Dodged a bullet!

I mentioned that somehow Murphy messed up and we got the replacement refrigerator with just days and tens of miles left on our service contract. I considered buying a new contract, but at her age, a contract on Colectiva would be about $2,000 per year with a $1,000 deductible – so we decided that we would just take our chances running naked. After all, we would have to have a $4,000 repair just to break even – what are the chances of that?

Well, at around 71,500 miles (contract expired at 70,000 and a couple months ago), we began having engine issues – first we noticed that after stopping at Wally World to refill the cupboards that we would fire Colectiva up, set out and all of a sudden there would be zero acceleration, like no fuel getting to the engine at all, then shuddering and the engine would quit. On short stops for fuel or parking overnight at a campground there was no problem on the restart, just when it sat for maybe an hour.

Next we noticed no power – we were in the Catskills and other very hilly country, and hills that I should have been able to do at 50 MPH in 5^th gear were requiring me to hop down into 3^rd or 2^nd gear, and the speed would drop to 25 or 30 MPH. And then on the downhill side, when I used the engine break, the Check Engine light would come on – I would pull over, check the oil and coolant (most prevalent reason for Check Engine light) and when I fired it back up, all was good again. Last time I had a loss of power, I had to have the head gaskets replaced, a many thousands of dollars repair due to the high labor costs – and that is only if it isn't something more severe!

So, we set out to find a Cummins facility (we have a Cummins diesel engine in Colectiva) that might be reasonably close and on our way. We lucked out and found such a facility out in the little town of Elmira New York – apparently Cummins built this facility out here in anticipation of the oil and gas fracking that seemed to be coming full steam, but apparently the public outcry put an end to the future of fracking in the region, at least for the time being. But the facility was done, so now draws business from over the road trucking and other industries – lucky for us. And they could look at Colectiva the day we brought her in.

Great news and bad news – great news is that they checked the engine codes and believe it is only dirty fuel filters and a dirty crankcase filter, so well under the deductible we would have had with a contract. Bad news is that not getting much RV work here, they need to order the filter, so we are stranded in Elmira for a bit – things could be way worse however.

Corning New York is not very far from Elmira, so we took this chance to visit the world famous Corning Museum of Glass. We had heard about it from several friends, but were never able to get there on our other visits to the area. So in some respect, the filter needing to be shipped was a small bonus.

The museum is extremely interesting. One exhibit of the museum is dedicated to glass as an art form. The pieces in the museum ranged from small decorative insect pins to enormous sculptures the size of a truck. Some appeared so delicate that it is hard to imagine that they were actually made of brittle, rigid glass that was super-heated and formed to look this way. As we came around the corner of one display, both the Woman and I commented on the Chihuly pieces – living in Vegas and frequenting the Steve Wynn built properties, we have become very familiar with Chihuly glass art, to the point where we can pick it out anywhere. Now as a result of this adventure, we are also pretty able to pick out pieces created by Louis Comfort Tiffany.

Other exhibits had examples of different uses for glass – a lot of the displays had to do with vessels of various size and type. But the most interesting exhibit for me was the history of glass making. Not only did the exhibit explore history of glass making in different parts of the world – the section on Venetian Glass was really interesting – but also the history of glass making over time. Apparently either these were the first uses of glass or their size and shape allowed them to survive while other vessels did not, but there glass perfume bottles in the collection that had been dated back as far as the 6^th to 8^th century before Christ! Their collection of glass objects between that time and say the 6^th century AD was extensive, and impressive.

Due to some matters at home, we are going to have to curtail our planned destinations from this point forward and head back to the desert, so once our filters arrive and are installed, we will be off.

Talk to you soon!