Doug:

Tuesday 3/Jul/2012:

Wow, what a day and in the end a unfortunate turning point…

Got moving a little after 8ish, filled up and the aim was to get through Montana and through the Enchanted Hwy in Dickinson ND… well, we  started heating up again and pulled off in Huntley. The fuel smell was back, the RV was runnin super hot and had to fill up.  We gassed up, and pulled into some shade next to the town park for about an hour, letting him try to cool off in 100deg heat. Yea, no cooling off for him… frustration ensued once again and the enchanted Hwy was cut from the itinerary.

Mt. Rushmore was now the only goal, since that’s the only place we booked in advance for this adventure. We turned around, went back to the junc  of I-94 & I-90. Back-tracked only about 8miles and off the road to I-90, running hot! Made it about 8miles going this way and had to pull off due to heat and the bloody inclines. Stopped for about 15 and wanted to get back on the road to at least find some kinda shade. Another 10 miles and we found an exit that had an underpass. Parked in the shade for about an hour, a very very hot hour. Why didn’t ya just run the genny/air cond you say, haha, good freekin question! I did of course and wouldn’t ya know it she wouldn’t run. What the cuss! Oh yea, I forgot to mention that the last 45min or so we did our best to try and keep it from boiling over and had the heater on! Yup, heat on high in 100deg weather. Cussin beautiful!.

Anyway, the only thing I can think of with the non-running of the genny is that I bought the cheap gas not really thinking about it, but it’s octane rating is 85.5 instead of our 87. I don’t know if that’s really it or not, but that’s what I’m blaming it on… so back to the story.

Decided to push just 1 more time, another 9miles to Fly Creek Rd Rest Area. Sat around another hour and it was decided we were done! Turned around, barley made it back to the underpass a second time… yup another hour… called AAA, “we can get you a tow but can only take 2 passengers, but we can also assist with getting you a rental”. What the? 

By this time Angel has hit her temp limit and now has a full on headache and puking. Fk it, lets go……pushed as hard as we could with heat a blastin and got back to Billings to pull in at the HoJo. Booked 2 nights, took the kids to the pool, ate dinner  and had a couple beers. I don’t know that there will be any posts from the rest of the family or myself at this point. 

D

(Highight of the day: I may have lost some water weight due to dehydration)