2022 Trip To South Dakota

[JEBar]

thankfully, today's long drive (423 miles, the longest for this trip home) is in the books .... including a fuel stop we were on the road for 7 hr 50 min .... during that drive we decided to make sure we don't plan any more days traveling anywhere near that long .... in short, future trips will include 6 driving days, not 5 .... as a side note, doing so will probably force us to stay in several campgrounds that we've never visited before .... yep, that'll be a good thing

[JEBar]

its a beautiful but hot and getting hotter day in Eureka, MO .... after 2 long day's drive, we are thoroughly enjoying some down time .... first up this morning was a short drive to an RV dealership in search of some enzyme black tank treatment and a sewer hose end weight .... they had neither .... from there we drove to Walmart for a 20 lb bag of ice and some windshield wiper fluid .... they had both .... so far we've dropped off $600 pounds prime South Dakota ribeye steaks to friends who live here ..... only $2,000 more left to deliver .... our site is buried in tall trees which prevent receiving any satellite TV signal .... at such times we are glad to have bunches movies saved on our Dish receiver .... we've just started watching the really good "Texas Rising" series which should last most of the rest of today .... this evening we plan to go out to eat with longtime friends who live in this area

[dave77]

Quick RV question for you. When you're at a site that has sewer hook ups do you leave your black water valve open or close it and just open it to drain the tank when it's full ?

I have a friend living in her 5th wheel on my property. We have it hooked up to my septic tank and I'm leaving the grey water tanks open, only open the black water tank to drain it. I have her add a little RidX each time we drain it and I use the rinse hose at least every other time we drain it. I was thinking that with the drain valve left open solids might not always go down the drain and could possibly build up in the tank.

[JEBar]

I was thinking that with the drain valve left open solids might not always go down the drain and could possibly build up in the tank.

the above is correct .... the only time the black tank valve should be open is when you want to drain the tank .... buildups happen when liquids drain and solids remain behind .... historically once they dry and harden, they usually proved to be difficult to get rid of .... the introduction of enzyme based tank treatments have shown to be able to help with removal .... for me, this will be the first time I've given an enzyme treatment a try .... based on 1,620 global ratings averaging 4.4 out of 5 stars on Amazon, it appears to be a product worth trying

Unique Tank Cleaner Liquid for RV and Boat Black Holding Tanks ====> https://www.amazon.com/Unique-41H-1-Hol ... B003X3PQN2

[dave77]

Thanks, Ive been doing it that way for 2 years now and have had no problems. I was telling a friend and he said I was wasting my time and should just leave it open but I always take what he says with a fair amount of caution. He's a good guy but always does things the easiest way possible.

[JEBar]

yesterday's outing with friends really went well .... if things go as scheduled, today will be our last "down" day before we arrive back home on Wednesday .... different friends coming by today to visit and take us out for a late lunch ..... for us the only thing on tap for this morning is a short trip to fill the truck and pick up ice for the coolers with steaks ..... still plenty of puddles from last night's thunderstorm, today's weather looks great

[JEBar]

today's drive from Eureka, MO to Clarksville, TN took us 5 hr 23 min to cover 308.1 miles which included 1 brief rest stop .... all in all, it went well .... no major slowdowns, overall traffic wasn't too bad .... tomorrow's drive to just east of Asheville, NC will be about 50 miles further and include a fuel stop .... 2 more driving days and then we can start the process of getting our equipment and ourselves back into our normal routine

[JEBar]

our next to last day's 350 miles / 5 hr 38 min drive is slated to the Asheville East KOA Swannanoa, NC .... almost all interstate driving, the vast majority on I-40 .... it will take us across the spine of the Blue Ridge Mountains .... we do lose an hour when we reenter the Eastern Time Zone .... hate to see this trip come to an end but am sure ready for the drive to be over

[JEBar]

well, we prefer boring drives and, thankfully, until today all of our drives on this trip have been .... that string snapped today during our 6 hr 38 min, 370.2 mile drive .... I-24 coming into Nashville has 2 lanes in both directions .... we were in the right hand, east bound lane running in a pretty good size pack of vehicles .... they were all passing us and the flow of traffic was smooth .... a small rollback wrecker a vehicle tied down on its bed and a second being towed backwards with the rear wheels off the ground and the front nose down passed us .... he had to be running 70 or better mph .... after getting a few vehicles ahead of us in the inside lane, smoke started boiling out from under the vehicle being towed .... the surrounding drivers all started taking totally uncoordinated evasive actions ..... lets just say its a minor miracle that nobody made contact ..... no clue how many long seconds later there were a total of 8 or so vehicles between us and the rollback ..... when sparks began to fly out from under the towed vehicle all of them hit the brakes .... as the rollback pulled away the sparks changed to flames .... much to my dismay nobody tried to get to the rollback to warn the driver ..... by then other drivers were running on both left and right shoulders .... when it became evident that none were going to try and alert the driver, I tried my best to weave our rig through to where I could get a clear path to him .... by the time we broke free wind pushed flames were shooting out of the entire front of the vehicle .... my efforts to catch the rollback ended the instant burning chunks of rubber hoses, tires and who knows what else begin flying across the interstate ..... it was then that the driver slammed on the brakes and headed for the right shoulder .... I saw him literally jump out of his truck, grab an extinguisher and run toward the fire .... that was the last I saw .... there is no doubt in my mind that his fire extinguisher wasn't anywhere near large enough to handle the fire

later on I-40 in the gorge between Knoxville and Asheville, our truck's electric motor fan that kicks in when the engine temp hits 200 degrees on a long pull stopped working .... never had a problem with it before .... the gorge has steep grades and almost nowhere to pull off the road .... had to fall back on an old standby .... open the windows, shut down the truck's AC, set the heater to blow the hottest possible temp and lower the engine coolant through manipulating the heater fan .... that was tough .... made it to the East Asheville KOA .... parked our camper, auto leveled it, hooked up the electric and took off in our truck to an independent garage we've used in years past .... they were closing for the day .... took all the info and will call us in the morning ..... if they can't work it in, they will try to find a mobile repair service for us

yep, far from a boring day

[JEBar]

well, we are home ..Cool .. this morning I spoke with the folks at the repair shop and they said they could work our truck in for diagnostics to find the problem late today or earl tomorrow morning .... from there they would schedule it for repairs as soon as necessary parts could be purchased .... from there I spoke to a mobile tech who told me much the same thing .... we discussed it and decided to head home ..... we'd nursed it from eastern Tennessee to Western NC yesterday and figured we could get it home ... that turned out to be the case ....doing so required opening the windows and running the heater wide open .... lets just say we are both pretty well drained .... she'll be in the shop Monday, hope whatever they find turns out to be minor