I left Texas on Memorial Day weekend with the intention of stopping over for a day or 2 in Ogden UT before finishing the drive to Tacoma WA. You know what they say about the best laid plans. The first day and a half of driving were very uneventful. Traffic cooperated and I had a good tailwind. No problems with truck or 5th wheel. Then I stopped to refuel in Grand Island NE. While pulling away from the pumps, the tail end of the RV swung out a little too wide and caught one of those yellow barriers. I didn’t even feel it, just noticed after parking in the back with the trucks. It looked pretty nasty and I really felt like crap for not being more careful. So, I searched for a nearby campground and found a small county park that was very nice and inexpensive. Called the insurance company and got authorization for a temporary repair on Tuesday morning so I could finish the trip. Temporary repairs were completed on Wednesday and I left Thursday morning. Boondocked in Wyoming, again no problems except for decreasing fuel mileage due to increasing elevation and headwinds. The next day I made it through Utah and into Idaho when I started smelling diesel fuel in the cab. I could also see the fuel guage moving to the left. The next exit was about 9 miles away so I was trying for that but had to pull over and turn off the engine when I noticed smoke coming through the dashboard. Made a call to my emergency road service and got towed to a truck repair in Jerome ID. They quickly replaced a broken fuel line the next morning and I was on my way again. This time I made it as far as Oregon before developing another problem. This time the clutch linkage came apart. Fortunately, it waited to break until I was in a rest area instead of happening on Deadman Pass with the truck runaway lanes. Another night boondocking in a rest area, another call to emergency road service the next morning (naturally a Sunday). This time I got a mobile mechanic to come out and fix the problem, or so I thought. I was able to shift into all gears in the rest area parking lot and entering the Interstate. But when I decided to exit the Interstate for another break, I couldn’t shift out of 6th gear. I pumped the clutch a few times and was finally able to shift again. Since I could continue driving with this workaround, I decided to press on to my final destination instead of looking for a mechanic in the wilderness. I made it to Tacoma without further incident and the clutch seems to have worked through its problems. I have an RV repair shop lined up to finish repairs to the 5th wheel. And most important of all, I got to see my daughter and grandkids. I hope the rest of the summer is nowhere near as exciting. Here’s a couple of pics of the worst of the damage from the truck stop incident: