Livingston to Willis, TX, Friday, Jan 21, 2011

Today was the day, after being at the SKP park for a little over six weeks, we were moving the RV, not far, about 70 miles.  Plans were made to see Bob’s cousin Patty and her family at their lake home on Saturday.

As you will see with this post, it was a day of challenges. First when we put in the drivers side slide, strange noises and pops were heard.  The slide came in a little crooked and managed to loosen up part of the bottom side trim.  So we put the slide back out to see what the problem was – ICE.  Bob is removing the ice in the above photo, not just being tidy.

So with the ice removed, all was well, well except for the slide trim, another item for Bob’s ToDo list.

Our next stop was a few miles away in Onalaska, Wayne’s Tire Shop.  We wanted to get the front tires balanced, they use the ‘balancing beads’ method-a pack of silicone beads is put into the tire, the pack of beads breaks when you drive and the silicone beads move around and balances your tires.

These beads are not expensive $15 per bag plus $15 labor per tire.  The whole process did not take over 30 minutes and were back on our way to Willis.

We kept wondering if we would feel the difference in the coach ride.   Bob’s  kept driving and soon his speed was up to 50 and on a long bridge and then it happened – the coach started to vibrate, shaking almost out of control.  Bob did an excellent job of holding on (for dear life) to the steering wheel, slowed down, and the vibration stopped, back up to 50 and the vibration began all over again.  After crossing the bridge, we pulled over to see if we could see any problem – saw none, but Bob’s emphatic words were “We’re going back.” (to Wayne’s Tire Shop)   Our drive back, about 3 miles went fine as long as you were below 50 MPH. After describing our problem to them, one fellow wanted to check something.  Turned out they had not removed our old rim weights, talk about a possible liability issue.  It was also brought to our attention, the front driver’s tire showed signs of needing an alignment and showed some bad wear, so we had them replace it with the tire we have been carrying in the Explorer since January of 2010, a flat which had been repaired. 

This time we left the Explorer parked and took the coach for a test drive – what an amazing smooth ride.  Those beads actually do work!!

Then we go back to Wayne’s hook up the Explorer and drive on over to Willis.