Buckeye to Eloy

Oct 4^th

By 7:00 AM I was up, walked and fed the dogs and called RV Master Techs in Goodyear to get an appointment. Tina was up by 7:30 and we were on the road by 8:30 pulling into the repair place just before 9:00 AM.

The service manager assigned a tech to work on our rig and he was hard at work by 9:30 AM trying to diagnose the problem. While he worked on the fridge we disconnected the car and went to breakfast at the Black Bear Diner. We both had omelets and they were very good.

An hour later we returned to the coach and Greg had narrowed it down to the cooling fans which are located above the top of the fridge and help pull all the warm air out from the fridge compartment. He ordered two new fans and a sensor. They were supposed to arrive by 1:30 PM.

So we took the dogs for a walk, read and just past noon decided to go to lunch. We took the kids and drove to a Carls Jr. and drove through so we could come back to the coach and eat. About 1:30 Greg came out to the coach with the new fans and said “Rain coming’ we’re going inside”. Whereupon he told me he had disconnected the trailer and he drove the rig into one of the service bays. 

In the service bay at RV Master Techs

While we were inside the sky opened up and unleashed a torrent of rain. It came with swirling winds and forced Greg to close the bay doors. Ten minutes later the rain quit and by 2:30 PM he had finished installing the fans and sensor and moved the coach back outside. I went in and finished the paperwork. $450 later and a promise to “cool it” ha, ha, we headed for I-10.

Driving into the dust

Since we knew it was going to be late, I had found a place only 30 miles away in Scottsdale but after talking it over I suggested going down I-10 toward Tucson and find a place. Tina grabbed the Trailer Life Directory and found a place at exit 203, Desert Valley RV Resort. As we drove further along I-10 we kept seeing warning signs, “Blowing Dust, Visibility Low”.

Can you say dust storm?

By the time we got to exit 160 it was really evident that we were driving into a dust storm. You could see it on the horizon and the wind kept picking up. Then we saw a sign that said, “I-10 closed 30 miles ahead due to a bad accident”. Well we decided to keep rolling but within a couple of miles I was doubting the wisdom of that decision. We were enclosed in a thick blanket of dust and it was seeping into the rig through every crack and crevice. It was so bad we felt like were eating and breathing dust… Ugh!

Oh yeah, let's go shopping!

As the dust closed in we went slower and slower and slower until we were only doing 3-4 mph. Cars and trucks were pulled off the road all over the place but the wind and dust was so bad I couldn’t see pulling off to try and wait it out. At the same time, visibility at times was no more than 20 feet ahead. We kept moving and eventually (five miles later) we were through the worst of it even though the wind was gusting to 20 or 25 mph directly from the side forcing me to “crab” the rig along to stay in our lane.

On the pad at Desert Valley RV Resort

We never saw anything of the accident at Mile Post 190 but it turned out that we passed a horrific accident in the westbound lanes where the visibility was worst. The police attributed the accident to people driving too fast for conditions. We were lucky. Tina called the Highway Patrol and they said that I-10 was closed in both directions at exit 210 so we decided to go to Desert Valley RV Park for the night and get an early start.

Tina fixed dinner and I worked on the blog and photos. By 7:30 PM with the wind still rocking the rig we turned on the TV and kicked back for the rest of the evening.

Miles for today, 100. Total for the trip so far, 1,833 miles.

To see all our photos, go to:

http://picasaweb.google.com/mjdolanski