Fun with Janice and Dean

Our friends, Janice and Dean, left Alabama a couple days ago headed for Elkhart. They stopped in Nashville and are there for several days now. Their beautiful Allegro Bus is having an engine problem and they have already changed the fuel filters. The Cummins dealer thinks it may be a manifold leak and that by itself is a three-day repair. So they are sitting and waiting until Monday when they will take their bus the eight miles down the road to the mechanics. Here's hoping all goes well, they find the problem, and get them back on the road in short order.

We left the Tiffin Service Center yesterday morning. We can't thank Tiffin enough for the great service we get every time we visit. We had an appointment this time and they were ready for us at 7 a.m. that day. We went into Bay 13 where Brian and Kevin were all set to start. The main order of business was ripping out the wet bay, which I blogged about before. There were a few other repairs they did while the coach was there, and they did an outstanding job. On the wet bay, they at least got everything back together enough that we didn't have to trek to a motel for even one night. I couldn't thank them enough, as I didn't want to do that, especially with Neal, our handicapped Scottie. After we got done in Bay 13, we went to the paint bay where they repainted two lower bay doors which had gotten scratched and painted the gutter over the driver's window which had some minor repair due to a caulk and water buildup in the gutter. After paint was finished with us, we were sent to the welding bay as three broken chassis welds were found when they were re-doing the wet bay. That did not start out to be a promising venture. The head guy in that bay must have been having a bad day and, as promised, he didn't get to us that day. By the end of the day, Terry moseyed on down to the bay and spoke with another fellow and when he saw what a "quick" job ours was, he said to bring it in first thing Thursday morning and he would do it then. He was done by 7:45 and we were only waiting on paperwork then.

It just happened that the office wasn't real busy that early in the morning, so we gave them an hour and then snuck in to speak with Gail. Our paperwork was ready for the finishing touches and after about 30 minutes we were on our way. By 10:15 we were hitched up and on our way to the Natchez Trace. Terry gets tired of going the same way, I think, but I love the Trace and I was driving. Since we got away from Red Bay early, we could afford ourselves the extra time it takes to get to Nashville. While it does take a little extra time, however, it is so relaxing, few vehicles, no stops and the occasional wild turkey to see. We made it to Nashville before rush hour and to our campsite a short time later. Before I go on, however, I wanted to show you one last picture of the motorhome in for the fire repair at Red Bay. This shows more of the corner and you can see the sweep of the fire.

Since we were just north of Nashville and we knew our friends Janice and Dean were there, we contacted them and asked them to meet us at Cracker Barrel north of town. They had to drive north about 20 miles and we had to drive south about 20 miles, so it was the same distance for us both. We had planned to see them in Elkhart, but they may not get there before we move on. We met at 6 last evening and had a great time visiting with them. It had been over a year since we had seen them and we always enjoy touching base with great friends. We will be watching their blog closely and watching the progress of their bus repairs.

Today we will make it to Indiana and into Warsaw on Saturday. Sunday night my sister, her husband, another couple and Terry and I are going to see the Moody Blues in concert in Ft. Wayne. Mom and Dad are dogsitting for Neal!

Till next time. . .

Dale