RED BAY, AL.  Yesterday, August 10th, we left Lookout Mountain for Red Bay in a light rain, but the rain soon stopped, and we had a nice ride until we got to within 61 miles of Red Bay on AL Rt 24.  Then the nightmare began. 

We got an alarming warning message on the motorhome dashboard.  The motor was slowly shutting itself down.

Dashboard Warning

Now we were stuck by the side of the road.  We called SAFECO, who insures the motorhome.  They promised to send us a tow truck in 87 minutes for a charge of $666.95, which was much better than he normal cost of $3,500.  We paid and waited two hours or more.  

Finally called the dispatching company that SAFECO uses only to be told the tow was cancelled.  After many worrisome calls, we finally realized that SAFECO was not going to deliver.  We called the tow company and agreed to pay the normal cost.  Wow!  

After a long preparation and tow at 40 mph (which we followed in the Jeep for 60 miles) to Bay Diesel in Red Bay, we were able to set up by 10 pm Central Time.  We had to park outside the locked up fenced property.  They open at 7 am.  Got up at 6 am today to get the motorhome into the shop. Now we wait. 

10 pm Central Time Arrival at Bay Diesel

Even though we added antifreeze, based on the dashboard message, the trouble turned out to be that the dashboard AC compressor froze up, overheated, melted the fan belt of the radiator coolant fan, and the diesel motor overheated.  Will be this afternoon some time that it is all fixed.

UPDATE:  Around 1:30 pm today Bay Diesel completed repairs, allowing us to proceed to Bunk House Renovation to replace our defective washer with a new one.  By 3:30 pm they were through except for remounting the slide door that covers the laundry from view when not used.  This they will do Monday morning early before we leave for home, stopping one night in Montgomery, AL, then Tallahassee, FL, then home on the 16th.

This weekend is free time for us to relax and sense some relief from the recent escapades.  We did test the new washer, running a standard cycle with detergent but no clothes, as one of the service techs suggested.  The cycle seemed to go very well and was halfway through when we decided to go grocery shopping.  When we returned the the washer was stopped and half full of sudsy water that did not drain.  It would not start again to run a drain cycle.  

Looks like our weekend laundry will be done at a coin laundry again.  Should be interesting Monday morning revealing this to the service techs who thought they were all done except to mount a sliding door.