When Is A Problem Really A Problem by Lee Griswold

WHEN IS A PROBLEM REALLY A PROBLEM?

 When those dramatic words came back from Jim Lovell from his crippled spacecraft, Apollo 13, “Houston, we have a problem”, the night crew at Johnson Space Center looked at each other and wondered if they heard right. “Say that again, Jim?” Lovell responded, “We had an explosion…” That got everybody’s attention.

First of all, we had no explosion. That’s a good thing. And by no means would I ever compare travel in a motor coach to the risks of space travel. But I’ll tell you that a week ago today, these words from Lovell ran through my mind. Here’s a blow by blow.

Linda and I had been camped overnight in a 1.5 to 2 star KOA, outside of Winnipeg, Manitoba and we were readying ourselves to head out on the next leg of our Alaskan trip, which turned out to be Regina, Saskatchewan down Canada 1 West and about 310 miles. I was in the middle of doing an obligatory dump before leaving and while casually casting my eyes around the coach, my eyes fell upon the the driver side tire on my tax axle. I did one of those Hollywood double takes and looked closer. I then hustled around the coach to look at the passenger side tag tire. Have you ever seen the surface of the moon? You know, those craters and hills and valleys? That’s what the surface of my two tag tires looked like: the moon.

 I quickly checked the status of my drive axle tires and the steers in the front and all of those were fine. I know what you’re thinking, “when was the last time you checked the tire pressures?” One thing for sure is that I am is anal about the operation of my rig. I religiously check my engine fluids, test my tire pressures, in other words, I have a mental checklist that I go through each morning before departure. So, when I gazed for the first time at my tags this morning, I was incredulous. I had checked them yesterday morning and they were all good on psi and condition. What happened? I mean, WHAT HAPPENED IN A DAY’S DRIVE OF 450 MILES?

 I knew one thing: we were going nowhere that day and I couldn’t help but think of what Lovell said when Houston told him to turn off the react valves to two of the fuel cells, “we just lost the Moon.” I’m thinking, no, Alaska will still be right there, it’s not going anywhere, this is just a momentary interruption in our universe. All we have to do is think this thing through, get the right diagnosis and repairs and we’ll be back on our way. The first step was to tell the wife.

 “Honey, we have a problem.” She just looked at me for a split second and now I know what a “deer in the headlights look” really means. “What’s wrong? Is something wrong?” she said. “Well, um, we may have a problem with our tax axle”, I said. By now, the rest of you smarty pants would have been asking, “when was the last time you had your shocks checked?” And you’d be right in asking, but I’ll get to that a little later. At the moment, I had to explain to Linda that we were dead in the water and proceeded to describe the hills, the valleys, the cupping, the bumps…you already have the picture. 

The next logical step was to see if we could have the site in this dream campground a few more nights. So, I headed up to the KOA office which sat comfortably perched on the top of a rise above the valley (bog, really) where the campground sites were located. “Hi, we’re in site 53 and we’ve had a problem. By any chance, could we have the site for another night or two or three until we figure out what we’re going to do?” The manager said that he was all booked and that there were no more sites to be had. “So, when is checkout?” I asked. He looked at his watch and then to the 1970s clock on the wall, "in two hours". I said quietly to myself, two hours, great. But the Apollo 13 guys only had 15 minutes to move from, I think it was, the Odyssey to the LEM or else they would completely lose power. We can figure this out.

 It was back to the coach to report the news. We looked at each other and said almost simultaneously, “Let’s work the problem.” Sound familiar? We leapt to our only two remaining lifelines, Linda to her IPAD and me to my computer. Strangely, in this place, we had lousiest cell coverage, but the internet was reasonable. So, for about an hour, we googled like crazy and scoured the area for potential service centers. Frankly, there were several to choose from, which was good, but trying to pin point which one fit the bill was another story.

 We compared notes. I said, “Boy, it would be great to have a local contact to vet some of these places.” The office manager, Mr Personality, flashed through my mind, but it was only just that, a flash. I needed a local. “Honey, by any chance, do you have an FMCA mag?” Paydirt! One was in the bathroom and what great reading it was during those quiet moments, I might add. She handed it to me and I flipped to the back, where the chapters were listed. “Manitoba…Manitoba…ah, yes, here we go.” I ran my fingers down the list, “Canadian Northern Lights, Coaches for Christ Midwest, Country Coach Heartlanders…” There were nine in all, but I just decided to start with the first one, Canadian Northern Lights.

 I then went to the contact information for this chapter and immediately noticed that the area code of the contact person was the same as Winnipeg. This could be a bingo! Listed was a certain Bryan Paquin with both telephone and email. “Okay, here we go” and I called the number. The call was answered after two rings but then our connection promptly got dropped. I tried again. This time, I could hear a fella say on the other end, “Hello?” I said, “Hi, this is Lee Griswold…” and we exchanged some short pleasantries and learned I was talking to Bryan, who happened to be President of the Canadian Northern Lights. I then proceeded to launch into my dilemma. There was a knock at the door and I said, “say, can I call you right back?”

 The knock was nothing, really, just someone from the office reminding us that the next camper was coming in shortly. As if I didn’t know, give me a break. I called Bryan back and he asked “where are you?” I told him the KOA West Winnipeg. “What site are you on?” he said. I told him. “I’ll be there in 3 minutes.” Taken aback a bit, I said, “okay, great, I’ll look for you”. I went back inside and relayed the news. Sure enough, in just a few minutes, a white car pulled up and out got a broadly smiling face.

