Clinton, TN

Well, I lied. Our next stop turned out to be Clinton, TN. We left this morning a little after 7:30 and got to I-40 within a half hour. If you ever traveled the Parkway in Pigeon Forge, you know all about the usual bumper to bumper traffic on it. We took I-640 around Knoxville and headed north on I-75. About 20 miles south of the KY line there was a loud POW! Oh no, another tire blown, or so we thought. I checked my side and Ted checked his. Tires all looked OK. Another RVer stopped to offer assistance but we didn't know what had happened. So he decided to check his tires since we were running side by side. His were OK too.

So Ted decided to start slowly on the shoulder to see how the truck was running. He immediately knew he had no turbo boost. We were in limp mode and luckily right at an exit that had a Pilot truck stop. We pulled in there and Ted backed the trailer into one of the sites where the semis park. We talked to the people inside and they said it was fine where it was but we would need to sign the Drop Sheet if it stayed all night.

Good Sam Road Service said they would send a wrecker and someone to take the trailer to a campground. We waited over an hour in which time we had called around and found the nearest Ford dealer with a diesel mechanic which was back here in Clinton. Ted talked to the service manager, he felt it was the hose and said it would take an hour and a half to repair. So we cancelled the RV tow and rode back to Clinton with the tow truck driver.

It took until 3 o'clock to get the part and fix the truck. The guy didn't seem real confident that all was well when he talked to us. At least he didn't give me a warm and fuzzy feeling. We drove out and as soon as we hit the first grade, it started whistling. This was one of the symptoms they asked us about but it had not whistled before or after the POW. We drove on and the whistling stopped but I knew it didn't sound like it did before.

We got to the Pilot (about 20 miles away) and called the Ford dealer. He said to bring it back but they couldn't work on it until tomorrow. So we signed the Drop Sheet, took out toiletries and a change of clothes and drove back to Clinton. On the way it was "whooshing" like it was sucking air. The boost stayed within range and the truck performed OK but it didn't sound right. We are not about to take the truck any further pulling the trailer unless we are confident it is truly fixed.

We rented an Enterprise car, got a room at Travelodge and went to eat. It was breakfast, lunch and dinner for us. We are now in our room ready to get a shower and put today behind us.

Don’t tell your problems to people: eighty percent don’t care; and the other twenty percent are glad you have them. -Lou Holtz