This isn't our preferred way to travel, but it wasn't as bad as I expected. Maybe because our new rig is a better ride, maybe because we had a couple special stops along the way, but Wyoming to the Jersey shore was accomplished in an easy 9 days. Taking pictures was not a priority since we were covering territory - traveling east - that we had just seen in traveling west. But I can't help but snap a couple here and there with my Droid phone since it's always with me. Because the Droid is also a GPS (and I have the setting turned on to add GPS coordinates to pictures), Picasa shows me a map of our last week shown as picture spots. The image below is a screen shot, but when you're using Picasa, you can click those little red baloons and see the pictures associated.
In addition to the special stop in Moline for the Picasa seminar, we also stopped in Elkhart, Indiana where our
Gypsy Journal friends, Nick and Terry Russell were parked. We hadn't seen them since last December in Florida and we decided that a 'Nick Fix' would do us good. Besides, they just bought 2 new iMac computers and we had to see them! We will be at their Gypsy Journal rally at the end of this month, but we're all so busy then that there's not much time to chat. It was great seeing them, and their 2 new family members! Those computers sure are pretty with their large, beautiful screens. And, I really liked the touchpads instead of mice. It's more like using an iPad or Droid type of touch screen with the pinch moves.
If you don't know about
Nick and Terry and their Gypsy Journal Newspaper, you owe it to yourself to go take a look. Nick is such an amazingly good writer that his daily blog attracts several thousand readers every day! They have been fulltimers for over 10 years and are instrumental in teaching a lot of folks about the best way to enjoy the RVing lifestyle. We originally met them when they were instructors for Life on Wheels. Now, we have presented our seminars at their rallies for several years, and are proud to call them friends. Their
Gypsy Gathering Rally in Celina, Ohio September 25-30 will be our last rally of the season. We're offering our Computer Boot camp, plus 10(!) other seminars throughout the week. You can see the complete schedule by clicking on the
link to their rally page. If you haven't signed up yet ... what are you waiting for?
Back on the road after Elkhart, our only destination was Long Beach Island, on the Jersey shore. But, as it turned out, we had one more stop to make. We filled up with Diesel fuel in Ohio just before the Pennsylvania state line because we didn't think we'd see the $3.69/gallon price again for a while. About 20 miles down the road the 'Check Engine' light came on - plus a couple other lights we didn't recognize.
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What do those lights mean? |
Jim took the next exit and turned into the first parking lot he could find while we searched for a Chevy dealer using our Droid smartphones. Luckily there was one not too far away. Their service department would be closed by the time we got there, but they said we could park in their lot overnight and they'd check things out in the morning.
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They mean we get to spend the night at camp Chevy Dealer! |
No other bad indicator lights were on - it wasn't overheating or anything - but the speedometer didn't leave the 0 mark as we drove and their was NO power. On several hills before the dealership, we were concerned that we would not make it to the top. But we did. The next morning, the service guy found the problem - 4 broken wires. So, the engine goes into what is called 'Limp Mode' whenever an error condition occurs. Learn something new all the time! They soldered the wires back together, we paid $200, and we were on our way.
After successfully negotiating the flooded landscape of eastern Pennsylvania, we finally made it to the shore. Here's our parking spot for the next week! And, we're off to Jim's high school reunion tonight.