Tuesday, July 19, 2011

What a day

It started out great but ended up with a HUGE bump in the road.  This may be a long story so get some popcorn and settle in for a little tale of our day.

We left Missoula and followed, or I should say, crisscrossed the beautiful Clark Fork River valley out of Montana.  The big thrill of the day was just before we entered ID a huge brown bear crossed the road right in front of us.  There was a concrete median barrier between us and the eastbound lane and just about 30 yards in front of us this bear jumped over that median and crossed to our right and up the hill faster than we could say "there's a bear".  It was large and shaggy having shed most of it's winter coat.  What a chance sighting but no opportunity for pictures.

Our planned goal for tonight was to be Ellensburg, WA but shortly before lunch time our truck beeped to say that the engine was overheating.  I pulled over to the shoulder and in just a few minutes the temperature gauge cooled down and we continued slowly and pulled off at the next exit to a safe location and called our road service for assistance.  We were in Ritzvlle, WA and a couple of hours later the tow company arrived to haul the truck to the nearest Ford Dealer's service and pull our trailer to a campground in the same town of Moses Lake, WA.  There is bad news and good news.  First, the bad news is that after checking out the problem it is going to take a few days for the repair which will alter the remainder of our trip.  We have canceled our stay and visit to the Olympic National Park and will keep it on our bucket list for someday.  The good news is that our extended warranty contract has agreed to the repair except for our deductible and include the rental car so we can tour this area while we wait for repairs.  I planned on calling Enterprise but there wasn't an office any where near this location so I have a local rental and we will just tour this area and wait for our truck to be repaired.

ps:  We finally found the cool for the trip as the high today was in the 70s with tonight's low forecast to be in the upper 50s..

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