Florida or Bust

Back in pioneer days “ _____ or Bust,” meant, to paraphrase, make it or loose everything.  When a business venture fails, it is said to “go bust.”  That said, here’s the rest of the story.

As some of you may have read in a previous post titled, “False Start,” regarding attempt 1 to see our new grandson, Jacob, in Florida, you know we gave up and came home. “Bust.”

Had engine work done in southern Illinois and had the fridge replaced and that runs great.  So we were off again. 

All was going well until we tried to start the motorhome at the campground in Rend Lake.  We turned the key—nothing.  Tom opened the hood and was tapping on stuff then the motor sprang to life and off we went.  We stopped for gas shortly after that and again, we turned the key—nothing.  More tapping and then switching of switches and again the motor roared to life and off we went. 

We didn’t have too much longer to go and when we arrived at the Nashville Country North RV Park, we didn’t turn the engine off while Tom was registering. He did get a recommendation from the office of a fellow who makes “house calls.”  We called the guy and he said he would try to make it that evening so we said okay as we were having Tommy and Grig to our place for supper.  Well he never showed.  Tom called him again and he said he could make it Sunday morning.  After another call Sunday morning, he did finally show and replaced a solenoid and no more problems.  Or so we thought.

We both had a good night sleep as we felt our troubles were behind us. We left the campground Monday morning at 8:30, traveled through the remainder of Tennessee including the steep grades at Monteagle, through Chattanooga, and past Atlanta, stopping to switch drivers twice. We were happier than pigs-in-____.

Here’s where I made a mistake, though.  I called South Atlanta RV Resort at about 1:30 p.m. to see if we needed reservations.  I told the lady we were about 35 miles north of Atlanta.  She said fine, they had plenty of space and went on to say that the office was open until 7 and if we arrived after that we could just put our payment in the envelopes they have for that purpose by the door to the office and then place the envelope with the payment in the slot.  I said, “If we don’t make it there by 7 there’s something wrong.”  I wanted to take those words back as soon as I said them.  It never pays to get to cocky or comfortable. 

We got to our exit. No indication of what was to come.  Got off the exit ramp and on to the road to the RV park and sputter, pop, chug a few feet and nothing.  Start it up again and sputter, pop, chug a few feet and nothing. We only had 1/4 mile to the park. There was a road repair crew signaling us forward and we couldn’t go.  He was waving with more gusto as he thought we didn’t see him. So I got out and went and told him what was going on.  We made the attempt to pass the road crew; sputter, pop, chug a few feet and nothing.  Now we were blocking the road.  One of the road guys said don’t worry, if we couldn’t move, they would.  We poured water on the engine.  It probably didn’t do any real good but it let us think we were doing some good.

We sputtered, popped and chugged our way into our campsite, rolling the final few feet.  We got the AC going, Tom called another mechanic recommended by this park (he is coming in the morning), we walked the dogs and then went to the pool.  

Florida or Bust!

Addendum

As I was floating on my back in the pool, looking at the blue skies, puffy clouds and tall Georgia pines, I told Tom you could almost imagine you were somewhere in the mountains out west. Yeah, if it wasn’t 99 degrees.