Sunday, August 10, 2014. Off we go?

Vacation 2014 started with a bang... or maybe it's better described as a whimper.

After packing on Saturday, we lollygagged around and left home around eleven-something. All was going well; two weeks of traveling wherever we wanted in our camper van. Of course it's not "officially"  vacation until we get out of Kansas, because we are so familiar with our Kansas roads.

So, we grabbed some lunch in Abilene and as we were driving along we got this great idea. Instead of heading towards Iowa and Wisconsin through Kansas City for our first leg (as usual), "let's go through Omaha and eat at that great Ethiopian restaurant we like!"

Our route, therefore, changed and we headed for Nebraska through Marysville, etc.

And that's were the bottom fell out; but not literally, thank goodness.

We were just a few miles into Nebraska, coming up on a small town called Wymore. We had already decided we would buy gas there or the next larger town, Beatrice. So, there we were, merrily driving along and suddenly we couldn't go any further. Oh, the van was running, it just wouldn't go anywhere when you pressed on the gas!

We pulled over onto the grass (no real shoulder there). We debated the cause: no gas? The engine was still running. So finally the closest past problem we could come up with was, maybe, the fuel pump. (Yes, all you mechanics may have figured out the validity of that one already...)

After a couple of rather long and frustrating calls to our roadside service number, we decided to handle it ourselves. Chris couldn't get phone service, but I had been able to if I stayed in one spot a number of feet behind the vehicle. Chris, however

The cute couple point to their destination, Michigan.

, could reach 911 while I was wrapping up my other call. The County Sheriff's office quickly provided him with three names of towing companies. We called the first and he said he'd head down the twenty-plus miles to get us (from Beatrice).

When he arrived and loaded up the camper, he had already contacted a mechanic willing to look at the car the next day (yes, this was Sunday). After we unloaded the van, we checked in to a nearby motel for the evening and ate some supper. The motel didn't match up to the motels we encounter around our Central Kansas Library System 17 counties, but it was a bed, etc. for the night. We enjoyed watching two aviation movies, Tuskegee Airmen (1995) and Flyboys (2006); one for each of the World Wars, both based on true stories.

And, tomorrow we will discover how many days it will take to fix the van and decide what to do about vacation. Dum, dum, dum, dummmmmm