It's January in New England, a good time to head south before the snow comes. We haven't had much here on the coast, but there is still plenty of time, so Speedy is heading south to the Everglades—with a bicycle tour thrown in.
Our plan was to leave this morning; drive straight through with only short overnight stops until we reached Amelia Island at the north border of Florida; then I would hop on my bicycle and ride to the Everglades, about 500 miles further. Ellen would drive Speedy and meet me each evening at the next campground, about 50 miles each day. While I was pedaling away, she'd have the day to take a walk, watch birds, be a tourist, lie in the sun, read a book, hunt pythons ... whatever caught her fancy.
This morning was a beautiful time to leave. It was sunny, the skies were almost entirely clear and the temperature was predicted to be in the 50s. We finished loading Speedy, drained the house water pipes, turned off the water heater, set the furnace to frost-free and set out around 8:30 AM. With quick stop to top up the fuel tank, we were on the highway, saying how happy we were to have a beautiful morning and to finally be on our way.
Ten miles later we were sitting in the breakdown lane on a very busy highway with a dead Roadtrek. As we were moving along at about 60, the engine just stopped running. I was fortunately able to coast to the breakdown lane before we stopped moving. I tried to get it started several times. It turned over easily and even ran after it sat for about 15 minutes, but only for about 30 seconds before dying again. My guess, a fuel problem; I hope we didn't buy 11 gallons of water.
Due to the magic of wireless telephony (and an emergency roadside assistance plan), we were able to reach a local towing company that would come and retrive us from the side of a six-lane highway. About 10 minutes after we stopped, the State Police showed up and stopped behind us. After explaining our predicament, he parked his cruiser a bit further back with lights flashing until the tow truck arrived and picked us up, about an hour later.
We were only about four miles from our own dealer, Good Brothers Dodge, so that is where we were towed. The truck driver's wife, who was along for the ride, is a friend of one of the dealership employees and called her to give them some indication that we were being towed there. They aren't open on Sunday, but we were dropped off there to leave Speedy in the lot until they open tomorrow (we hope they do open, as it is Martin Luther King Day holiday).
After a call for assistance, our friend Harry, another Roadtrek owner, came to give us a lift home. He arrived with insulated coolers and bags so that we could empty the refrigerator and take the electronics with us.
It was back home to Cohasset. Time to undo the house shutdown, turn the heat back up, turn on the water and the water heater and reconnect the TV, phones and Internet. We usually suspend our Verizon service when we go away, but it doesn't take effect until tomorrow, so we are connected until then.
After getting the car out of the root cellar, it was back to Speedy to get a few things we missed: full water bottles that we didn't want to freeze (as it's predicted to go into the teens tonight), muesli and banana bread for breakfast and, most importantly, coffee.
We are home now, but will go over to Good Brothers early in the morning. As is always the case, as we were parked in the lot waiting for Harry, I tried starting the van. Of course, it started right up and idled along for several minutes, acting just fine. But, still, we need to get a diagnosis of the problem as we don't trust it at this point. It could have been worse, after all; it could have stopped in the middle of the Tappen Zee Bridge.
I expect that we won't attempt to leave again until Tuesday, assuming it is given a clean bill of health tomorrow. By the time we get it back home, reload it and shut the house down again. It may be too late to leave. We also don't really want to try to drive through Washington, DC, on Inauguration Day and snow is predicted. I guess we didn't get the Dodge out of Dodge quickly enough.
More news tomorrow.
On the bright side, we get to watch the next episode of Downton Abbey tonight.
No photos today.
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