Saturday, July 7, 2012

Bad Kharma

I used to watch the tv show, Earl, which was all about good and bad Kharma. Recently I seem to have come down with a case of the latter. Four weeks ago, I was having a great time at my lake cabin sitting in the shade at the water's edge when my daughter asked if I could come out in the water and help her with the jet ski. Jumped up and waded out to where she was and suddenly realized my HTC Evo Smart Phone was still in my pocket. As you might imagine, scratch one $200 phone. Then, two weeks ago, I received an e-mail from the 12th Man Fondation letting me know I didn't have enough priority points (guess I hadn't donated enough money over the past 15 years) to keep my space in the RV lot that is closest to Kyle field, even though I have paid to camp there for the past 15 years regardless of what the Aggies record was or which conference they were affiliated with. Then, when I tried to log on to get a space in one of the more remote lots that aren't controlled by the 12th Man I failed in my attempt to get one online , though my daughter, who logged on at the same time as me, was able to get one. I licked my wounds and took solace in the fact that I would still be able to camp and tailgate with her family, which we had already been doing in my old space. Then this week I had planned to head out to Ruidoso on Friday, pulling my 5th Wheel, to camp out with other family members for a week, and made arrangements for my son to come over to water the yard and Becky's plants and feed the cats till we got home. That plan fell through when my water well suddenly decided to stop pumping water Thursday morning. Not knowing how soon I could get someone to come check it out or make a repair, I had to call and cancel my reservation. Things seemed to look up, though, when I was able to get Ace water well company to come late that afternoon to look at well and determine my pump had gone out and assured me they would be able to come late the next day and install a new pump and get my water running again. Now I'm thinking, hey, I can go ahead and leave, albeit a day later than planned, and still spend a week in the cool mountain air, so I called and made a new reservation, and Becky an I spent much of yesterday evening loading the 5th Wheel and getting ready to head out early this morning. Got up a little before 5 AM this morning and did some last minute watering and finally headed out at 6:15 thinking we would be at RV park in the mountain pines by 2 this afternoon. Things seemed to finally be going right as we headed west on ole US 380. Hit the big hill at Wizard Wells west of Bridgeport and zoomed right up it. Ahh!!, I'm thinking, "can't wait to hit that cool mountain air" ""!!! That is, until about three more miles down the road when I started feeling a vibration that shouldn't have been there. First thought was, "Do I have a tire problem?". That didn't seem likely since tires on trailer were all new as were the tires on my truck. Drove another mile and vibration got worse and I then I noticed I was also losing power, and when I looked out right side rear view mirrow, I could see lots of gray smoke coming out from under truck. At that point, I knew we probably weren't going to make it to Jacksboro, much less Ruidoso, so found a wide enough spot to turn around and headed back to Decatur, engine vibrating and tailpipe belching smoke all the way. Though I had my doubts, we did make it back to the house around 7:30. Called RV park and cancelled again, then called James Wood Motors, whose service department doesn't work on Saturdays, but does have a service rep available to help those picking up or dropping off a vehicle for repair. After I described my problem, he thought it was most likely fuel injector failure, but said they couldn't work on it until Monday. Assuming that is the problem, and they have it fixed by the end of the day, I guess I could take another shot at heading west and come home a couple of days later than plannned, but I'm not sure I want to even try. Have already called the RV park twice to make a reservation and then twice to cancel. Probably getting tired of hearing my voice. Bad Kharma, ya think!!!!!!

3 comments:

Deb said...

Yep, Bad Kharma for sure!!! Hope that's the end of it!
deb

Gary said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Gary said...

Deb, Unfortunately not. Took truck in and left it. Got call three hours later letting me know it not only had injector issues, but their tech found one cylinder not firing. Bottom line - $$$$$$$$$$$. May be cheaper to just buy a new one.