It was finally the day I would leave for the real journey I had been planning for for so long. I was more nervous than usual about getting busted for not paying to stay. I hadn’t paid for the last two nights. If I left right then I’d be in the free and clear, but I raced around all morning getting ready to leave. I wanted to stay hooked up to the electricity because I needed to charge my camera and I wanted to vacuum. There was river sand and were cotton wood tree seeds everywhere. I also went to the court house to get new license tabs for my Jeep so it would be good to go for a year potentially out of the state. I managed to get everything done and got out of the park for free. I wound up paying for three nights. I had been there for eight. Before I left I dumped my holding tanks, but was unable to fill my fresh water tank. The pump handle had been removed, I assumed it had broken.
I rolled out of Saint Peter around 1:00pm, bought $100 of diesel fuel for $2.58 a gallon next to Happy Chef in Mankato.
It was several hours until I hit Interstate 90 which would take me east through South Dakota. Everything was running great. It was a beautiful drive. I flew my hand out the window on the wind like the wing of a plane. I made South Dakota, then hit Mountain Time. My dad was right; when you cross the Missouri River the landscape changes from farmland and begins to roll into the foothills of cattle country. The miles ticked off like seconds on a clock. I was shooting for the Badlands, the Black Hills, or the Wall Drug area to stop for the night. I wanted to buy a straw hat to wear sarcastically as I drove through the mountains.
I hit the window button to bump up my window a bit and nothing happened, then I saw my back-up monitor flicker. It went dead. I started checking systems and found I had a major electrical malfunction, but only with non-essential equipment. There was no power to the leveling jacks control panel, or the trailer brakes, which I weren’t using. The windshield fans wouldn’t turn either. I saw a sign for a rest stop, so I pulled in to see if it was something obvious like fuses, or a wire shorting out. I tried, but failed to notice anything obvious. “No big deal”, I thought again as these were not primary systems. While I was stopped I figured I should check on the Jeep, even though I really never knew what I was looking for when I did my walk around.
When I opened the door the automatic step failed to deploy. I hit the on-off switch, but nothing. It had also become a casualty of my electrical problem. I jumped out like a para-trooper and landed safely on the ground even without a shoot.
As I walked to the Jeep I saw it was all brown and red like the space ship from “Space Oddesy 2010”. Sorry for the obscure reference, but it’s true. “What is this?” I thought. I rounded the back of the buss and saw that it too was covered in it. It had come bursting out of the engine compartment of the bus. It was obviously the coolant from the radiator and a very bad color for antifreeze. I thought, “This could be a major malfunction of a primary system”, I always did want to work for NASA. I had lost a lot of coolant, but the overflow reservoir still had a good amount, so I started to drive.
I watched the temperature gauge more than the road. My bus had always run very cool. It was higher than normal and climbing, climbing quickly. It was headed into the red. I had to pull over. I know from previous experience that you can kill an engine that way. I pulled the bus over, para-jumped into the ditch and went back to investigate. I decided to fill up the antifreeze reservoir and try driving. The gauge immediately went red and the temperature warning light came on. I stopped again, but this time rolled on the shoulder as far as I could. I could see what looked like a truck stop sign way up ahead on the horizon and wanted to get every foot closer as I could.
When I checked, none of the coolant had been sucked into the system form the reservoir. The radiator was so empty I could actually open the cap without it exploding. I put the remaining antifreeze directly into the radiator. The engine is so tightly tucked into the motorhome that the only way I could figure out how to pour in the antifreeze was to put it in a bicycle water bottle, then squirt it in. I’d just throw the water bottle away later, it was made out of the plastic that was supposed to cause cancer anyway.
I drove and again it didn’t work. This time as I coasted to a stop I was rather aggressive. I turned the engine off still rolling at about 35 mph on the shoulder. I had my hazard flashers on and just kept the momentum going. That truck stop was slowly getting closer.
The overflow reservoir was still full. I needed to get that antifreeze into the radiator, besides I had time to kill. Each time I stopped I waited a half an hour to forty five minutes to let the engine cool. It didn’t cool much at all in that amount of time. I had a cheap siphoning hose and tried to siphon the antifreeze from the reservoir to the radiator. It didn’t work, so I proceeded to do it the old fashioned way, with my mouth. I knew antifreeze was poisonous, so I tried to limit the amount that went into my mouth. I still got a good shot every once in a while. I now know why pets lick it, it is sweet. I also know they die from it, so I was spitting sweet antifreeze all over the asphalt. I got it all over myself too. I was a mess.
A truck slowly pulled over on the shoulder behind me. A big man in a cowboy hat climbed out like he was climbing down from a stage coach. I ran to the bus to get my shoes to hide my painted toe nails. I saw from his badge that he was a sheriff. “Got a problem”, he said. I showed him my situation and told him that I was just trying to limp it to the truck stop. He gave me some good directions. I said, “I think I can make it”. He said, “Okay, if you don’t we’ll be along later”.
Eventually I did make it the five miles to the truck stop. It was a perfect place to call home for the night. It was in the middle of nowhere on the plains, but had a huge back gravel lot for truckers to sleep, there was plenty of room for me too. I talked to a man with a pickup camper who was staying there. He had a thick accent. I believe he was from somewhere in the Middle East, but had long hair and seemed have been Americanized. Middle Eastern mullet, can you believe it? I asked him if they minded if we stayed here. He said, “No, I go all over the country this way”. I felt comforted by his words, not only for tonight, but also for future nights on the road.
I climbed back up into my bus and enjoyed a wonderful night at home. I had internet, phone, 10 TV channels, wine and my own bed. My window was still stuck half way open, but I have an alarm that will sound if the door is opened and a gun if I need it. I was patient and would rest and work on the problems tomorrow.
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