June 18, 2012

View of the day-There is still some combining going on south of Great Bend...this time it's rye.


Today was old shop trailer rescue day.  We decided to go down to Burlington, OK the usual way, since we had to stop in Great Bend to pay off our electrician tab from last week. The plan was to pick it up and come back the scenic route through Coldwater and up Hwy 183 right into La Crosse.

We got our business done in Great Bend, stopped for lunch at Mr. Burger...where the burgers were delicious...then started out for Burlington.  Just as we were going through Medicine Lodge, our check engine light went on and the overhead computer had a message..."service needed, see your dealer".  What the heck??  That told us nothing.  Can we drive? For how long? Is this serious? Can we ignore it? And most importantly...where is the problem?


We drove around Kiowa looking for a service shop to see if someone could shed some light on the problem...a note on the only service shop said he was home sick today. We continued on to Burlington.

After settling up with RL and admiring the quick and thorough fix job, he suggested calling down to the NAPA dealer in Cherokee. We had Tom from NAPA do some work for us in past years and we were told he could at least put the code reader on to see what the problem was, so off to Cherokee we went.

Low pressure on the rail, was what the problem was...that really cleared things up. THAT was sarcasm.  Al called his buddy from Olson Diesel back in Yorkton and without seeing what the issue was, he suggested changing the fuel filter first.  Al thought that couldn't hurt since it hadn't been done since...oh, let's see...2010 in South Dakota!  They didn't have a filter there, but Tom cleared the code for us and we started back for Great Bend.  No scenic tour this time around. We stopped for a happy hour drink at the convenience store and ran in to our farmer, John, so we had a quick chat and then started back to La Crosse.

We had just gone through Medicine Lodge when the chimes went off and the warning light came on again.  We decided we had better see if we could find someplace in Pratt that had a filter...Bumper to Bumper was still open, it was 5:29pm and the man was just getting ready to turn the lock.  He waited for us and had the filter we were looking for, so Marilyn paid up just as another gentleman came in to pick up some parts that he had ordered.

Al asked the man behind the counter if he knew of anyone that could install the filter and it just so happened the guy who had just come in was Mike...from Mike's Repair, just three miles from town.  He told us to follow him out to his shop and he would change the filter for us.  Yay.

After we got the old one out and the new one in its place, Mike cleared the code again and we were on our way...for $30.  Don't think we could find that kind of service after 6 at home...unless you add another 0 to the rate.

We stopped in Great Bend to grab a take and bake pizza home, then went out to Leibenthal to hook the shop trailer onto the back of the cart trailer.  The lights even worked!


We called it a day, went back to the camper and had supper.  Tomorrow we pack up to move the last load north, but Al insists we will not drive all the way in one day...Marilyn is okay with that, even if there isn't a Walmart where we stop.

Just so long as we get there...