We have tires!!

August was a tough month but we finally have our tires and we are in Indiana now.

FMCA notified us they are quitting the mail forwarding business Sept 30 so that gave us a good excuse to get an OR address. We went to the DMV and are now considered “continuous travelers” and have an Oregon mailing address.

I did a Carl's Jr shop and really like the new Texas BBQ Thickburger, so much so we went back a few days later for more.

Since my stepmother had a stroke July 26 and we wanted to get to IN ASAP to see her before anything else happened, Larry did some investigation and was able to contact an executive at Michelin and Praise God! the exec. responded to Larry's e-mail! Unfortunately she passed away Monday Aug 11 and the Michelin executive told us on Tuesday Aug 12 he was successful in finding tires for us. We went to Klamath Falls Wed night and had our tires Thursday morning Aug 14. While in K Falls we saw our friends, Margaret and David, who have a place there. On Friday Aug 15 we made it to the FMCA Redmond Rally. That night Larry discovered our two new drive tires were very low on air pressure, one side at 60 lbs and the other side at 74 lbs when they should have been 120 lbs! He was pretty upset and spent the next hour airing them back up. Saturday morning he called Klamath Falls and then we talked to the tire exhibitor at the Rally to see if we had ruined the tires. Both dealers said they didn't think so since the most we could have driven on them was 150 miles. We took the MH to the local Redmond tire dealer (about 2 miles away) and had the tires 'tanked' to see where they were leaking. When they took the tires off they noticed a line on the back of the inside duals and further investigation showed they were hitting a bolt head! Larry ground half of the bolt head off so the tires would clear. PTL! If we had not lost so much air pressure we would have never known about the bolt head hitting the tires and that could have been disastrous! We had ordered a larger tire size and Larry had checked to be sure the tires would fit but missed the bolt head at the top but God didn't. The air loss was caused by a bad valve stem on one side and a bad tire monitor sensor on the other side. We left Redmond after the tires were tanked and aired and the bolt heads ground down and spent the night near Dayville, OR by a babbling brook. We stopped at the weigh station near Prineville, OR and Larry adjusted the trailer tongue so we are now level and balanced front to back at nearly perfect.  

The bolt that was hitting the inside duals that Larry ground off

The 'babbling brook' we overnighted by in Dayville,OR

Indians preforming at Rushmore Shadows RV in Rapid City, SD

At Sturgis, SD with an Amsoil sign greeting everyone as they entered the town

We spent a week at Rushmore Shadows in Rapid City, SD. We took out just the bike and went to Mount Rushmore only we didn't go in since they are charging $11 just to park so we went to Custer State Park instead and enjoyed seeing “the boys” thru several tunnels, a really cool sight. We also took a ride to Sturgis, SD and ended up purchasing T shirts that say '2014 Sturgis Rally'. The campground we had reservations for in IN called us on Sunday Aug 24 to tell us they could not accommodate us because of all the rain and flooding they were experiencing so I had to do some scrambling since Labor Day weekend was upcoming. All the campgrounds were full so we ended up staying with my old classmate like we have before since he has pavement and a generous heart.

Mount Rushmore seen from a tunnel on the road to Custer State Park, SD

Where we are staying in IN at my former classmates' place.  The trees are on the south side give us some protection from the winds and also 'hide' us from the house

Where I grew up only the trees were much smaller then

The house I grew up in from the east