Day 11 Kellogg, Idaho

Here are pics of todays happenings, read below






Back again, it is now Monday. It has stopped raining overnight. I had hooked up my battery charger and recharged the battery overnight. I am thinking it is the fuel pump, but hoping it is the fuel filter, which is cheaper and easier to fix. The mechanic came about 8:30 and I was able to start it and coax it into the garage. They happened to have a filter in stock, so replaced that. The old one did seem clogged. After that I started it up, and it ran a little better for about 30 seconds, then it quit again. As this was a small garage and the mechanics had about the limited knowledge that I have, we decided it had to be taken to the dealership. There was one in Missoula, back about 75 miles east or to Kellogg, Idaho, 62 miles west. Good Sam emergency road service said we had to take it to Kellogg as it was closer. We got there about 1:30PM. Tow truck driver Jerry kept us entertained along the way with all his stories and history of area. We saw a black bear in a tree on the way too. Dave Smith chevrolet in Kellogg is a fantastic dealership, completely different from the small place we were at last night. We bid farewell to our friendly tow truck driver Jerry. It took the mechanic about 5 minutes to diagnose the problem as a bad fuel pump. They are thinking they may be able to get it done today. It is a hard and expensive job. The fuel pump is located inside the gas tank. They have to remove our full tank of gas first. The estimate for charges is over $900. The towing charges will be over $500 which will be taken care of by Good Sam Club Emergency towing service. Talked to many people and employee here. Everybody is very friendly out here. This dealership is the largest Dodge dealership in the world and the largest Chevrolet and GMC dealership in Northwest US. Anyhow the parts did not arrive until 4:50 and with quiting time a 5:00, that was it for the day. Barb and I walked about a mile down the street for supper. We are now back camped at the dealership for the night. No electric tonight. Thats it for today, let you know tomorrow how everything went. Hopefully we will be on the road again.

Day 10 St. Regis, Montana

Here is where we are at the moment. I will tell you all about it after you click on the following link then return to my post.

http://maps.google.com/maps?near=47.300520,-115.103052&f=q&hl=en&q=Gas+Station&t=h&om=1&ie=UTF8&z=12

Well, I think we got a little more to talk about. We got truck problems. We were going west on I90 about 6 miles from Idaho border, when the truck started missing badly. We went about another mile and finally it would not run anymore. We pulled off to the side of the interstate highway. I put out some flags and raised the hood and put emergency flashers on. Then we found out that we were in wilderness area and there was no cell phone service. We thought if we just waited a highway patrolman would come along. After about 2 hours and nobody stopped, we decided to come up with a better plan. I made a sign, (call patrol) and stood along the road. after a while a young girl stopped. We have emergency towing service, so we gave her the info and she said she would call them for us when she got on down the road, for she had no cell service either. Found out later that this is one of the rare areas in the US without cell service along interstate freeway. Later another lady stopped and we also gave here the info to call. After about 4 hours a trucker stopped and used CB radio to try to pass info to other truckers to get the highway patrol out here. Anyhow about a little while later a wrecker stopped and said he was looking for somebody with a 71 truck. He didn't know if it was us or not. He ended up driving away and looking for a land phone. He came back shortly, said we were the right ones. He proceeded to hook us up and winch on his flatbed tow truck. By now our battery was dead from flashers. He took us back east 26 miles to their garage. He unloaded in front of shop and hooked us to electric for night. O by the way the driver was very talkative and told everything about Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Montana, his life, grandkids, wife, etc. And to top it off it had been raining all day. We went to bed and I will tell you more with the next post tomorrow . We have electric, tv, internet,all is fine. We have been in prettier campsites before tho. Barb and I are fine.

Day 9 still in Missoula

Finally got some photos posted. It has been raining all night, but the temperature isn't bad. I think we brought some relief from their drought. Time for breakfast, got to go.