HILL CITY, SD Day 4.  Enjoyed a tour-paid pancake breakfast this morning.  This is slated as a free day, but the wagonmaster led anyone interested in a train of cars through the Needles Highway.

Meanwhile back at the ranch, I continued our quest to contact the service department in Gillette, WY to see if they could check out our motorhome on Monday when the tour passes through there.  Finally someone told me about one of their roving mechanics with a small truck carrying the right equipment to check out our Cummins engine.  The good news is that he can be here this afternoon; the bad news is that it will be during the big tour event of today, a chuck wagon cowboy dinner, when we ride in covered wagons to a site for a cowboy cookout.  After that is a ride to Mt. Rushmore for a film tribute to the four presidents.  Betty will have to go without me.

Betty Captured This Part of the Evening Events

"Free days" on this tour are not really completely open; there is always something planned for later in the day.  Makes it hard to plan around.

We are using this time to take showers, do laundry, and catch up on photo processing and updating the blog. 

By 8 pm the mobile Cummins technician had reset the engine codes, analyzed the engine performance electronically and visually by crawling under the rig, and produced a report of what the error codes meant.  The error was a fluke caused by the emission control system that uses DEF to reduce pollutants in the exhaust.  If any particulates are detected at the wrong point in the combustion process the error code is produced.  The error code would have removed itself within three successful performance cycles of engine rising to a certain temperature and cooling back down.  There was no way for me to know that, so a full analysis was required.  He actually did much more, spent more time, and charged less than the guy yesterday.