Lawrence, Kansas

Friday October 31…11:00pm

We got up early and did an uneventful drive of about 75 miles south to Lawrence, Kansas. It’s a small city located in between Kansas City, Missouri, and Topeka, Kansas. They have the University of Kansas here, which has 26,000 students.

Our goal here was to visit a large Chevrolet dealership that might have had our brake parts in stock. They didn’t, but they referred us about 2 miles down the road to a heavy equipment service place. Friday around lunch time, and the guys there weren’t very busy so they said they would do the job. They made some phone calls and found the parts we needed. Once they got it up in the air and taken apart, they found that one of the rear axle seals was leaking as well as one of the rear brake cylinders. At this point, the proper thing to do was to change both axle seals, and both brake cylinders. And of course these things always turn out to be a bigger job than you think it will be, and we are stuck in the garage all afternoon. Fortunately there was a walking trail nearby that went around a small lake, so Ruth was able to take Whiskey for a nice walk. I stayed in Sherman while the guys did the job and they didn’t seem to mind me coming out occasionally to see what they were doing.

Total bill came to $563 US ($664 CAN). It was definitely more that we thought it was going to be, but I’m confident the job was done properly, and now we have good brakes. This is the most we’ve had to spend on repairs other than the minor maintenance things that I’ve been able to do myself, so it’s actually not bad.

We had been heading to a campground at nearby Clinton Lake, but it was already almost 5pm by the time we left the mechanics. Don’t see the point in paying money just for overnight, so we headed for the nearby Walmart. We’ll go to the lake early tomorrow morning and go for a hike.

Another beautiful day…sunny and 73F (22C).

Total nights sleeping in a motorhome…375

October Fuel $433.11

October Grocery $328.05

October Overnight costs $ 15.00