Day 32 - Limon to Santa Fe Tony spent the morning at the repair shop while Anne and Michelle stayed at the motel. It was the bearing again and this time they had to do a bit more to repair it. Thanks to the quick work at the shop the repairs were done by early afternoon and after lunch we were on the road again. Our original plans were to go through Denver and work our way west and south from there. Since we lost most of the morning and the afternoon storms were approaching we decided to cut our loses and head home as directly as possible. Our most reasonable goal was Santa Fe. We headed out and thanks to Tony's great aiming skills we were able to outpace or squeeze between most of the ... read more

Day 30 - Hutchinson There are many cool things to do in Hutchinson. We could have seen the salt mines or the Cosmoshpere. Instead tony spent the morning at the Toyota dealer getting the transmission checked out while Anne and Michelle started some laundry and relaxed. Our Van was losing it's passing gear and we had transmission overheat code come up yesterday. Those are two very bad things to have happen when heading into the mountains. Turns out the transmission had been overfilled and needed a flush. Once that was taken care of we headed out to explore Hutchinson. We found a great cafe in an old firehouse for lunch and afterwards looked around the shops in downtown Hutchinson. In the afternoon we got a personalized tour of the dairy plant where Matt works as the ... read more

Day 28 - Elkhart to Maysville Today we mostly tried to make up some of the time lost to car repairs. Before leaving, Tony tried to reproduce a check engine light and code we have been seeing since leaving Grand Island. Alas, no luck without the trailer hooked up. However, he did accidentally drive by the main offices for two of the biggest RV manufacturers in the US: Forest River and Heartland. Note that Heartland is the company that made our travel trailer, so it was like a homecoming. Since we were behind, we didn't try to visit the factory. Will's place is less than a quarter mile from the Michigan border so we drove a bit north and spent some time taking in the very picturesque towns in Michigan as we worked our way west ... read more

Day 26 - Grand Island to ??? "The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men gang aft agley." We were up and moving well this morning until Anne smelled something unfamiliar. It turned out the trailer battery was not doing too well. Truth be told, it was literally smoking, so Tony quickly detached it while giving Michelle a quick lesson in battery chemistry. A battery check and change is a standard problem and shouldn't take long. There was an Advanced Auto Parts down the road from the KOA and they were able to check the trailer and car batteries right away. They all needed to be replaced. Everyone there was super helpful and professional. Unfortunately as they were changing the car battery a small coolant hose on the radiator was broken. Two model years earlier it ... read more

Day 24 - Montreal to Grand Island Today's highlight was crossing back into the US on the east side of Lake Champlain. We drove through Vermont down Lake Champlain and then crossed back into New York. We had breakfast in St. Albans VT, which was cool because we were at one time thinking of moving to the original St. Albans in the UK. We searched for a quaint little Vermont roadside gift shop and finally found one just before the state line. There were several options to get over to the west side of Lake Champlain, but we chose to go south to the bridge (instead of the ferries). While in New York we drove through some of the mountainous back roads. We saw some great little towns and beautiful lakes along the way. We would ... read more