Worst Trip Ever - Let's compare!

[dean0283]

Should I tell you about Dec 2010 or April 2011?

Dec 2010, we left the Bay Area for Abq. Blew a tire in Wilcox on the toad, no big deal but a hint of things to come.

on the way to Las Cruses NM via I10), my engine, a Cummins ISl 400 started to act funny (to many to list) took it to shop, needed a charge air cooler (maybe a air charge cooler) and $4k and a week later we headed to Abq. I had them do few other things to the engine since it was apart (hoses etc.)

Temp got down to 16 degrees in Abq and froze the house water pump. We waited till I40 opened up and headed home. The place we stay at, Blakley Ranch (about 20 miles east of Kingman) was completely frozen, only water running was in the bathroom, so out came the buckets.

On to Bakersfield, rain started to come down and I found out the Smart Wheel had turned dumb and the wipers would run when they wanted. In
Bakersfield on Jan 2,2011, weather turned good and prior to leaving did a walk around and found the tag axle tire was flat, about 5 hours later all was good but late, so spent the night at Bakerfield and headed home. Life was good. Got the electrical fixed in San Jose. Went over the rig and fixed everything we could find for the next trip.

Now to April 2011, we head out for another trip, everyhing was beautiful for about 14 miles when the engine blew up. Punched a hole in the block and that was the end of trip. Cummins was under warrenty and they are now putting a new engine in my rig.

Nobody hurt and we were close to home so we just went home to enjoy ourselves.

[Nuge]

In April '09 I bought an old RV to park on a small lot I purchased on THE Tippecanoe River. That way, if it flooded again I could just drive it out before the water got too high. In November '10 I was about to go on vacation and planned to bow hunt for my first deer when I get a call from my daughter in Phoenix, AZ. She'd lost her job and the "friends" who were living with her bailed on the rental agreement leaving her virtually in the street. Yeah, kids are going to do what they're going to do, but there were GRANDKIDS involved! She has twin boys who were 4 y.o. at the time and a 2 month old baby girl. So, off we go with just enough money in the bank for food and gas; The little woman, my son and his two daughters (2 & 3 y.o.) and my other 4 y.o. grandson and I head out from here in N.W. Indiana. The RV started losing power right after we got out of Illinois. It was just a clogged fuel filter which fortunately for us, one of the previous owners had stocked in a box of parts in one of the "basement" storage compartments. My son learned then where the filter is on older vehicles. Just before we got to Amarillo, Texas we lost a tire. Got it changed but lost another as we got in to the city so we parked at a Walmart. Over $600.00 later we had two new and two good used tires we needed to continue our trip but now we were broke. It was family conference time. I told my kids that I did my best but we were stranded and were going to need all the help we could get to complete our "mission". A co-worked loaned me enough money to get us home, but I put the decision up to the whole family, including the daughter left behind in Indiana. It was decided to go on while we burned up our cellphones calling everyone we knew for help. Needless to say, we found out just who our friends really were. We still had to wait a few times in Walmart parking lots waiting on money, but we eventually made it to Phoenix and packed up the daughter and her kids. On the way back, AGAIN, near Amarillo we lost our rear u-joint!! We got the bad parts out during the evening and cleaned up the damaged yokes and the next day a good samaritan gave my son a ride back to town for parts and donated a gallon of milk and a box of doughnuts for all the kids. It was a pretty smooth trip after that other than needing to have the daughter at home sell off the best of my gun collection the get us the rest of the way home. We had no deaths, but it WAS quite the odyssey for our family. In spite of the issues and breakdowns,I learned there's NOTHING like going down the road with a home and most of your family literally at your back!!!

[Bob N Deb]

Our worst seemed bad to us at the time but reading some of these I seem to have dodged the bullet. Our worst was on a trip from Canada to Mexico the end of the first day we started to loose power . We got pulled into a shop and had the fuel filter replaced which seemed to fix the problem for about 30 miles then back to square one. Limped into another shop had them test the fuel pump (famous Ford part) . Since it was Friday they ordered the parts to be installed on monday which turned out to be tuesday and then we were back on the road. we were very fortunate that we could stay in the motorhome at the shop, they even provided electric and water hookups.I don't know if it was the fuel pump or that my wallet was lighter but we had no more trouble until we were on our way back then we just couldn't find a place to stop overnight till finally we pulled into a small truck stop and just parked for the night, it was so windy none of us got much sleep. when we got back up to Oregon our water hose froze while we were camped over night. Our kids remember this as our worst trip.

[Purplefans & Harvey]

Interesting about Canada to Mexico. One of our last trips with the older home included going to Canada and Mexico. Unfortunately, it was Mexico, NY (yes there is one), where the MH broke down. We were able to get to the the campground, and find a repair person, limped to another campgroudn closer to the heavy duty spring shop, left the RV there for 2 days, and rented a SUV and took dogs and kids to Niagara Falls. Of course, the part didn't show up, and we ended up driving the wounded RV home on a very long slow trip that gave my DH even whiter hair than he already had! ***(( we did fix the RV before we sold it - didn't sell a broken rig- even though it cost us $$))