Texas

We left New Orleans and drove quite a big hop into the great state of Texas.  We stayed in a very small town called Port Arthur for two nights.

There was not much to see or do in Port Arthur, so it was a good thing we were there for such a short time.  Our next stop was at Guadalupe River State Park in the San Antonio area of Texas.  We were only at this park for two nights as well.  It had lots of nice hiking trails and the Guadalupe River ran through the park.  The kids and Eric had lots of fun practising their rock skipping skills while we were here.

Our plan after staying at this park was to head down to Marathon, Texas which is about an hour outside of Big Bend National Park.  We were very excited to spend a couple of days exploring Big Bend since it looked so amazing in the pictures.  As you all know though, things don’t always go according to plan.  It was at this point on our journey that we had our very first breakdown on the side of the road.  We knew it would happen sometime along the way… Eric wanted to share the story of what happened in his words so I will let him take over from here.

Eric Here. I’ve got some feelings about what happened and wanted to regale you in GREAT detail about the events that transpired on our fateful trip from Ft. Stockton to Marathon. The story actually starts earlier that day, Wednesday, March 3rd, 2017 ADE at around 2:14 pm. We were travelling down the road between Quadalupe and Ft Stockton, I was programming away whilst Sarah did ALL the driving.

A predictable but annoying request came from the backseat: “Is there a washroom close… i reallly reallllly have to pee”. uuuuuuuuuUUUUUuugh.

Luckily, we are towing a really fine washroom, so we pulled off the highway. Whilst children were inside peeing, I walked around the side of the trailer and noticed that the tire was almost flat… and was hissing air. Luckily, we’d changed a tire on the trailer under ideal conditions when we picked up that screw. As such, I was ready and able to spring into action, as the gifted mechanic that I am. .

I’m rather grateful to the kind AAA guy that offered the pro-tip of pulling the tire up onto blocks, and then putting the jack on blocks. This gets the flat way off the ground with very little lift on the jack. That said, BAM, 15min or so and we were back on the road. I returned to my programmering, and Sarah to the driving until we arrived in Ft Stockton. We had to exit the highway to get more fuel, and switch from the 10 west to the 385 South to head to Marathon. We pulled off at an Exxon right off the highway, and whilst filling up the diesel, I heard another hiss. The phrase “You’ve got to be kidding me”, or some variation of that crossed my mind. We had just used our spare, and had a flat in the bed of the truck… how do you fix a flat with a flat.

I asked the kind lady in the Exxon if it'd be okay if we detached the 5th wheel while we ran to get a new one. She was fine with it, so I backed that thing up. By the by, Sarah called around and found a place that could replace the tire, but closed at 5pm; it was 4:40pm. We did the fastest detach and setup ever. Perhaps too fast... we were making silly mistakes, like not removing the emergency brake cable when trying to detach the pin, or not dropping the landing gear before running the extending jacks. To say we were frantic would be understatement. I was trying madly to get the tire off; it was just spinning in the soft soil and it was getting really close to 5. Sarah suggested we just take the one flat, get it fixed, and come back for the other. This hadn't even occurred to me in my panicked stupor... and was a relief as we jumped in the truck, tore across town to arrive just in time.  The look of disappointment on the tire mechanics face, dreaming of closing shop at closing time was matched in kind with the relief on ours. We put the new tire in the truck drove back to the 5th wheel and swapped them out. We found another tire shop when we had time to look and they were open till 6. We drove the 2nd flat there, got it fixed and decided we'd become rather hungry... and so close to Mexico, there must be some legit Mexican food.

Sarah looked around online and found a place with good reviews… and it was fantastic. With our bellies, fuel tanks and tires full, we returned to the trailer to hitch up in the dark, and get back on the roa.

It was about about 9pm by the time we got everything hitched, and we contemplated just sliding the slide-outs out and staying the night; it would mean our very first dry camping! We figured we were only an hour away, and instead of having a 2 hr drive Thursday, we’d just head to Marathon and only be an hour from Big Bend. As such, we started off toward the 385 southward toward Marathon. About 40 minutes down the road, I pressed on the sprayers to clean the windows. When the wipers struggled to make their way across the windshield; the lights dimmed in the cab and the power inverter low-power alarm squealed… Having ruined so many alternators in my life ( wanting big stereos in little cars ), I knew the tell-tale sign of an alternator not charging a battery, and knew our time was short…

A predictable but annoying request came from the backseat: “Is there a washroom close… i reallly reallllly have to go poo” uuuuuuuuuUUUUUuugh.

I mean, understandable, as the ancient adage goes: with great mexican comes great explosive diarrhea.  I found the flattest place to pull off and a child exited to save the fine leather of the truck, and the olfactory senses of the family.

As we pulled out onto the highway, the truck began to chug, the lights started to dim and the check-engine and tool lights lit up on the dash. That is until they all went dark, and all the sensors turned off. Being a diesel, and needing no spark to run the engine, the truck chugged and idled its way as far off the highway as I could get it. It was there that we placed a call to AAA. Sarah had had the great sense to purchase for me the Premier RV AAA, so we had up to a 200mi tow included. After some time on the phone, they located the only towing company w/in 200 miles that could handle our 5th wheel and truck; Luckily, they were located in Ft. Stockton, only 50mi away (aka, 1hr of driving). Instead of towing everything back to town, they sent a service truck at around 10pm armed with several alternators to get us back on the road that evening.

