We have an excuse.................

 

We broke down. Everyday we don't travel/move Les starts the coach to warm it up and make sure everything is working properly and on Sunday, August 24th something went very wrong.
After consulting all the manuals, we determined (correctly) that it was broke.
Monday morning Les got up and was at the International dealer when they opened up.

 We were able to get a nice mechanic named  Kevin to drive over to the RV park, which was only about 5 miles, and put their computer on the engine to see what the error codes were, and to see if it was safe to drive as far as the shop. The computer initially showed only 3 of the 6 fuel injectors were working.

 The engine access is through the floor of the coach under the bed in the back. Kevin ran another test back there and looked for loose wires etc. to no avail. We drove the truck over to the shop to talk the problems over with the manager. We decided to order the injectors and have them shipped overnight, and we would limp the rv over to the shop at 5:30 the next morning so they could tear it down and be ready for the parts to arrive.

 We taped and covered everything in the coach with plastic sheeting to help protect all the flooring, the bed, the cabinets etc from what promised to be several greasy mechanics going in and out and removing parts. Well unfortunately, as they started to tear the engine down, they determined that the injectors were not bad, and that a wiring harness that controls the injectors and the high pressure oil supply, that is built into the valve cover was damaged and was the problem. 
We had them order one of those and overnight it. Well, on Wednesday they determined that the entire engine harness and the ECM (computer for the engine) were both bad and we had to order more parts to be shipped overnight for delivery on Thursday

 The engine harness is seen above, about 300 wires, about 42 different connectors, all encased in hard plastic that make it impossible to work on individual wires. When it breaks, you order the whole thing.



We decided to drive to Homer (4 1/2 hours) to meet our new friends Herbie and Carol from Kiowa, TX and have dinner. What a beautiful drive. We needed a hotel room anyway, so we decided to stay in Homer and drive back to Anchorage the next day.

 We had dinner at a nice restaurant out on the Homer spit, that sits right on the water. Excellent local seafood and adult beverages. We really enjoy our time with Carol and Herbie, it was good to see them again and exchange travel stories.

 After dinner we walked over to the Salty Dog Saloon. It is very small, and old, and has dollar bills that have been signed etc on every surface in the place. We finished the evening at a local ice cream shop that Carol and Herbie had found earlier. The selections were awesome, the ice cream was better, and now we are left to deal with the calories. UGH.

 Part of the scenery was cruise ships and ferries, lots of float planes and helicopters. The tourists keep everybody in Homer busy in the summer.