Tuesday Nov 16th. Had a nice visit with Granny and Mr. Humes.

Nov 16^th.

Hello everyone! It’s Tuesday night and we just got finished playing games with Granny. We had a pretty exciting day yesterday…

We left the Anderson, SC Walmart parking lot and headed towards Clemson.  We drove through downtown Anderson. It’s a little bigger than Plant City and has many older buildings, but there is not much to see or do there.  The town is pretty, but most of the store fronts were empty.  We made it to Clemson and drove around the school campus because we heard it was pretty.  They have a nice little main street to drive down with some taverns, bookstores and restaurants.  Not much shopping, so Laurie was dissapointed.  We finished driving around and stopped in an Ace parking lot to make a sandwich and Mo’s mom called Laurie back and said that she was 5 minutes away. She came over and got a grand tour of our abode and then we hopped in her car to go to lunch.  After a visit at the Healy’s house, we ate at the Esso Club. Apparently it’s a historic bar and grill to eat at.  The food was very good as well as the company!  Mrs. Healy drove us on a guided tour around the town and campus. We even got a tour of the Clemson Univ. cemetary.  (Note to self…next time in Clemson, give Mo’s mom a lesson in backing up.)  We almost drove off of a hill and ran over a grave in the cemetary when we had to back up! We had a great visit though.  I would like to go back for a football game sometime.  We hit the road for Granny’s place at 4pm.

The trip to Granny’s and Mr. Humes’ house was uneventful until the last 30 miles. Just after dark, I noticed that there was someone trying to get my attention as they were passing us (as most people seem to do because we drive slow.  Sometimes they wave their hand with one finger in the air).  I pulled over and saw that about 5 feet of sewer hose was dragging behind us. Whoops! Fortunately there was no liquid (or solids) flowing out of it.  The cap that is supposed to hold it in fell off. I fixed it with a tie wrap (no, not duck tape) and we were good to go again.  Christmas tunes were playing on Sirius and Laurie and I were cruising down the road, just singing along. We were 2 miles from Granny’s and pulled up to a stop sign and the engine died. That was the end of us jammin’ to the Christmas songs. I tried to get it started again, and it wouldn’t crank up. Good thing there were not a lot of cars around that area.  Good thing we were pulling the truck too, because that truck ended up pushing us to Granny’s.  It was a long 2 miles to Granny’s because we had to travel so slow with Laurie driving the truck (she was basically driving blind because she couldn’t see anything except the back of the motorhome.).  The Ford did great pushing the big beast!  Mr. Humes and Granny were standing out by the road, because it was very dark when we arrived.  We started the turn into their driveway and just as I was straightening up the steering wheel, we came to a sudden, scraping halt. Hmmm…what was that?  I jumped out to look and the hitch, on the rear of the motorhome, was dragging the road and had gotten us stuck. Now we were stuck out in the middle of the road, on a curve, in the dark.  Someone was watching over us because there was only one car that passed us while we were working on trying to get the motorhome into the driveway.  There are usually more cars that pass their house, and they pass very fast.  I unhooked the truck after jacking the rear end of the motorhome up with the rv jacks and my handy floorjack that I brought from home.  The truck was stuck on the hitch so I had to pry it off with a hammer.  (Disclaimer. No damage was done to either vehicle during the process.)  I drove the truck around to the front of the motorhome and put it in 4 low.  I hooked a chain to the front of the motorhome and had Laurie drive the truck while I steered the motorhome.  I put the leveling jack s up on the motorhome but left my floorjack on the road, still under the rear of the motorhome, holding the hitch off of the road. Laurie started pulling with the truck and pulled us right up the driveway.  The old Ford (222,000 miles on it) did great!  We got everything off of the road and put the parking break on.  We called it a night after visiting with Mr. Humes and Granny for a while that night.  We were all exhausted after the wild night we had.  Mr. Humes was glad we made our grand entrance because they don’t see too much excitement around where they live.  J   We thanked God that we were so close when we broke down.  And, that we were on a backroad with no traffic.

Today, we woke up to more rain, had biscuits and gravy for breakfast, and Mr. Humes and I started working on the motorhome while Granny and Laurie played games inside.  It rained all day and it is still raining at 11:00 tonight.  We finally got the engine running at 5:00 tonight, after a few phone calls to Joe and Paul. It was either: the ignition module, the rotor, the cap or the coil because we decided to change all of them.  That way we wouldn’t have to go back to the autoparts store after the 2^nd visit today. J  We drove through downtown Union, SC and saw a cool looking courthouse that was built long ago.  They have some shops in town, so I guess we’ll be driving through there tomorrow so Laurie can do some looking around. (Notice I said looking).  We had a great dinner (steak and potatoes) and played some games tonight.  It ended up being a good day to work on something inside because of the rain.  It’s 50 degrees outide, so it’s not cold.  We had a great time with Granny and Mr. Humes and we are very appreciative for their hospitality.  We are looking forward to possibly making it to the coast tomorrow…we’ll see…ha!