Wednesday, November 20, 2013, Breakdown on Moving Day, Towed to Salinas, CA

It was time to move on from the Pismo, CA, area. Our next stop was Scotts Valley, CA, just a few minutes north of Santa Cruz, CA (about 180-190 miles). The plan was to meet up with Bob, our good friend (from Georgia) of nearly thirty years. He was going to visit his brother, Richard, in Los Gatos for Thanksgiving. Scotts Valley was only 11 miles from Richard's house.

We got ready to go as usual, but then the engine suddenly died and was difficult to start again. With some effort, it did start and we were off.

It started off as a beautiful day!

After 150 miles, the engine died in a very inconvenient spot. People were not happy with a big motorhome in their way with four-way flashers on. We got it started one more time and were looking for a place with a shoulder or a parking lot where we could get off of the road if we couldn't make it to the campground. We were within 20 miles of our destination when the engine said "no more." We were headed down the ramp to US 1, north of Castroville, CA.  Luckily, there was a really wide place at the bottom of the ramp where the sign said: "Emergency Stopping Only." Perfect!

By now, it was raining pretty good, but I got out and opened the engine compartment in the hope I would see some magic reset button. It is pretty easy to let despair wash over you leading to a sense of helplessness that can overwhelm you. We tried not to let it happen, but then it is pretty difficult to keep those negative thoughts away. I got online and posted a message on the American Coach Yahoo Group about our situation, while Joani called Coachnet (AAA for motorhomes). I received a response on-line within 45 minutes suggesting the first thing to check would be the fuel filters. Since the coach stopped running on a busy freeway, and it was raining, and it was getting dark, I opted to have it towed to a garage. Coachnet sent out a truck. 

We have never had the experience of being towed, but Mike seemed to know what he was doing and he took his time and did everything correctly (including removing the drive shaft).  Following him was stressful though, as we saw sparks fly every time the coach went over a bump. On one really big bump, the battery bay door sprang open on the passenger side. It was right about then that we got to a stretch of road under construction with lots of orange cones and narrow lanes that we thought would surely catch the open door. Luckily, he missed everything and when we exited the freeway I flashed my lights wildly to get his attention. He stopped and we closed the door without any more problems.

We continued on to the garage. Of course, at 9:00 pm the garage was closed, so we spent the night along the curb outside of the gated area. It was difficult to get much sleep given all of the uncertainty swirling around us, but the area didn't appear to be too bad and the street was level, so we tried to sleep while we waited for morning.