moved in. We plan on spooking around Fredericksburg a bit more today before hitting the road heading further east tomorrow.
Look out you folks at the Rainbow Plantation — looks like you may have some Maineiacs coming to visit again soon! Save me a place at Big Daddy’s!
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