24-Hour Bug

I wish this post was about one of us catching a virus and feeling a bit ill for 24 hours. Instead, it’s about 24 hours of back luck starting about 2 pm on Sunday.

We’re back on the road after several weeks of downtime. After a few hours of driving, we were only 30 minutes from our stop when we suddenly heard a large explosion. The RV rocked back and forth until John was able to pull off the side of the road. Another tire blew! This time the belts blew off and even damaged our tow car a bit.

We’ve had Good Sam Roadside Assistance, but never used it. This time we were along a highway on a Sunday with nothing close by that was open. We called Good Sam’s. It took a while for us to access the situation. The call itself took a long time. Then we had to wait for the technician to show. Once he was there, it was quick. But, we ended up sitting around for 2-1/2 hours with no air conditioning in the hot Florida sun. While we were waiting, we had sat alongside a road with cars, buses, and trucks inches away. The best part was the wind as they blew past and cooled us a bit. We drank all the bottled water in the refrigerator to stay hydrated.

The good news is that the insurance costs ~$100 a year. The tire company would have charged us a minimum of $250 for the work. Plus, the technician told us about a pull-off just a mile up the road so the tire could be changed safely.

So, now we’re driving all hot and sweaty and eager to get to our stop when the air conditioner in the truck stopped working. Not sure about this one yet. Then, we finally get to the state park and the ranger tells us they don’t recommend swimming at the park’s beach right now because of the jelly fish!

We get to our site and set up. On the way to the showers, we found out that they had a water leak and there was no water in the two nearest shower rooms and at our campsite! Actually, the water came back on fairly soon, but I had to wait a bit while they unlocked the showers while they kept telling me there would be no hot water. NOT A PROBLEM!

Then, the air conditioner in the RV kept shutting off all night. There are two air conditioners in an RV. One cools you when you’re driving (which was the one that had already stopped). This second one cools the RV when you are parked. It works, but keeps shutting off at the breaker. Plus, the thermostat seems messed up. We have to set it at 50 F to keep it running.

To top it all off, the next day before the 24 hours were over John’s tooth broke. We really can’t see a dentist right now since we would need to be in one place for a week for him to get a crown. Maybe in a few weeks.

I’ve never heard of a 24-hour bug for bad luck, but we seemed to have it. We are getting all the tires replaced. I’m not sure why they are failing since we don’t have that many miles on them. But we are certainly tired of having them fail! The air conditioning is still being debugged. Maybe a new thermostat for the RV one but, weirdly, the truck one seems to be OK now.

It was 24-hours of bad luck, but will take days and weeks to fix everything. Got to have a sense of humor for all this!