Shake, Rattle and Roll - Fri., Oct. 24

No, we didn't visit a rock 'n' roll museum. It came on rather suddenly. One minute we're driving down the highway from Springfield, Illinois toward Jefferson City, Missouri, and the rig is handling smoothly. Then, we noticed a shake in the front end of the pick-up truck. We made it to our campground outside Jefferson City, and did a walk around to check all four tires for bubbles or anything obvious. We didn't see anything, but it didn't go away.

Mari-Osa Delta RV Park

Our site at Mari-Osa Delta RV Park - no river view for us

Osage River flows past Mari-Osa Delta

After we unhitched the fifth wheel and drove back and forth to Jefferson City to visit the Capitol and then to do the Volksmarch the next morning, we noticed the truck shaking became worse. Water bottles in the cup holders were doing a St. Vitus' Dance, shaking uncontrollably and driving me crazy.

We made the decision to continue to Branson, Missouri. In addition to our shaking pick-up truck, we also had to deal with roller-coaster like highways, going up and down steep grades for miles. I was a nervous wreck by the time we got to Branson.

Driving around Branson for two days did not improve the problem with the shaking. We thought it might be tie rods or something else to do with suspension. At first we thought we could make it to Little Rock, Arkansas, and Bob had an appointment set up with a shop in Little Rock to do a diagnostic on our truck's problem.

On thinking it through further, Bob decided it would be best to have the truck diagnosed in Branson. The morning we were set to check out of our RV park, he was up early and took the truck first to a suspension shop. The man who worked there thought it wasn't the suspension, and was going to put it up on his rack. Then he took one more look at it and said it was our front tires. He could tell there was a bubble in one of them. Since they were a suspension shop only, Bob went to a tire shop.

Sure enough, there was a bubble in one of our front tires. They happened to have the exact same tires in stock that were already on the truck. Bob had two new tires put on the rear and the old rear tires were moved up to the front. He was back at the 5th wheel by 9:30 a.m. We were able to check out on time and head to Little Rock.

End of shake, rattle and roll, except, of course, for the music on the radio.

I will write blogs to cover our time in Jefferson City and Branson, Missouri...possibly tomorrow night. Currently we are in Little Rock, Arkansas. Tomorrow, we head to Lake o' the Pines, Texas for one night. We plan to drive over to see Caddo Lake as well. Friday night in Livingston, Texas, and then back to San Antonio on Saturday.

Travel Bug out.