 “Hi, I’m Bryan Paquin, having some problems?” We looked at the tag tires together and I took note of his reaction. “Not traveling anywhere with those, are we?” he said. “Nope”, I replied. Just then, a fifth wheeler rolled to a stop in front of us in a cloud of dust. Out of the truck stepped an already red faced lady, who asked me the rhetorical question, “we have site 53, are you supposed to be here?” and proceeded as if to show me her written reservation. “I know”, I said. “We’re getting set to leave but we’ve had some mechanical problems. I’ll try to be out of your way in just a few minutes.” With an edge to her voice, she said, “I have a party to attend in 2 hours and we have to get ready.” With that, she turned and went back to her truck and took off.” Brian looked at me and I looked at him and we both raised our eyebrows. I’m sure we were both thinking the same thing.

 Bryan told me to follow him back to his home where he had a 30 amp hook-up and a place to stay. Really? “Give me a quick sec”, I replied. I went in the coach to tell Linda and we instantly knew this was a lifeline. Little did we know all that was to follow. So, we finished getting the coach ready to go just as the KOA manager showed up to relay that he had put ornery woman on another site and he could accommodate us for one additional night only. “Thanks”, I said, with a smile. We’re outta here. With that, we fired up the coach and followed Bryan home, which as it turned out, was only about three minutes away! Remarkable, I must say, what’re the chances?

 So, it was in that moment, that our luck truly changed. And as for you reading this, yours will, too, because I plan to get along with this story. (I’ve been told I’m paid by the word). What followed was a weekend of talking, laughing, telling tall RV tales and just generally having a great time with Bryan and his wife, Dale. It was as if we had known each other our entire lifetimes. And I have to add that Dale found, or perhaps I should say that Sammy, found a new best friend. She had lost her dog a couple of years ago and her attachment to our little guy was palpable.

 In a nutshell, the relief we felt was total and early Monday morning, Bryan and I were on the phone with my service center in CT and a Spartan tech in Michigan, who suggested it might be bad shocks. (Turned out he was right). He further recommended Freightliner was probably the best choice where we were since they had no Spartan service centers within hundreds of miles. We called Freightliner and they invited us to come in for a look. Next, we called 3 tire centers and found one that said they could get two tires from Hamilton in 2-3 days. We were cooking with juice. I fired up the coach and Bryan escorted me to Freightliner, both with our flashers on and going about 40 mph. Don’t forget, I had the hills, the valleys and the bumps. I didn’t want to risk a blow-out, so we took our time.

 About half an hour later, we were at the service counter at Freightliner. Great people, and something to remember if you’re ever in similar need in Winnipeg with your motor coach. It only took about an hour for them to inspect the coach and as expected, the shocks were (shockingly) shot. They also recommended changing out the air springs, which had seen better days. “Okay” I said. “Can you give me an estimate?” After another 15 minutes, a gentleman named Jim appeared and showed me the damage: about $3K Canadian or about $2.4K in parts and $600 in labor. Perhaps he took note of the pained look on my face and he leaned forward to say quietly, “I’m not telling you this, but if you contacted Spartan and ordered the parts directly and had them sent here, it could cost less…”

 We inquired whether both the shocks and the air springs were standard; i.e. wouldn’t you have them on hand or available to you?” Jim said, “yes, you’d think so, but I can’t get cross reference numbers because Spartan assigns them proprietary numbers at their facility. To me, they look like Monroe shocks, but I can’t cross reference them to anything.” With that, Brian and I looked at each other, took the estimate with the Spartan part numbers, went out to the coach and called them on my cell. Within 10 minutes, I had paid and arranged for the parts to be two day shipped (mind you, they had to go through Canadian customs) to Freightliner. And get this, instead of $2,400, we got it all in, with the shipping and freight for half the cost. Victory!

 Well, not quite. After thanking Jim for the wink and the nod on the parts, we made our appt for the work with Freightliner in two days. Then, it was on to the tire place which had the 2 day lead time for the tires. We arrived there, went inside and the manager, a fellow named Harv, proceeded to explain that we had missed the cut-off that day and it would be 7 days at the earliest. Talk about going from the heights to the depths in one plunge...

 I must have had that same pained look on my face when, quite amazingly, Harv leaned forward and said, “Listen, I probably shouldn’t be telling you this”, pointing his finger to a place across the street, “you might want to run over to our competition to see, they might have your tire in one of their stores, as they are part of a franchise. We’re just a single store here.” Brian and I shared that same knowing look and off we went across the way.

 There we met Jeff, who took the tire specs and put them in his computer. It seemed to take a century, but finally, he simply said, “yep, we got ‘em.” I was astounded. “You mean you have them, where, in this store?” Jeff replied, “Yep.” Unbelievable. Brian and I started laughing. Jeff wasn’t real sure about our reaction, but through my guffawing, I said, “I’ll take them! How much?” As it worked out, both tires would, with the Canadian to U.S. exchange rate, cost about $75 less per tire than when I had bought them in Florida through the FMCA program back in 2016.

 It was time to buy a lottery ticket, my luck was so good! Back we went to share the great news with Linda and Dale. Toasts were made all around and for the next two days, we spent several wonderful hours in their screened in gazebo, drinking, eating and just generally have a good time. I can’t say enough about these two who not only assisted us in our hour of need, but gave us the gift of friendship, which we feel was priceless.

 And so, if by now, I haven’t put you to sleep, I will gladly hand back the reins of this blog to Linda, who in my opinion, does a great job, don’t you think? Oh, and just in case you’re wondering, all the repairs and tire installations went according to plan and we are back on the road. Alaska, here we come!