The Flying Fickle Finger of Fate Falls Fast and Furious

Well, I guess our impeccable luck couldn't go on forever, Right? Coming out of Minneapolis we neatly blew out the inboard driver's side dualie, shredded it into a hundred different pieces, with a sound like we'd been hit with canon fire. Not satisfied with merely ruining a $150.00 tire, the errant rubber proceeded to thrash the aft locker full of sewer pipes and connections and trashed that, too. I (carefully) motored off the freeway at greatly reduced speed, flashers bleeping, and parked her beneath a convenient freeway overpass. After chocking the front wheels, I settled in with my phone to communicate with my (heretofore) trusty AAA card folks. They've never let me down before and have always responded cheerfully and, more important, swiftly to my emergencies.

Well, it appears as though they now intend to pay me back for all the cheerful service over the years. On the phone I got what can only be described as a complete idiot. You know the type. They ask you the same questions over and over again as if while sitting in the hot sun with a flat tire you'd be tempted to lie to them about where you are and what your problem is. Jeeze!

Anyway, in addition to being dense as a wheelbarrow full of sod, this woman proceeded to tell me that even though I am a "Plus" member at some $90.00 a year my card does not cover motor homes.

"What?" I said, I'm sure sounding incredulous. "When did you folks think you might let me in on that piece of news."

"Sorry, sir," she said, sounding bored. "Where did you say you were?"

"St Croix senic byway where it crosses I94," I said, perhaps for the fourth time.

"And what was your exit number?" she asked.

"Don't know," I said.

"Sir," she said, though I don't think sir was what she mentally was identifying me as, "I have 22,000 St Croix streets in the area."

I pulled the phone away from my ear and stared at it. Had I inadvertently called the local funny farm? "Let me get this straight," I said. "Just east of Minneapolis on I94 you have 22,000 references to the St. Croix scenic byway."

Silence. Then, "What is your milepost, sir?"

Anyway, the conversation went on like that with the AAA bimbo asking a succession of repetitious, inane questions until she finally said that she'd have someone call me. Somehow, while I was out cutting the metal strapping off the side of the wheel well that had probably peeled the tread off our tire, I got said call from somebody but missed it. When I saw the message, I called the number back and got AAA in -- where else -- northern California. Thankfully, this time the AAA lady was both intelligent and thorough and soon had a dispatcher for AAA call me. The dispatcher called the fixit shop and they called me back. By this time, of course, we'd been sitting for over an hour. The fixit shop said they'd be another 90 minutes. So, here we sit, trying to act composed, while we wait and see if anyone in Minneapolis knows where the St. Croix parkway is located.

We do have a couple of pluses to our credit, however. For the first time I tried using the generator, which is currently humming away pleasantly. The second thing is, I tried my buddy Tennessee Don's suggestion for getting my mobile network connection to function and -- good God! -- the darn thing works perfectly. Thanks to Tennessee Don for his sleuthing on my behalf.

As you would expect, we have no idea just when the tow truck chap might appear around the bend. We're just hoping he knows where to come. I was able to go to Mapquest and easily find the St. Croix Scenic Byway off of I94 and learned that our exit is 258. Makes you wonder what sort of dumb pills the first AAA lady might have been taking when she (keeping in mind she does this for a living) tried to find the street on her list of 22,000 other streets. I'm just sorry I failed to learn her actual name as I'd love to refer to her by name here in the blog. Ah, missed opportunities.

It's just short of 6:00 p.m. and the fixit chap just drove up in an official-looking truck and immediately set to work on changing the tire. He seem appreciative that I parked the rig under the underpass where it's cool instead of leaving it up on the freeway.

Brian, our rescuer, immediately set about pulling off the tires on the driver's side of the RV. That all went well enough. He also checked my discovery that the passenger side inside dualie was low on air. "This is your problem with the low tire," Brian said, and showed me a air filler tube that had been worn part way through. He removed the filler tube and was able to pump the tire back up. "Those filler tubes have to be watched closely," Brian continued because they move around a lot.

Okay, I thought, we're looking good here. I continued to think those thoughts right up until I heard Brian cuss and I went over to see what problem he had encountered now. He said, "you got your spare on the wrong wheel for this rig. The bolt pattern is the same but the center hole is for a Chevy or something."

"What can we do," I asked.

"Well, we take the shredded one off its wheel and put the spare on."

"Wonderful," I said. And then Brian gave me a tip on just where I might find the proper wheel as well as a tip for what kind of tires to buy that would hold up better than my Chinese tire lookalikes, information I am almost certain to find useful in the future.

Around about 7:00 p.m., an hour after he arrived, Brian air gunned the last bolt into place, lowered the RV off the jack, and I pulled out the chocks. Moments later we were on the road again. Not wanting to press my luck for the evening, I took the back roads to a camp Concetta had found in the immediate area, which although closed for the evening when we arrived, opened the gates and motioned us in. Thank goodness for small favors at this point.

The next thing I had to do was determine just how much was damaged by the flying shards of steel-belted radial as it ate into my sewer access locker. To my surprise, the carnage (not counting the side wall of the locker) was limited to the 90-degree-angle end piece to the flexible sewer pipe. Wonder of wonders, the one gadget that came with the RV in duplicate, was a 90-degree-angle sewer pipe fitting. I just pried out the old one and clamped on the new one and I was in business. I tested the line by dumping the black water tank and nothing leaked. Whoopie!

My garden hoses (water filler and sewer clean-out) went through the maelstrom unscathed, thankfully. But the tray that I had bought at Home Depot to contain all these various parts was a total loss, however, and currently rests in about nine pieces. So, it could have been a lot worse. We're thankful that we got out from under that overpass before dark. I really wasn't looking forward to sleeping with a .38 under my pillow.