Leaving Carrollton

WOW!   Carrollton is a half hour behind us now, and I am feeling safe enough to believe I will never have to go back there.   We pulled in on Friday November 22 evening after only having left home that morning.

Here it is American Thanksgiving, six days later and we are finally heading out.

While they were putting Myrtle back together, they put a few holes in her radiator.   Admittedly, the rad is the original from 1988, and with 25 years on it, it surely doesn't owe us anything.    However, search as they might, they could not find a rad anywhere.   We were worried we would be stuck in Carrollton until after the Thanksgiving weekend.

The eldest son Keith took over from his brother.   He found a retired radiator repairman who was willing to open up his shop and fix our rad for us.

Meet Gerry from S & S  Automotive in Trimble County, Kentucky.    He found 8 holes in our radiator for us.  It took him two hours to fix it, and he only charged us $50.00.   We didn't have the exact change, and since he is out of business we certainly couldn't expect him to keep a float around.  We gave him $60.00 and felt like we got one heck of a good deal.

He was quite certain that the holes in the rad were caused by putting too much pressure into it when they were pressure testing.   His exact words were "I wouldn't say that they did this on purpose, but that's what it looks like to me".    hmmmm   I don't think they did it on purpose either.   I think the rad is old and they were not very careful.   Regardless, we will have to get a new rad as soon as we can find one.  I am sure that will be sometime after the Thanksgiving weekend.

We took the rad back to Carrollton and they put her all back together.   This time they didn't put any pressure on it.   They said they didn't pressure test it, they put a vacuum on it, but that would essentially do the same thing if they put too much negative pressure on it.   The rad still had a small leak, but we had a bottle of radiator stop leak from Gerry which seems to have clogged it right up.

It was almost 5:00 p.m. by the time we got Myrtle back.  So we pulled into the campground down the street.   It was a lovely night knowing we would be all set to leave first thing in the morning.

First thing turned out to be 8:15 a.m.    Gerry saw a deer walk right past Myrtle this morning.

 We were trepidatious as we left the campground.  Were we actually on our way?    

  We didn't think we would really be out of there until we actually saw Carrollton in our rearview mirrors.     We did it!   The Twilight Zone is behind us.  

Broken Down in Carrollton

We pulled into Carrollton, Kentucky on Friday night planning to spend the night and head out first thing Saturday morning.   Here it is Tuesday, and we are planning to head out some time before noon on Wednesday morning.   Will it happen?   I sure hope so.

I made the call to CAA at 8:00 a.m. Monday morning, they said it would take 45 minutes to an hour and they would call me when 

they were on their way. At 8:30, they called and said it would be 45 minutes to an hour. Then they called at 9:15 and said their truck 

broke down, they should be another 20 minutes to half an hour.  It doesn't inspire a great deal of confidence when the tow truck 

breaks down!

He did finally show up, and it only took him half an hour to figure out how to use his toy in such a way that it could tow our toy. 

We finally got Myrtle to the mechanics. They open at 9:00 a.m., admittedly we were an hour late getting Myrtle there, but...they 

closed up at 10:30 to go out for lunch???? lmao. I asked them where a good place to go for breakfast was. They must really like the 

place because 5 minutes after we ot there everyone from Gene & Son's showed up too.    We asked them what they would 

recommend for us to do to kill some time. They suggested walk around Walmart.


Eventually we headed back to the mechanics to see how things were coming along.   Myrtle needs a new water pump and it was on 

its way.    It was to be delivered by 2:00 p.m.     

Coincidentally,  Gene had to close up shop to take his wife  for her doctors appointment by 2:00 p.m., but the parts won't be here 

until 2:00 p.m.....so we will know by 4:00 p.m., BUT...if we are looking for something to do besides go to Walmart, there is a little 

town called Madison over the Indiana border about 12 miles up  we might find a nice restaurant there.      

We headed to Madison.   We didn't find any interesting looking restaurants, but we were very impressed with this floating dock.    The water in the Ohio river floods so often that the docks have 50 foot high poles holding them in place horizontally so they can rise and fall as much as is necessary.

Downtown  Madison.

The bridge crossing from Kentucky to Indiana was bizarre to say the least.  It looks like they started to build the bridge, then realized it didn't line up with the roads!  lol   We headed back to Carrollton to find out if Myrtle was ready.   She was not.   Apparently, they couldn't get a couple of bolts out.   There are two long bolts that hold the water pump on that run through the timing chain plate and into the block. They were going to try to get the bolts out, but if they broke them they would need to get us a new timing chain plate.  We said to go ahead and do it, and if they had to to just order one.   Then we rented a room at the Super 8.

Barge in the Ohio River.

