Ready or not, our first long journey began today.  We finished loading last minute items, including some refrigerator items and the two cats.  The bus started right up, I backed it into the street, and we hooked up the car.  We were aiming to be underway by 9:00 AM, and actually pulled away from our home in S. E. Michigan at 9:25 AM.  Not bad.  Our destination was Twelve Mile, Indiana via M-59, I-96, I-69, US-12, M-217 (Michiana Hwy), US-20, US-31, and IN-16.  The weather was good and the drive went smoothly.  The over-the-road (OTR) air-conditioning even worked well, although we continued to get an occasional “low pressure” warning light for the system.  We stopped at Gallahan’s, a truck stop at US-24 and US-31 not far from Twelve Mile, and topped off the tank.  We arrived at Service Motors, Butch and Fonda Williams business in Twelve Mile, around 3:30 PM.

After a quick “hello”, Linda went to work with Fonda on their business records (Linda is a retired CPA) while Butch and I began working on the genset exhaust and fresh water pump low-flow problems, as these seemed to be the ones most likely to adversely impact our summer travels if not resolved.

Butch and I decided that the only reasonable solution to the genset exhaust pipe problem was to use unions on both ends.  This in turn would require parts and welding.  We discovered that the attachment that goes through the floor of the bay already had a union, but the exhaust outlet from the turbocharger did not.  The problem with the water pump appeared to be bad plumbing design; the lines are undersized PEX and there are too many right-angle and T-fittings that are further constricted in diameter.  That wasn’t a problem we would be able to solve in the day or so we had to work, but we had some ideas of a few other things to check out the next day.

We only worked for a few hours and then drove into Logansport to have dinner at one of the Mexican restaurants.  We stopped at the Home Depot first to get parts, but they had just closed.  Since Linda and I follow a “whole-foods, plant-based” (WFPB) way of eating, our choices of restaurants and restaurant menu items are usually quite limited.  Many Mexican restaurants have “veggie fajitas” on the menu, and these work well for us.  (BTW: the story of the naming of Twelve Mile, IN is that is 12 miles NE of Logansport, 12 miles S of Rochester, and 12 miles NW of Peru.  Most of our runs, however, are to Logansport.)