We first stopped on the side of the road, because, you know, we have first gear and a huge rig behind us! J hops out and looks under to truck to see if we're leaking fluids or anything. We don't RECALL hitting anything, but it's possible we didn't hear it. Nope, no leaking fluids.
Next, he tries shutting the truck off, maybe the check engine light is just a fluke.
Starts truck up, check engine light comes BACK on. Puts truck into gear and nope, have first and reverse, that's it. Checking truck dash display, no error messages. Check engine and tranny temp - neither above 200 degrees.
OKAY .... next plan. Figure out where we are and how to get to a safe place to get help.
I had my computer by my legs and my phone in my lap, so I'm looking to see what's around us. Truck stop, rest area, big parking lot, anything?!
Big blue sign ahead of us, hazard lights on and head toward the blue sign. Rest area, one mile ahead. OKAY, slowly limp our way to there. Rest area is a little full, but we find the first big slot and pull in. J and D jump out, check fluids, look for leaks. Fluids are good, no leaks.
Hearts are heavy, back seat dogs are panting. What do we do now?!
Turn on the generator, unload the dogs and try to figure out what to do next.
So, we're hours from anyone we know. The vehicle we have is a no go for now. It needs a shop and uh, what do we do with this 40' 5th wheel?! We can't stay in a rest area forever, right?!
So first things first, we needed a mode of transportation since ours is on the brink. We looked up car rentals and there were a couple at the airport .... that close at midnight. We had no idea if they had any cars or not.
Remember that storm I mentioned in my last post that we were trying to out run?
Yeah, it was headed straight for Tallahassee.
Hurricane chasers and news crews were now in town to broadcast the hurricane and had already rented out most of the cars in the area.
We had 45-60 minutes to get to the airport from the rest area and no way to get there. So I did what any resourceful woman would do. I opened up my Uber app to see how fast I could get one to the rest area. Lucky for us, there was one close by. He picked us up in about 5 minutes and had us to the airport in 20. Went to the first empty car rental counter, Hertz, and got us a car rented and were out of there within 20 minutes.
Back to the rest area we went! We don't have AAA, but we do have Good Sams Roadside Assistance. Wonder what that will do?
I hunt around for A LONG TIME to figure out how to get a hold of a live person at Good Sams Roadside Assistance. I'll admit, the first person I talked with at GSRA was less than helpful. I'm not sure if he was new or exactly what the deal was but if I could have actually gotten a hold of him ..... #HighFiveInTheFace
I hung up in frustration and we started trying to figure stuff out -- ok, need a Ram dealer, there's one in Tallahassee who doesn't have very good reviews but it's the only one in the area so what are our choices .......
Second, we need a campground that works for big rigs ..... We use a couple websites, in addition to Google, to find sites that will work for our rig. We use Big Rigs Best Bets and RV Park Reviews. Big Rigs Best Bets lists a lot of campgrounds that specialize for bigger rigs, but surprisingly, we've found some good ones that were big rig friendly but not on their site. RV Park Reviews is what it says it is, camper reviews of campgrounds. It also tells what parks have pull-thrus, are somewhat big rig friendly and ones that have 50 amp service, are waterfront, have pools, etc.
Found the dealer, found a couple of campgrounds that should work, just needed to contact them to see if they had availability for us. It was about 2 am by now, so what do we do now?
I called GSRA again and this time talked with a really great lady who was actually helpful! Praise the Lord! The first thing she asked was "are you in a safe place?" then "is everyone with you ok?" Thank You for asking! I know it was probably a script but it gave me a chance from being in a panic to do a quick self assessment, yes, we were safe, and yes, everyone was ok! Alright! Let's Do This!
This time, the lady told me they could tow our truck to the dealer and then we could get our rig towed to a campground, but we had to find and pay for the trailer to be towed. Ok, roger that. uh, who tows big rigs?!
By this time, it was 3 am and the dealer service dept didn't open until 7 am, so asked the GSRA folks if they could schedule someone to tow the truck in the morning?
Come to find out, we'd have to call back to do that. Alrighty then.
The way our 5th wheel is laid out, the center living section has 2 slide-outs on opposite sides of the trailer. If the slideouts are in, there's not much chance at getting at food, drink, etc. D has a room and bathroom in the back, we have a room and bathroom in the front. When we went to get the rental car, we unloaded the dogs and D into D's room.
We're safe, in a rest area, shaken up but safe. We took the dogs out to potty then decided to catch some Z's, or at least try to and call GSRA in a couple of hours.
7 am came and our alarms started going off. Time to get GSRA on the phone to get our truck into the shop. Hopefully it'll be a simple fix and we'll be back on the road in a couple of hours. <fingers crossed>
GSRA got a call into a tow company and confirmed they could tow our trailer to a campground for a couple hundred =O. But not like we could be super choosy!
Called the dealer, they were expecting our truck. Called the first campground we found that was big rig friendly and they had space! Great, let's do this!
The dealer said they were ready for us. This was Thursday, 9/1.
After dropping the truck off, they came to get the trailer.
On the good side, the truck was at the dealer, the trailer was in a campground. Now we wait.
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