Bad day on flatrock...

5/27/05. Well, every trip has to have something to make a story from. At least that is the tradition in my family. After leaving Omaha, we proceeded north on I-29 to Sioux Falls, SD. At the junction of I-90 we would turn west and head for Rapid City with an in-between stop in Salem, SD. When we reached the junction of 29 and 90 I elected to fuel up at the Flying J in Sioux Falls. Immediately after fueling we noticed a drop in horsepower. I could hardly maintain 55 mph. At first I thought it was the headwind we had just turned into which was blowing about 30mph and feeling pretty fierce. We made it to Salem just in time to anchor down before a major front blew through. The wind was bad before, but now it cranked up really bad. The wind caught my window awnings and pulled them open and hit the side of the RV so hard I thought there might be a possibility of being blown over. The weather report on the WX channel called for winds of 50mph or greater, I believed that piece of news. But, we did make it into the campground OK and anchored down. The camp ground was Campamerica Camp and was a very nice little park. The next morning, we pulled out heading west once again. I noticed right away that the rig's power was much worse, I could only get up to about 45 mph. I started thinking I picked up some bad fuel at the Flying J. I had never gotten hold of anything bad out of the Flying J, so this presented a quandary for me. I called our emergency road service and asked them to start looking for a service station for the rig. Of course the closest thing that could work on our moho was in Rapid City, still some 200 miles away. Eventually the power dropped down to a point where I was only making an averageof 30mph. What a drag. After a 10 hour drive, we finally made it to Happy Holidays RV Resort. There, I was able to schedule an appointment with Eddie's Truck stop, an authorized Freightliner service station for next Wednesday. Hope all goes easy. To top things off, we received a call that Christa's Aunt was not doing well and she had to fly back to Tallahassee, FL, to see her. She will hopefully be able to get back by next Wednesday as well. In the meantime, Mom and I will do a little sight -seeing.