Day 1 - Hanford to Mission Viejo, CA (Or so we thought)

Our final farewell to the first house we bought. You were a great home for 3 years!

Well. Today was supposed to be the start of our trip...It’s already been hassle after hassle. 

Let’s start with the tow dolly. We plan on towing the Camry behind the RV across the country. Which means we need a car tow dolly. We booked a tow dolly with Uhaul because it was going to be cheaper than purchasing one. The rental pick up was right around the corner from our house, seemed like it would be a smooth transaction. We went to pick it up and that was easy but the return date on the receipt was for the 12th of October which is only 9 days. We need the dolly for 19 days, till the 21st. So now we have to call uhaul and get that sorted out. After many long photo calls it ends up they want us to pay double what we’re originally quoted to have the dolly until the 21st. Which ends up costing the same as buying one! Kyle worked it out to just return the rental today to the same place we picked it up from. We decided we are just going buy one on the way to Mission Viejo instead. We found one available 3 hours away in Santa Fe Springs but they close at 5pm and it’s now 1pm. The RV is packed, house is empty time to get on the road. Since my parents were with us too we had them go on ahead of us to Mission Viejo and we were going to go get the dolly then meet them at their house later today. Kyle is going to drive the RV alone and I will follow behind him with toby in the Camry. We have walkie talkies to communicate while we drive. Something I learned from Dad and Jeff and our travels growing up. 

We make it 17 miles down the road and Kyle tells me over the walkie talkie that the RV feels really wobbly then bam. The passenger side front tire blows out. It’s now 1:50pm and we haven’t even made it 30 minutes into our trip. We pull over in the shoulder of I-99 and start making more phone calls. We call Good Sam, our fancy “roadside assistance” provider, we call all the RV service centers in the area along with all the tire shops. Anyone and everyone who is open we call. Literally doing Good Sams job for them. We find someone in Tulare who can come to us but he needs to get Good Sam to dispatch him so he can come. In the meantime I book us a room at the local La Quinta (they save the day yet again) and take Toby over there since he has been sitting in the car while we make phone calls for the last 2 hours. We aren’t sure how long it will take to get a tow truck to us or if they can even change the tire tonight or if we have to wait till Monday. We could go back to the house but it is empty. So La Quinta seems the next best option. While I’m dropping Toby off at the hotel Kyle managed to finish doing Good Sams job for them and has someone coming to us to fix the blow out as well as put a new one on the other front wheel.

I meet Kyle back at the RV on the side of the highway and we waited another few hours for the service guys to show up. They make it around 5:40pm and were super helpful and friendly. They managed to get both front tired replaced and replaced the tire valve stems as well. Joe gave us a lot of tips and checked the back tires while he was there. He wasn’t sure what caused the blowout, he said the tire looked ok and that it didn’t seem worn and it was fairly new. It could have been the tire pressure monitor system the previous owner had installed on the tires which caused the tire valve stem to leak. That plus the now added weight and speed on the highway all could be factors.

All fixed and parked at the La Quinta yet again!

Toby clearly is happy wherever we are!

Thankfully we were able to get the tires fixed and weren’t hurt, it always could have been worse. We headed back to the hotel for the night and relaxed with Toby. Lets hope tomorrow doesn’t have more issues and we are able to start our Coast to Coast Part 2 journey!