Busted truck & holed up in Herrin, IL

Notice anything missing the the photos? Our truck. During the rally I noticed the slight smell of diesel and found the coolant had oil in it. Yesterday the Ford dealer in Carbondale, IL said there was oil leaking at the rear of the engine that might require the removal on the cab, in addition to oil in the coolant. We pulled our trailer 25 miles south to a full hookup CG and dropped the truck off at the dealer. We are driving a rented Focus for the next two weeks until we get our truck back. Do you know how much room there isn't inside a Focus compared to a one ton dually crew cab? We drove by the dealer today and saw our truck inside being worked on. I'm optimistic the dealer will do a good job. I met the full timer a few sites from us at the CG, he's the retired service manager from the Ford dealer! He also gave me comfort that our truck should be well taken care of. At least this failure happened at a time and place that isn't going to cause us much of a problem. Guess we'll explore southern IL more than we had planned.

HitchHikers of America, International Rally

Well, it's been awhile since the last post. A very busy while. We arrived in Du Quoin, IL Wednesday 9/30 at the state fairgrounds. On Thursday afternoon six Haulin' HitchHikers couples started planning the parking of all the incoming RVs. Some of us walked the entire parking area and again Friday morning. It has been raining a fair amount and the grounds are wet. When the first HitchHiker arrived Friday afternoon we got them stuck, had the fairgrounds tractor out to pull the 2 wheel drive truck & RV out. We all had long days Saturday, Sunday & Monday waiting for the 94 HitchHikers to arrive. None were stuck after the very first one.

The best part of the rally was socializing with friends; Bill & Judye, Ron & Lois, Steve & Susy and many others. We had a great time with our friends. At the closing ceremony Judy and I won a door prize, a $500 certificate toward the purchase of a new HitchHiker, we love ours too much to consider a new one so we'll have to find someone who can put it to good use.