Planned a trip to Mt. Rushmore 8 months ago and had all the details set by mid-summer. Spent the summer going over the 5th wheel getting it all prepped for the trip and going over the truck. I had no qualms about leaving and driving 1300 miles from Tucson to Hill City, SD. Everything was going OK until Denver. Between Denver and Ft. Collins, I had a right rear tire on the truck come apart. Didn't hit anything, just had the tread separate from the carcass. These were 4 year old Generals that had about 24K miles on them. The truck gets driven every week, so it wasn't from sitting. Still was fully inflated and allowed me to slow down and get off to the shoulder of I-25 and change the tire.
Next exit had a tire dealer but they had nothing I was interested in with the size I am using. Called their main store in Ft. Collins, about 25 miles away and they had something. I asked them to inflate the spare to 80 psi and we left for that store. Didn't get 10 miles and the spare started to come apart. Limped along on the frontage road at 40 mph and got two new tires installed. Great people by the way, GCR Tire is the name.
While in SD, a cold front moved in, down to 20 degrees one night and we had 8 inches of snow overnight and the next morning. Earliest recorded measureable snow they have ever had. Lost two days of my vacation as we didn't go out. Next morning, one of the batteries on the truck has died.
Limped home by disconnecting the bad battery so it wouldn't draw the good one down. Fortunately for us, the weather after that snow and cold spell was fairly mild and I had no trouble starting the truck on one battery. However, while the weather was mild, we had rain from Raton, NM all the way to the AZ border. Thank you tropical storm Odile. We expect 3-5 inches of rain here in Tucson the next two days.
I enjoyed the stay in SD but it was certainly one of the most stressful trips I have ever had. At times, I wanted to give up RV'ing
and just stay at home. Now that I have returned home, all is well, except I come home to find that someone got my American Express card number and charged $8K to it while we were gone. Took about two hours last night on the phone with the parties involved to get it taken care of. I'm not out the money, but it sure is a hassle.
Oh yeah, I still have to deal with about $1K dollars of damage to the truck and get a new battery. The bad one has about 3 years of warranty left, but I will probably have to get two, I'm not a fan of one old and one new battery. That is usually a recipe for problems.
So, I wish Mr. Murphy would go follow somebody else for a while, I certainly think I have had enough.
2005 GMC Sierra SLT CC/SB with 6.6L Duramax/Allison
2002 Automate 5W, 32 ft, 13,280 GVWR
Valley Glider Hitch
