On Sunday, June 28th we said good bye to the Wild West Ranch & RV Resort just south of Maricopa, Arizona. For most of May and all of June we had been in the triple digits, the highest temperature being 112 and from what I understand it was only going to get hotter.

Unfortunately Jim's job was not as he was promised, every step forward he took three steps back. The position was to grow the company, which he tried. However when one of the three owners had great visions and a plan, the other two, a son and father team, could not get past the idea of working out of the dash board of their trucks. This is apparently how they operated before getting an office. The two of them zeroed in on the high dollar invoices, not realizing that the tiny jobs were what kept the company afloat. So after eight months and broken promises, Jim had had enough, we were once again off to the beyond.

As I said we left early Sunday morning and traveled a long day to Utah. Just 60 miles short of our destination, half way up a six percent hill, we blew the turbo in the semi. The tow truck came from an hour and half away, I guess when we do something big we do it bigger. After hooking up the semi which is about twenty eight feet and the camper which is another forty four feet, we were on our way. First we had to go ten miles up the road to a small community so we could circle a block, then twenty miles to the last community, where someone could not only get the part but could work on it in the campground. Meanwhile, I followed in the Smart car. The repair guy and the tow truck guy were great.

Sunday night, we spent at the campground with, of course, the dead semi attached to the camper. It certainly wasn't going anywhere. Monday, the repair guy called for a new replacement turbo. Now I am not mechanically inclined, but from what I understand, is that it is not good if the tiny little shreds of metal get in the engine. So everyone crossed everything, hoping that nothing had impaired the engine. Fortunately, the engine was clear. Dale, the repair guy, gave Jim the okay to flush, wash down and hose out all the lines. This way, it gave Jim something to do and allowed Dale to continue on other jobs. We were able to pick it up by eight Tuesday morning. So we left around six thirty to travel the 70 miles to where we had planned on stopping for Sunday night. When we returned, Dale was fifteen minutes out. He was ready to work on it. The new turbo was installed, the engine turned over, yeaaaaa, we were successful.

Within an hour, we were on the road again. We had let our friends know that we would not be there for Monday night and possibly Tuesday night. They were in the middle of nowhere in the mountains of Colorado. I know it was out of our way, sort of, but we hadn't seen them in a while. So we called and told them we were on our way. They were six hours away.

Let me tell you, I have never seen hills and valleys such as these! Up and down, up and down. The cliffs dropped off about a foot from the road, and it was at least twenty to one hundred feet to the bottom, if not more. We finally got there around seven pm. Maurice had cooked supper, and Ginny was so happy to see us. We visited until midnight. On Tuesday, they took us out to the old homestead and the little town of Yampa, then after lunch we toured most of their land, 350 acres. We reminisced on memories.

On Thursday morning, we left and headed for Nebraska, on Friday we were in Iowa, and Saturday we made it to Portage, Indiana. Jim will be reporting Monday morning to south end of Chicago.

We are here for about three months. Stay tuned for our next adventure/ road trip.