AVALAIR'S BIG ADVENTURE, DAY 11

Well, as luck would have it, while we were running around I noticed a weird smell.  Kinda like the smell of creosol at an amusement park.......Hmmmm... what ever could that be?
So, being the paranoid type, I had a temp gun handy.  I checked the tires and wheels on the truck and trailer.  Everything was normal.

So we pressed on.  I pulled into a turnout, to check out a scenic overlook and I smelled it again.......dang.  I crawled under the truck and saw that the backing plate was covered in oil. Crap.  That could only mean one thing.....an axle seal.  Not something I could change in the campground.  I tore it apart that night to verify and confirmed my suspicions.


There was a small auto repair shop next to the campground.  Man, this is gonna hurt.
I talked with them and found that they could try and get to it as soon as I got the parts.  Where is the nearest parts house? West Yellowstone.  Oh, that's only 36 miles, how long could that take?

How about 2 hours?  I would have never believed it.  We raced to NAPA on Sunday afternoon.  They closed at 2.  We got there at 1:59.  The door was locked.  We knocked until someone came out, then we gave them the sob story of the lowly travelers.  They let us in, got us our parts and sent us on our way.


We raced back and spent the same amount of time on the road, going the other direction.  We arrived at the garage, only to be told, "Come back tomorrow, we are too busy".  Seriously?  We are scheduled to be n the road by 8.  We have reservations in Flaming Gorge, Utah.  
So, I made sure I was there 15 minutes before they started work.
They got me in the rotation and got started by 8:30.  

Guess what?  Wrong parts.......repeat process as required.  We finally left by 4pm.  8 hours late.  Sweet, now we have a 6.5 hour drive ahead, which when traveling in a caravan, turns into 8.5 hours.  We rolled in around 12:30 am.  What a day.....