RV Life - Does this bolt go to something?

One sunny morning in Akron, Iowa we took the Jeep to a car wash to clean her up a bit.  Upon returning to our campsite at the Lazy H, we saw a bolt laying on the cement where the car had been parked in front of Ruth.  After further inspection, Mike assessed that the bolt had sheared off and looked suspiciously like one of the bolts that secured our towing equipment to the Jeep. Mike quickly identified that this was the case and possibly one other bolt was missing or had also broken off. Yikes!

We had many more miles to go in our travels and need the Jeep to follow us up and down mountains in the next part of our journey.  We had 3 full days left in Iowa to get this fixed or I would be driving the Jeep separately until it was repaired. 

We started working the problem right away.  If not for the support and help of our friends Bruce and Kris, Fed Ex, the Lazy H staff, a chance meeting of a mobile RV repair guy at the food truck, the Blue Ox machine shop in Pender, NE, Fremont RV in South Sioux City, IA and Scenic Park RV Campground we wouldn't have been able to Git-R-Done.  

As we were pondering our predicament on Sunday afternoon, we saw a RV mobile tech truck parked at another camper near the food truck where we were waiting for our order.  I suggested to Mike that he might have a recommendation for us on where we could have the repair completed.  While he was waiting for his order, we bent his ear about our problem.  Right away he recommended calling Fremont RV first thing Monday morning as they do hitch installs regularly there and do a great job.  This saved us a lot of time calling around to auto repair shops hoping they could help us with an RV. 

Mike spoke with Fremont RV first thing Monday morning and took the Jeep there (30 miles from Lazy H) for them to assess what was needed.  They said they would work on it Wednesday if we could source all the parts required as they did not have them. Our planned departure date from Iowa was Thursday morning. We were "on the clock".

The next domino that had to fall into place were our friends Bruce and Kris, who dropped everything and overnighted some spare parts they had fortuitously kept in their garage in Florida from the original installation before we left Florida.  We scoured the web and those particular parts were not being manufactured at this time so they were critical to the repair.  The whole effort would not have worked without these parts.  Love you guys!

We then had to source some bolts and other accessory items to provide for the re-installation.  Everywhere we looked online these items were on backorder until July.  AAAUUUGGHHH!  Somehow in my memory when we were looking at the Blue Ox website for parts (towing equipment manufacturer) I remembered that their address was in Nebraska.  Just so happened that we were only an hour away from the manufacturer of these items we needed. Mike called them first thing Monday morning and while they did not have all the accessories we needed that day, they offered to machine them that night and have them ready by 3pm the next day.  When does that kind of service ever happen?  We drove to Penders, NE and back to pick them up on Tuesday, it went off without a hitch. (pun intended)  We were thrilled with our luck so far in making all this happen.  We commented on our just might work.

Tuesday afternoon Mike called to confirm with Fremont RV that we had sourced all the parts needed for the repair.  There was a long silence on the other end of the phone...one of the repair guys had put a screwdriver through his hand and was headed to the hospital.  They would call us back and let us know if they could still do the repairs.  We were crushed at this turn of events both for the repair guy and ourselves.  

Necessary to calm the nerves on Tuesday night

Now we had the parts, but we were 30 miles away from the repair place and they would have to keep our car for at least a day and maybe more given the new circumstances of being down one repair guy.  We made the decision to leave the Lazy H campground a day early in order to camp near Fremont RV.  Luckily we found a first come, first served pull through spot available at Scenic Campground and RV Park which is located right in Sioux City on the Missouri River and only a couple miles from Fremont RV.  We told them of our situation and they let us come in at 9am which is unusual for a campground,, they were super helpful. 

We got the call that they could work on our Jeep on Wednesday as planned but probably would need to keep it through sometime Thursday to finish the repairs.  That was not ideal as we had planned to leave first thing Thursday morning to our next stop.  However, given everything that had gone into it at this point we were just happy it would be repaired. 

We spent a hot day in South Sioux City, mostly inside the RV as we did not have a car.  They called us at 5:30pm Wednesday and said we could pick up the Jeep, it was done in the same day!  Fremont RV went above and beyond for us to get us back on the road. 

We could not have accomplished any of it without the kindness, support and flexibility of friends, strangers and professionals along the way.   We were able to survive this stressful episode without killing each other and we left Sioux City as planned on Thursday morning to continue our journey to South Dakota.