Our New Hopefully Not Permanent Home

July 21st: Getting the motorhome on the trailer was fairly easy. However, getting it off the trailer...not so easy. The big rig tow truck operator had to call his boss out to see if he could pull the motorhome off the trailer because the frame was actually dragging on the trailer and would stop the momentum of the motorhome (it didn't help that the drive wheels on the motorhome were not touching anything, so we were stuck, stuck). We tried winching the motorhome back and forth, stacking blocks and wood pieces, but nothing seemed to work. So, Mr. Boss Man pulls up and hooks to the front of the motorhome and yanks us right off. Phew!!! Once unloaded from the LoBoy trailer (which took 3 hours, btw), we got settled at Inland Kenworth up near the Alaska Highway, and we were welcoming sleep by this time because it was 1am. We weren't the only motorhome at the shop. There were 2 other motorhomes: one with the engine completely out of the back of it (they had been there 4 weeks, and counting), and a smaller motorhome we were parked next to that was an RV rallyer.

July 22nd: The morning brought another motorhome with a broken alternator, though he was able to drive his motorhome into the shop yard. Everyone was up bright and early to talk with the service dept., it was kind of funny we had to form a line to talk with the manager about getting fixed up.

We were told that we could try radiator "stop leak" fluid to see if that might work, but there is no guarantee that it would fix the problem permanently. So, it could last until we got back to Texas, or it could break down 5 hours later and we would be in the same boat with another $5000 tow bill. We definitely opted for the radiator to be replaced. They mentioned that finding a new radiator would take some time and could probably get it done in 2 weeks. This did not sit well with Sean, so we went driving around to other shops to see if we could find an alternative.

He ended up finding a shop with some other motorhomes squeezed in a side yard, so he decided to talk with the owner of the shop to see what was going on and ask for suggestions. The owner told him the other motorhomes in the shop yard were here because of the same problem, and it would probably cost ~$7000+ to replace the radiator!!! You mean to say this is a common occurrence, AND we have to spend at least $7000? In total we have found about 5 motorhomes in this city alone with the same problem...rock to the radiator. We decided then that we would come down to this shop (Certified Auto) because we really liked the staff and owner and they were willing to work with our insurance company to file the claim for the "road hazard" rock hit. Now, that's more like it.

They made a spot for us next to one of the other motorhomes, which wasn't too easy for them to do because they have quite a few vehicles stacked up and some repo. vehicles and tow trucks they had to squeeze together in another area. That is what we would call home for about a week and a half.