Jacksonville, FL

April 13th - Tuesday Sunny w/ showers off and on

Jacksonville, Fl

We left Leesburg @ 10:30 taking route 19 through Florida National Park, a very scenic drive through tall pines and wild flowers of purple and rose colors. We traveled up route 17 to 295 into Jacksonville, with showers off and on.

We had been on route 295 for a few minutes (four lane highway) when we heard a loud crash and Lou looked at me and said very calmly, “we just lost our drive shaft”. Being the calm driver that he is her expertly guided the disabled RV across the four lanes of traffic to the side of the road to a safe and secured stop.

A retired Navy man pulled in behind us and informed us that something from our rig had hit his car. Lou went with him to check his car and indeed something had hit the driver’s side of his rather new SUV as it had made several marks.

The naval man was concerned for Lou and I and wanted to call for help for us and told us not to be concerned about his car, he would take care of it, as a naval man taking care of an air force man. We quickly gave the man our names and address and he left to keep an appointment.

Soon on the scene was an Emergency Service Patrolman telling us he had a message that there was a drive shaft in the road; however, he could not find it and he would again search for it. It was never found!!

Once again, we had to call our Coach Net Roadside Assistance and they sent our a wrecker. This is where my GPS came into play, I was able to give correct directions to our place of breakdown. We were told someone would be there in less than an hour. I used that time to fix us some lunch and pack up some clothes, as we were told we would not be able to stay in the RV, would need to stay in a motel.

Lou put out his flares and unhooked the car from the RV and tried to take the shield apart to store inside of the car; however, it took both of us in the rain to disassemble the shield. Our wrecker arrived in 45 minutes and went to the task of readying us for a tow. We arrived at Coggin Chevrolet in Jacksonville, FL at 4:30 pm.

We met a couple from Canada that were just finishing a three day repair on their RV and they had two Yorkies with them, so I asked them where they stayed at night and they said they had to stay in the RV, because they couldn’t find a motel that would take the dogs.

I asked our service man, Randy, if we might do the same and he called his manager and we also got permission to do the same; however, we were warned not to go out of the RV after 8:00 pm, as the surveillance camera would pick us up and call the police.

I fixed us some dinner, did the dishes and without any hook up, Lou read and I knit and we went to bed early with prayers that the parts we needed could be found and it wouldn’t take the week we were told earlier.