Day 71

Friday, August 9

Well, after a bit of a trailer wheel scare, we finally departed Fargo, North Dakota and entered Minnesota.  We are now in Brainerd, Minnesota and EAST of the Mississippi River!

When we got to Fargo last night, another motorist pulled alongside us and motioned for us to put our window down.  He proceeded to tell us that we had a bad axle on the trailer and were going to lose our wheel!  Oh boy!  What to do now???

We continued on to the park that we were hoping to stay in and got ourselves into a site.  I called Good Sam Roadside and got some phone numbers of possible repair places to call in the morning; we looked in the Fargo phone book and wrote down some numbers; and I went online and found a few numbers.

This morning, Tom went out and jacked up the trailer and tried to jiggle the wheel - it was pretty firmly on there.  Hmmmm....  We got ourselves an appointment at an RV repair place for 1:00pm and continued to think.  He spun the tire around and it didn't look like it was spinning properly.  Maybe it's just the tire?  So we went to Walmart Tire and the guys took one look at it and said that the steel belt had separated.  Yes, this would cause the tire/wheel to look wobbly to a passing motorist.  Yes, the tire is under warranty; it got replaced for free.  Yippee!  We canceled our 1:00 appointment and headed out of town.

Tragedy averted.  No major repair costs.  And no real time lost.  Whew!