Our RV Adventures

This morning we had a late breakfast and called it lunch.

It’s Thursday and it’s Turkey and Dressing Day at Cracker Barrel and Jan needed her cornbread dressing fix. Remember, If it ain’t cornbread, it ain’t dressing.

Our cats, Mister and Emma have really taken to hotel life. They normally avoid each other, but they’re OK sharing the king size bed. Don’t know what they’re going to think going back to the rig tomorrow.

Later I went by Rush Truck Service to check in on the rig. They still found no coolant in the oil after yesterday’s test drive and still have no idea how it got there in the first place. They also did another pressure test on the engine while it was hot and found no further coolant leakage anywhere.

The system stayed pressurized without losing any coolant. So we’re back to square one on this problem. I’ll just have to keep a close eye on it for a while. They were working getting the exhaust manifold gasket replaced, and said they still expected to have the rig ready to go by 4:30 this afternoon.

But then about 3pm Clayton called with a little bit of bad news. The exhaust manifold is cracked and will need to be replaced. They will have the new manifold in tomorrow morning and expect to be done about noon. We’ll see.

About 4:30 we headed back to Cha Chi’s for a repeat of last night’s delicious meal. I again had a 3 item combo plate, but this time substituted a chicken flauta for the tamale. Just as good as like night. Even the rice and beans are good. Especially the beans. They’re the lumpy kind of refried beans, with whole beans mixed in.

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Jan had a repeat of last night’s plate with a chile relleno and a soft beef taco.

Cha Chi’s is definitely on our list when we come back to Las Cruces next year.

Heading home, we stopped off at the Wal-Mart right next door to the hotel for a few things before getting back to the room for the night.

Hopefully tomorrow we’ll be on the road to Balmorhea, TX.

Mega Millions is up to $540 Million Dollars!

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Thought for the Day:

It doesn’t matter how often a married man changes jobs, he always has the same boss.

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Today started out with breakfast at Denny’s. Much, much better than yesterday’s IHOP fiasco, believe me.

In other news I decided not to win last night’s Mega-Millions drawing, to allow the prize to rise to the largest amount in world history, $500 million.

That’s Half A Billion Dollars!!

After breakfast Jan and I drove over to Rush Truck Center to check up on our RV repair But when we got there Clayton and our RV were both gone. He had taken it on a test drive. Yeah!

About 20 minutes later Clayton pulled back into the lot with our RV. And after taking to him, it turns out things were a little different than we thought.

First off, the engine stopping had nothing to do with coolant in the oil, or my thinking I had run out of diesel. The problem was one of those UNKNOWN codes that my Silverleaf couldn’t read. It indicated a fuel sensor problem on one of the engine fuel rails. Replacing this sensor and adding fresh oil got the engine up and running with no problems. It started with no further priming. And apparently ran just fine, EXCEPT . . .  but back that in a minute.

But now the problem is, where did the coolant come from? They still don’t know. That’s one of the things that the test drive was supposed to look at. But by the time we left, the tech still hadn’t checked the oil for more coolant, but Clayton said he’d call me later this afternoon if they found a problem, and he never did. So I guess they didn’t find more coolant.

Clayton said they’ve occasionally heard of this happening, and apparently never happening again. At this point I don’t think I want to spend big bucks to tear into the engine without having some idea what the problem is.

So unless they found something else today or tomorrow, I’ll probably just start checking the oil every day we travel and keep a close eye on it.

Now for the EXCEPT – Clayton said both exhaust manifold gaskets were leaking. I had already figured out that I had a leak in the exhaust system somewhere since my Pac Brake doesn’t work as well as I thought it should. Plus I’ve never been happy with the engine power when accelerating up hill from a dead stop.

Clayton also said that the pressure test yesterday showed one leaky radiator hose that was only going to get worse, and should be replaced at some point.

I told him to go ahead and replace the gaskets and the hose, and get it out of the way. He said the hose would have to be ordered and would be in tomorrow morning, and said we should be ready to go late tomorrow afternoon.

I figure we’ll just wait and leave for Balmorhea on Friday morning.

After finding out things were looking up, Jan and I headed back to our room for more of the hotel good life, basically doing nothing, but again reading and napping. Jan’s read 4 or 5 books since we got here, and I’ve 4 or 5 really good naps. We’re both happy.

For dinner we wanted to try Cha Chi’s. Clayton, the manager of the truck repair center working on our RV had recommended it, and online reviews certainly reinforced it. So about 5 pm we drove over there. And unlike a lot of good Mexican places, this wasn’t some hole-in-the-wall place, but a very nice restaurant in a small shopping area.

Not only was the food delicious, but the prices were great too. A 3 item combo plate (in my case, two enchiladas (counts as one item), q chile relleno, and a tamale, with rice and beans was only $8.50. And according to Larry, our waiter, everything is made inhouse, tortillas, tamales, etc.

It certainly tastes like it. We may even come back tomorrow.

When we got back from supper, we had these email pictures from our daughter-in-law Linda, of our granddaughter Piper’s prom invitation.

Pretty inventive way to ask her and looks like he got a ‘YES’ check on it.

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Thought for the Day:

Injustice consists of treating equal things unequally and also of treating unequal things equally. – Aristotle

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