Chris ( the service guy ) and I worked to get the old alternator out and the new one in. It was only after some fighting and struggling with the self-tightening serpentine belt, we finally triumphed, only to realise that the computer-connector to the alternator was the wrong one.

Chris ( the service guy ) and I worked to get the newer alternator with the wrong connector out and the new new one with the correct connector (we checked first) in. After some fighting and struggling with the self-tightening serpentine belt, we finally triumphed, only to realise that the pulley was the wrong one, and that the serpentine belt hung over the edge.

Chris ( the service guy ) and I worked to get the new new alternator with the wrong pulley out and the new new one with the correct pulley (we checked first) in. After some fighting and struggling with the self-tightening serpentine belt, we finally triumphed, and started the truck up with eager delight after boosting the now very dead battery from the service truck

The truck turned over and started up, but pretty quickly started running rough. I used my multimeter to check the voltage at the battery: 11.6… This alternator didn’t appear to be charging either. Chris ( the service guy ) wasn’t sure if the alternators were new or tested, he’d just been handed them on his way to the answer the call in the hopes they’d get us back on the road. It was 3:20am, and 3 degrees outside, and we decided there wasn’t much else we could do, so we’d call it a night, and he’d return the following day with a brand new alternator from the store.

We weren’t far enough off the highway to safely run our slide-outs out, so the kids couldn’t open the door to their room. As such, we put the 3 down in our bed, and made the dinning room table into a bed. I forgot to mention we’d also really meaning to fill our propane tanks before heading south, and noted several places along the road that would have been good to stop at; driving past each saying ‘Oh, they had propane, we could have stopped there’. As such, we had no propane to burn to make it warmer. It didn’t really strike me that we had a generator in our truck we could have kicked on and headed with electric, because… well… it had been a long day filled with tire changes and truck repair attempts.

We settled in for a chilly, sleepless night on the most uncomfortable table/bed hybrid I’m sure I’ve ever attempted to sleep on.

We woke up early the next morning, and waited to hear from Chris ( the service guy ). By noon, he had located an alternator and was on his way out to install it. I removed the alternator in record time, being well practised, and installed the new one. It was just as sad when it too didn’t charge the batteries. We started hunting for fuses that might be involved in the charging, but by this time, Chris had returned to town to pick up mechanic friend to give us more insight.

The family contributed with occasional burst of laughter and screams of delight from riveting bouts of road-side scattergories and taboo.

We worked for hours, and then around 3 or 4 in the afternoon, and finally decided to just try and boost it and see how far we got, even though the battery was clearly not charging. The truck did start, but was running rougher than before, and even when boosted, would sputter out and die.

We started towing, and after cresting the very first hill, the truck died completely. Luckily, there was a really good place to pull off at the top and we coasted well off the highway. After another call back to homebase, the boss was on his way out with another alternator, and a feeling like we’d be driving the truck home… probably. We worked till dark, and it was starting to get chilly again. I’d figured a way to run the generator in the truck bed, without having to worry about it heating up the diesel tank near to it. We ran the generator, and had the sealed oil heater running keeping the cold at bay, we also had the slide-out enough to where if we needed to, we could spend the night again.. but much more comfortably.

Glenn found a blown fuse (which later turned out to be a fuse that controlled battery charging) under the dash, but they were really strange looking fuses, and we had no spares for those. We ended up swapping out the seat heater 30A fuse for the blown 20A battery charging fuse and BAM, the alternator started…alternating. Slowly, the voltage started to rise, but the truck continue to run really rough, and would sputter and die, despite having charge. It became clear the issue was greater than just the alternator, so we all pilled in the service truck: Sarah, Ada, Emma and Haydn in the back, Glenn ( the boss ), Chris ( the service guy ), and myself in the front. The one hour trip back to Ft. Stockton seemed to just fly by. They dropped us off at our hotel at around 10pm. We checked in, I got a shower and we all went to bed immediately.

The gentlemen returned that night to pick up the truck and trailer and tow them back to town. They worked through the night to solve the remaining problems ( very plugged fuel filters and a rather blown FICM ) and drove our truck towing our trailer over to the hotel.

AAA covered the tow, but we were bracing ourselves for the parts, labour and multiple trips that aren’t covered. People like us are very much at the mercy of people in the service and repair industry whilst we travel about, and it would be very easy… probably even reasonable for those companies to capitalise, prey even, on folks in our situations.

Glenn and Chris are not those kinds of people.

I’m not saying it wasn’t a chunk of change, but it was was nowhere near what we were bracing ourselves for. In fact, given the service and the going way way out of their way to get us on the road, I feel like maybe we took advantage of the kindness of strangers.

If you are ever broken down w/in the Fort Stockton area, you’re in very good hands when Glenn and Chris of Champs Wrecker and Recovery Service answer your distress call.

The Knutson Family Adventure continues because of them.