It was a nice, not too hot, quiet night at Walmart! Considering it was hotter last night than the other two nights and I didn't wake up sweating, I'm positive I made the right choice in replacing the mattress pad! The new one is much thicker than the old one and now the bed is so comfortable!
One of the challenges of owning a Sprinter van is finding service for it. You have to go to a Mercedes dealer and not all Mercedes dealers work on Sprinters. Yesterday we located the nearest Sprinter service center, it was about 30 mins away in Ft. Washington, PA. Since "turn the van off and back on again" seemed to solve the problem we decided that I would drive the van over 1st thing - planning to be there when they opened at 7:30.
I was up early and ready to roll. I got my directions and headed out. It was a very stressful drive - I had no idea where I was going and it was "city" driving, which I don't really like on a good day, and it had no idea when or if the RV might do it's "lose power" thing. Part of the route was highway, part was suburban big box store sprawl, part was small town, it was definitely a time when I would have liked to have a GPS other than google maps on my phone! Despite it being stressful, I did make to the Mercedes dealer with no issues from the RV!
When I arrived however, I learned that the Sprinter service is in a different location about three miles away in an industrial park. More navigating. It wasn't that hard and I made it over there easily.
After I'd been waiting about an hour I asked for some updates. It seems that it was giving a lot of codes and they weren't sure which ones to believe. One code was for some Turbo part that was in a case of some sort that took days to repair. But other codes seemed to imply that that RV needed a "regenerative test drive", which basically means drive it around for 2 hours and run out every drop of the owners fuel. He told me it would be about an hour, but 2 hours later he finally brought the RV back. When he typed up the paperwork he listed all the codes and everything in case I have a further problem with it. If the check engine light comes on again it's probably the turbo thing which takes days to repair. Fingers crossed.
So, at 1:00, I was finally back in the van ready to roll to RI. It was about 350 miles, so I wasn't sure I'd make it, but I was gonna try! Mom and Dad left at almost the same time I did from the Wal-Mart near my uncle's house. The first part of the drive up into NJ, into New York and over the Tappan Zee Bridge went smoothly and issue free!
Then I got back on 95 in CT. About a mile in I saw a sign "Delays 21 miles exit 4-28”. Did that mean delays *in* 21 miles or delays *for* 21 miles. Turns out it was *for* 21 miles. I pulled off at the Welcome Center in Darien and the truck area was full! I couldn't get in - so now I was sitting in traffic in a rest area. I got lucky and was able to get out of the truck area and into the car area. I was texting with mom and we made a plan to stop at the Wal-Mart at exit 40. At exit 27 the traffic just evaporated. One minute we were going 10 mph, the next 60!
As I was arriving at the Wal-Mart so was the thunder storm! It was a big one too! I parked and opened the windows and enjoyed the storm! It was probably the best part of the day! After the storm settled a bit, I ate dinner and Mom and Dad rolled in about an hour after me.
We made it about 80 miles shy of the campground we had reservations at! Pretty good, considering the circumstances, but frustrating! We had plans to go to Block Island tomorrow, but that's not going to happen now, trying to park the RVs at the ferry terminal and then the ferry schedule doesn't match up with our timeframe. So, we will head to the campground and find something to do there. I hope Rhode Island is nice, but not too nice because I'm probably never coming up here again. I see why I've never been!
Posted with Blogsy
No comments:
Post a Comment