Mammoth Does Not Go to Vicksbug Military Monument, Day 5

Sat 9/24

The Day of the Drive From Heck. Beeping noise--hydraulic fluid leaking from jack stand. Called a hydraulic repair shop, closed on Saturday but the guy directed us to O'Reilly's to get a replacement hose made. Sadly, the nearest O'Reilly's didn't have anyone who could make it. They called around--the next closest one had a person who could make it, but their machine was broken. They found a place 35 miles out of our way to the east, with both a working machine and a person who could make the hose.

Ed ended up crawling under the RV and replacing it himself, a dirty job that took hours. Then we had to refill the fluid, which took another hour because our big jug was not sufficient and the store only had little, one-quart bottles. We had no idea how much we'd need, so we bought two at a time--for a ridiculous price.  I ended up having to go inside three times to get more, and the third time took forever--only two guys were working the counter, both were dealing with other customers, and there two people in front of me.

After the hydraulics were fixed, our tire pressure alarm went off. The passenger's front tire was slowly leaking air. We went to a nearby Love's and parked at an air filler machine, which of course, did not work. The lady inside directed us to go to pump #1, where we got in line behind a big truck whose driver was nowhere to be seen. Eventually we gave up waiting, moved over and got our gas, and then went up on the trucker's scale beside pump #1 and used the air hose from the opposite side. The truck driver finally returned and pulled away--just as we were finishing.

After that the drive to the park was almost too bad to describe. It was dark, lightning was flashing in the distance, and I had no map. The park entrance was open but we didn't think to stop and look for a map.  We proceeded to the campground, where our site was marked 'available' instead of 'reserved' and the campground was named differently from what I'd written down. So I thought it must not be the right one. We kept on going and soon ended up going off into darkness down an unknown road with no chance of a turnaround.  A lucky encounter with a ranger coming the opposite way confirmed that we had, indeed, been at the right campground--but there was absolutely no chance of turning around and going back. Our only hope was to proceed on, down narrower and narrower gravel roads, until we exited the park and got back in cell phone signal range.

The moral of that story is, always have a map, always double-and-triple-check the location of your campsite, and never panic. When in doubt, stop and think and look up stuff on your phone, and never never never keep driving!