September 22-26, 2010 – Midland, TX


Shortly after noon on Wednesday we noticed that the truck was losing power on the small hills of west Texas. It kept getting worse and black smoke starting coming out of the tailpipe. We stopped at a roadside picnic area about 30 miles east of Midland where the truck died and wouldn’t start again. Thank goodness for Good Sam Emergency Road Service! They found a towing company that had a truck big enough to tow the truck & 5th wheel.

 
They towed the truck & 5th wheel to the Ford dealership in Midland and we followed in the Jeep. We got there at 6 pm just as the dealership was closing. The tow truck driver parked the truck & 5th wheel on a side street beside the dealership and that’s where we spent the night. We couldn’t open the slide outs all the way so ate out at a great Mongolian grill with Jen, Rex’s daughter. After dinner we visited with Jen at her apartment until it was time to call it a night. Luckily the street the 5th wheel was parked on was a dead-end street and there was no traffic on it at night.

The next morning the guys from the service department came and pushed the truck to the service department with a golf cart. That was a sight but we didn’t think to get a picture. It took all day for them to get the truck running again. We evidently had a massive systems failure and they had to replace many sensors and the fuel pump. When Rex check with them around noon they said they had it running but that it was running rough and they couldn’t figure out why. They finally finished with it around 4 pm. Luckily, this was all covered under warranty – they told Rex they replaced well over $1,000 in parts and we have no idea what the labor would have been. Rex says the truck is running better now than when it was new. We spent a very long, hot day waiting but are glad the truck is finished and hope we have no more problems on this trip.

While we were waiting for the truck Rex found a tire shop and we got two more tires. We found out that the tires we bought in Canada were only 10 ply tires and should have been 14 ply. We now have 4 good tires and a good spare on the 5th wheel.




We have moved to the Midessa Oil Patch RV Park which is located between Midland and Odessa. This is a very nice park that has grass at all the sites and the nicest fenced dog park we have seen. The dogs really had fun running around in the dog park. We have enjoyed spending time with Jen and her Jack Russell/Chihuahua mix named Jack.


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