Bonita Springs, We Have Arrived.

We are now happily settled into site 44 here at Imperial Bonita Estates. We got here about 4:30 this afternoon and we were all hooked up and everything by about 5:30. It was good to get that all done before dark.

The biggest snag in our trip happened this morning in Tampa when we were ready to put the car back on the tow dolly and head south. The car wouldn't start. It would turn over, but nothing more. It was kind of weird because we took the car off the dolly on Wed. night and drove around to the front of our lot without any problem.

It didn't seem that there was a problem with the battery, but I hooked it up with the bus battery via jumper cables anyway. No difference. The gas gauge read very low, so I added a couple of gallons of gas from a nearby station, but that didn't help either. The car had made a bit of a squealing noise Wed. night which I just assumed was the cold belts slipping a bit. Now I thought that maybe the fuel pump had gone bad, because they squeal before they expire. This was not something that I could fix.

At first, we thought of staying longer in Tampa, until the car could be repaired. But when I checked with AAA, they were able to get a tow truck to us in about 45 minutes, and they took the car to a Hyundai dealer in nearby Brandon, FL. I told the Hyundai service guys what the symptoms were and what I had tried. Then we hooked the dolly to the motorhome and started our drive to Bonita Springs.

While we were on the road, the Hyundai guys called to say that they had started trying to diagnose the problem, but had not found anything yet. They did check the fuel pump and it was working fine. The service dept was only open until 4:00 this afternoon, so they will continue the work on Monday.

Meanwhile, we have arranged to get a rental car from Hertz on Monday morning. Hertz has a nice price break for AAA members and they will pick us up at the RV park and take to Naples to get the car. We can have it until Thursday if we need it that long for a little over $150. When we go back to Tampa to get our car, we can turn the rental car in there.

Not exactly the way we planned our arrival, but we're here on time and all things considered, there was not really that much inconvenience. As for the rental car, I'm pushing for a bitchin' red Camaro.

Tomorrow, we'll just hang out unless I can convince Sue to let me ride my bike to the Dog Track with her on the handlebars. (Her bike is in the car)

That was one day in the adventures of Bill and Sue. Wickett could care less as long as he has food, water and palm trees to pee and poop on.