HOMEWARD BOUND

 We headed back to Tennessee with all one-night stops along the way. Normally, we spend 1 night, drive 300 miles and spend 2 nights, but I needed to get back to the quilt shop on Friday the 15th to meet customers. We had to drive from Durham, Maine on Monday to Chattanooga by Thursday.

Before we left, we needed to do a bit of cleaning up of the MH. That involved VACUUMING! OH NO, THE EVIL VACUUM CLEANER. As soon as I started, Finnegan ran to the bedroom. Several minutes later I still couldn't find him. Where could he be? I looked in all of his usual hiding places. THEN------

After removing one of the pillows on my side of the bed---there he was. Hiding from the evil vacuum cleaner.

Nickie usually likes to ride at my feet on the passenger side while laying on a kitty bed (which leaves no room for my feet). Every once in a while, he has to have attention and jumps up in David's lap while he is driving. If he would just lay down, it would be fine. But Nicholas insists you look him in the eye while you are talking to him. Of course, David can't do that while driving, so Nickie will stare at him and squawk until he looks him in the eye. Well, needless to say, David had to push him off his lap. You can't drive like that. You gotta love Nickie.

Bentley loves it when we slow down so that he can look out and see where we are.

If we are pulling into a campground, he gets all excited to see where we are and look for trees, animals and others in the campground. Finnegan could care less.

Our first stop was back to the KOA in Newburgh, NY. What a nice campground, deep in the woods and very quiet. One night there and we were headed to our next stop in Williamsport, MD. I thought when we booked this it was a new campground to us. As we turned off I-81 and drove farther we realized it was one we had stayed at a few years ago. It was way off the beaten path, down and narrow winding road along a river. 

According to the GPS we were in the middle of nowhere. The campground was not level, and we had no sewer, so we had to pay extra and move to a deluxe site with sewer. Then we found out there was no internet at that site. I ordered a pizza from the offices because we were just too tired to cook. After an hr. and a half, we still hadn't gotten it, so I had to text the office. A few minutes later it arrived. I'm sure the lady had forgotten about it, as it looked like it could have cooked a bit longer.

The river was a nice view, but I hope I never book us at this campground again. There are other options along I-81 that are better. This is a KOA, but we have seen too many that are not up to par.

As we were driving down I-81, David noticed the MH was not shifting into 3rd gear properly. He kept it in second gear. We had about 100 miles until our next stop in Wytheville, VA. We looked for a local RV service center that could fix it, but the only one nearby was Camping World in Roanoke, VA. They couldn't look at it, and we would NEVER have CW service anything for us again, but the guy there was very nice and did check our transmission fluid. He said it looked fine. 

David had a diagnostic tool that he plugged in to the dashboard of the MH and it said it was a bad solenoid and gave the # of the part which was bout a $125. So, at least we knew what we were dealing with. David called one of our service centers in Chattanooga, Lee-Smith and Mike told him to get a tow truck and tow it. Daivd said we were in ROANOKE, VA and it would cost us a fortune. So, I found a new RV service center in Chattanooga and David spoke with Jim, the owner and he said as long as we drive it in second gear at less that 3000 rpms (about 50mph) we should be OK. He gave us the name of the transmission place they use, and we called them and told them what was happening. They seemed fine with driving it home like that. So, there we were driving I-81, 50 mph in the right lane, with our emergency blinkers on. We spent the night in Wytheville KOA campground and headed out for a slow drive as we limped home. It was a very stressful drive.

We arrived back at the storage facility safe and sound and unloaded the kitties and what we had to have until the next day. Boy it was good to get back home without any more drama. The next day, we unloaded everything and cleaned up and we were done. 

In spite of our transmission issues, we did have a great trip and ate way too much food. But I guess that's what happens on vacation.