Sunday, June 7, 2009

Day 7: Can you Say B-L-I-Z-Z-A-R-D?




Sunday, June 7 - Cody, WY 

And I don't mean the Dairy Queen kind of Blizzard!  And the worst part of the blizzard?? 
Wasn't the blizzard.  

We knew it had to happen; we knew at some point this was going to touch our lives, we just didn't know how or when.  Well, now we do.  We broke down.  Sordof.  We were going along enjoying the beautiful scenery of the mountains minding our own business, when the WARNING light came on the dash.  Seconds later, every light we have came on the dash and then the engine started shutting down.  By the time I pulled the "rig" (learned that from Dan-See Day 5) to the side of the road, the engine had stopped.  It started right back up and all looked ok, but I wasn't moving an inch until I knew why it had all shut down.  We had mountains to climb and it would be a cold day in June (oh ya......today was a cold day in June...) before I started down a mountain and lost power to 35,000 pounds of metal with no brakes.  So, we decided to use our Good Sam Emergency number to get help.  I take that back; Liz decided to use the Good Sam Emergency number; Chuck was willing to risk our lives by continuing on.  About this same time, here comes the blizzard.  You could see it coming......hard wind blowing snow headed right for us perched on the side of this mountain......thats when we got another good idea.....why doesn't Liz ride the trike on down the road to see how far the nearest town was and how many big hills did we have to climb to get to it.....  So we unloaded the trike and I went to scout out what we had ahead.  Good time to remind you that we were in a BLIZZARD and I was on a MOTORCYCLE.   Visibility was zero and I was covered in frost and snow when I returned back to the cliff-hugging RV, Chuck and Murphy.  Now, I can hear you saying, "What about the Good Sam Emergency call?" right?  Well, they were having trouble finding someone able to come out to us on a Sunday afternoon in a blizzard.  We weren't sure how long we might be perched on top of this mountain and, to top things off, our generator wouldn't start.  It was getting cold fast.  Sounds like something out of a scary movie, huh?  Ya, that's what I was thinking. What was the name of that movie where the people had to resort to eating each other for food???  

Anyway, we decided to go for it to the next town which was 5 miles down the road.  We made it just fine and the Good Sams guy came out to us and drove it into Cody, Wy for me.  We "think" it was a bad battery or connection which also caused the generator not to work.  Fingers crossed and prayers going upwards.  I hope its that simple.  We'll know Tuesday.  But for now, we are safe, warm and comfortable inside our precious RV at the most beautiful campground outside of Yellowstone National Park with views each of you would kill for.   

We are so blessed to have so many things go right today; there was a nice wide easement for us to pull onto when it died; we had wonderful cell service in the middle of nowhere; we found a really great guy to come help us on his day off; and Murphy saw even more cottontail rabbits to chase.  Overall, a good day.  It sure could have been worse!

The pictures above are the view we're looking at from our RV site and Charlie at the repair shop in Cody, Wy.

Tomorrow is yet another adventure...

7 comments:

NORMAN H said...

HEY YOU GUYS,

BOY YOU HAVE ALL THE LUCK. WE NEVER HAD A BREAK DOWN IN EITHER OF OUR MOTORHOMES, HOWEVER, IT LOOKS LIKE YOU ALL HANDLED IT JUST FINE. SURE GLAD YOU RECOVERED THE WAY YOU DID.

LOVE

SUE AND NORM

P.S. KEEP THE DATA FLOWING, WERE LOVING IT.

Anonymous said...

Awesome . . . a blizzard sounds great with our weather of 98 degrees

Angie

Anonymous said...

Omg.Sorry about your troubles.I enjoy reading your blog every morning.

Frosty

Anonymous said...

You need to publish this adventure when you are done....AAA magazine would love it!!

Anonymous said...

great story with the right reflection properly placed ---- you write as well as you speak

Thanks for blog site I'll check.

Be safe. Barry

Anonymous said...

Well Liz/Charlie, God is good, I am glad everyting is OK...you see God takes care of his own..ride safe!!

Israel

Anonymous said...

That's real snow...at eye level....and blowing
winds....in the middle of June....and you had
engine trouble....now you have gotten me
worried about you two....when is it summer
there? Sure looks cold...stay warm and stay
healthy.
ant ellie