Today was another big travel day. Technically the western portion of our vacation is now over. We are headed to Charlotte as quickly as we can to meet my mother at the airport at noon on Friday and then will double back to Linville Falls for a family reunion this weekend. We will be home on Monday. We left Wind River NP about 7:00 and headed east across the plains of South Dakota. The day was largely uneventful, except that Dorcas drove a couple of hours.
She hasn't driven enough to become comfortable yet, but she will get plenty of practice in the next few days. We had planned to stop at Wall Drug and the Mitchell Corn Palace, just for some diversions, but figured each stop would cost us over an hour, so we kept going. We did stop at the Minuteman Missile National Historical Site east of Rapid City. You can see an actual missile bunker, one of 150 that used to cover the South Dakota plains. There were films and exhibits describing how the missiles were used as deterrents during the cold war with the Soviet Union.When we stopped at a rest area I noticed water dripping out the outside vent to the refrigerator mechanicals. When I removed the cover, there was water dripping from the upper area of the fridge. This can't be good. The only water up there is the ice maker feed, but it is past the inlet valve, so it shouldn't be pressurized unless the ice maker is filling, which doesn't happen without AC power. Wherever it was coming from, it would be a bitch to repair, because there is no access. I hoped it was some condensate from the upper area of the fridge (the eternal optimist) and decided to monitor the problem later (procrastinate). We didn't have time for mechanical problems.
That evening there was perhaps the most magnificent thunderstorm I had ever seen. There were low clouds and lightning was flashing in 180 degree arcs all around us. It would flash on one side, travel through the clouds across and above us and end on the other side. I did this for about an hour. It never seemed to strike near us and it never rained on us and the wind never blew very strong. It was just this magnificent light show.
We stopped for the night at a Wal-Mart in St. Joseph, MO after driving about 700 miles. It was next door to a Lowe's hardware (foreshadowing). I checked the fridge cover and water was coming out much more heavily than before. Dang. When I removed the cover I saw that the 1/4" poly supply line for the ice maker was broken. When I had looked previously, it must have been a very small hole and was shooting a fine stream (so fine I didn't see it) into the upper area of the fridge back. Now the break was larger and it was obvious where the water was coming from. When I touched it, the line nearly broke in half and squirted like a geyser. We didn't need Yellowstone after all; we had our own Old Faithful. I cut off the water pump and dried my face and changed my shirt. Luckily the break was just past the cut-off valve. I started to close the valve and the handle broke off in my hand. Dang. Well, as long as the pump was off, we weren't losing water. We couldn't flush the toilet, but whatever. Luckily we were near a Lowe's. The broken line would be relatively easy to repair, but the valve would be more difficult. First, it was an unusual valve; I had never seen one just like it. Second, it was attached to the incoming pipe with some sort of shrink-style one-piece hose clamp that I had no idea how to deal with. Must be an RV thing. Time for bed. I'll consult a plumber at Lowe's.
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