Day One - A Rough Start

So after the first day of our trip, we’re only 45 minutes from home, camping at a Shabbona Lake State Park. It’s a great park, we’ve camped here a couple times. But it’s not South Dakota , not even close. So how did we end up here? Let me take you back to the day before we left, when the “fun” all started.

We had a few last minute questions about the RV we were renting, so Jenni gave the guy a call. Turns out that they don’t have enough working 30 ft RVs to cover the reservations for the day. The alternate plan is for one of us to take a 25 ft RV and one of us would get the 30 ft. This was clearly not going to work, so after several phone calls, we finally got word that we would get the RVs we reserved. Little did we know that this was only the beginning of a long line of problems that we were going to encounter before we even left the state.

We managed to get the RVs early on Friday, had a few problems with the refrigerators, one finally worked the other didn’t, but we were running behind so we decided to leave without it being fixed. We quickly packed and left Plainfield just before 2pm, not too far off schedule. We were finally on the road, ready to enjoy our ten-day trip out to Yellowstone and back. About 45 minutes into our trip, we blow a tire.

We were lucky to be not far from the DeKalb Oasis on I-88. Since we blew one of the dual tires in the back, we were able to drive to the Oasis where the kids could get out of the RV while we waited for the tow truck to come and change the tire. Possible 1.5-hour wait, but at least we were in a safe place and not on the side of a busy freeway.

Finally the tire guy arrives, starts working on the RV and discovers the fuel intake hose and vent tube were severed when the tire blew, so we can’t put gas in the RV. We are then directed to drive into DeKalb to get that worked on, it’s 4:50 pm and the shop closes at 5:30 pm. We’re running short on time and short on patience. At this point we realize we aren’t making it to South Dakota, so we start looking at alternate plans.

When we arrive at Motor Works, the shop manager takes a look at the RV and can’t believe that Cruise America (CA)would let us drive off the lot with these things. Our front two tires were bald (some tread in the center) and one of the back tires looked like it was starting to get dry rot. The Hans RV had 4 bad tires. Unfortunately, they can’t help us, so we have to spend the night and get it fixed in the morning. The fuel line gets fixed and we end up camping at Shabbona Lake State Park.

The kids did amazingly well. They were disappointed to not be farther along and a bit worried that we might not make it at all. I have to say it was pretty funny to end up here, where we have camped before, only a short drive from home in these huge RVs. While we didn’t get to where we were going, it was nice to finally sit and have a drink or two (or three!) by the fire.

As our new friend from DeKalb says, “Bananas happen!”