August 18, 2008

Monday 18~~~We have another broken shock on the 5th wheel, we are just a short distance from the factory where out rig was made, and the plant where the suspension was made. We headed over there bright and early to try and get in and out fast today. It was a problem of the suspension, they put us right in their HUGE shop and started to work on it right away. They had a lovely lounge with a fridge with cold drinks, lots of snack food items, a large assortment of magazines and books to read and of course a TV. At 11:30 the receptionist gave us a take out menu to order a free lunch. That made the day go by rather quickly except they quit work at 2:30 (6:AM to 3:00PM). They are set up for you to sleep in your RV with cable TV and the works in their shop. They gave us a key and we were free to go out and tour, eat or what ever we wanted to do. They just asked us to not leave the area of the trailer. We had to be up early the next morning and out of the trailer by 6 AM so they could go to work. There was another rig in there with us spending the night. This shop is enormous (6bays) plus the area for assembling parts and shipping. They had the lounge open with coffee and donuts ready for us. We opted to go out for breakfast instead. We were pretty tired after eating, as we didn't sleep very good waiting for the alarm to ring at 6. We aren't used to having to get up anymore. LOL Kent took a little snooze and Sharon read her book, then we played a game of cards and visited with 2 other couples who are having work done also. At 11:00 AM they had our rig ready to go, they put on heavier shock compressors that should have been put on when it was manufactured. They went from an 8 to a 12 in size and that is a whole lot stronger. Now we can travel with greater suspension on these terrible highways and won't bottom out so easy. I am attaching a picture we took of a postcard of the white buffalo we saw in North Dakota. It is the mother and baby we saw in the herd that is grown now and she has another one. It is so neat, I want you to enjoy seeing it.