A lady at the restaurant we had breakfast in told us there was a plaque in City Hall that shows how high the flood of 1936 went.   This plaque was about shoulder high.    City Hall is about 300 yards from the river and perhaps 50 feet higher.  

Here, I am standing at waters edge behind the restaurant we ate at.   2 weeks ago, the water was so high it came up to their porch.   I circled the steeple on City Hall,  you can just barely see it over the top of the white building on the right.

This restaurant kind of scared us....tarps over the roof and frogs legs and gator on the menu.   We didn't venture in.

By 10:00 a.m. Tuesday morning we decided we best get over to the mechanics, just in case they were waiting for us to continue on.   It had to be almost done !!!   Nope.    They had broken a bolt and were going to have to break the timing belt plate.   Ok, so do it.   Well, they have the part in Cincinnati, but it likely wouldn't be delivered until late today or early tomorrow, but if we went to pick it up, then they could probably get it done today.    Off we went to Cincinnati to this warehouse, and picked up our part.  1 hour each way.

We passed this vehicle on the way, and felt very lucky that Myrtle was not in this much trouble.

By the time we got back, the fire was out and the car was on the tow truck.   We had hoped that Gene's would have been as productive with Myrtle.   Nope.   When we got back, nothing had been done and the son who was working on her must have been gone for lunch.  sigh.   We left the part with Gene, went for lunch, then headed back to check on the progress.

He had the timing chain plate out!  YAY.    

He didn't however have anything put back into Myrtle and didn't think he would be done by the end of the day.   He said "I know youse are getting frustrated, but these old trucks are real hard for a fat boy like me to work on".      We headed back to Super 8 and rented another room.  

We told him we would be back at 10:00 a.m. tomorrow, and he thought it possible that he might be at least almost done by then.

If you ever are driving down Hwy 71 from Cincinnati Ohio, and find yourself needing to pull over for the night, do not decide to drive for another hour before stopping.   Once you pull into Carrollton, Kentucky you get stuck.  

Carrollton, Kentucky

The good news is we found a mechanic to take a look at Myrtle.  The bad news, is he can't look at her until Monday.   I do have RV CAA, which is a sister to AAA.   I should be able to have her towed without a problem; however, it really is better to stay in the Walmart parking lot for two more nights than it would be to sit in the mechanics parking lot for the weekend.    Here we sit.   I will call first thing Monday morning.

We are guessing it is the water pump, and coincidentally it appears something is going on with the fuel injection or fuel pump at the same time, or perhaps just crap in the fuel.

So, what to do in Carrollton, Kentucky?   The answer is not much.

Apparently the only tourist attraction in this town is the Butler-Turpin State Historic House located in the Butler State Park.    It was unimpressive from the outside, and there didn't appear to be any tours going on this late in the season, so we didn't get to go inside.

We were treated with the sight of a magnificent buck.   Unfortunately, I had the wrong lens on my camera so you have to look at the above two pictures very closely.

Kentucky is a beautiful state, but it is getting too late in the year for the autumn colours and too early for the snow covered winter scenes.    

  

Once we had seen everything there is to see in Carrollton, we came back to Myrtle and set up the satellite dish.    We are all nice and snuggled inside watching the temperature plummet outside.   It is going to get down to -4 Celcius here tonight.      

Winter 2013, The Adventure Begins

We finally started our journey this morning.   We left home the first time at 7:50 a.m, got half way to the border and realized that neither one of us turned down the furnace.    At least we didn't get far before we had to turn around and go home.

    I made up a check list yesterday for the folks who will be hanging out at our house while we are away. and hung it on the inside of the front door.   I even penciled in a couple of things I forgot about.   Obviously, neither one of us read it this morning.

I checked the check list on the way out the second time.  :)

It was an uneventful drive all the way to Kentucky.    Gerry had a headache all day, and we pulled over at a Walmart in Carrollton Kentucky just in time for Gerry to get an all out migraine.

We went into Walmart to get some milk for cereal in the morning and when I came back Gerry noticed water was pouring out of the engine.   It's not coming out of the radiator, it is actually coming out somewhere in the depths of the engine.  Myrtle won't start either and it is way too dark to try to figure it out right now.       Oh well, in the immortal words of Scarlet O'Hara  Tomorrow is another day! . 

Postponed

Gerry and I have had to postpone our trip for a while.   We aren't sure when we will be leaving home.   A family member is not well and we do not want to be far from home for now.

It snowed here yesterday!!  Not very much, but it is staying on the ground in our neighbourhood.   Just two kilometers away it is all melted.   We are worried about Myrtle's pipes freezing, but are hoping by keeping the furnace on very low everything should be fine.    She isn't winterized and we are taking a chance, but the long range forecast doesn't show anything below -3 at night and generally above 0 during the days.

We'll keep you posted, but I don't expect to be leaving for at least a week and perhaps a few weeks.