We left Salt Lake City, Utah yesterday but not after a stressful day of repairs. Yes, repairs. We left Houston, TX with no brakes on our tow vehicle. We had installed an integrated braking system but the installer could not get them to work correctly for us. We finally ran out of time and had to hit the road. We had been in contact with the factory but could not figure out what was causing the problem. They gave us the name of two dealers in Salt Lake City that work on that particular system.

After many, many phone calls and many, many Garmin map searches we found the dealer representative. To our surprise they refused to work on the unit. Disgusted we found a Camper World and made arrangements to have a new braking system installed. We had a 2:00 pm appointment. Guess what? The Camping World mechanics found the problem and corrected it saving us hundreds of dollars. Thank you Camping World! We did not want to continue our trip without brakes on the tow. Granted the Airstream is 29,000 pounds and our little Saturn Vue could not push it around. All the same for safety reasons we wanted the braking system we paid for to work. Now it does.

We are continuing our trip to Sinclair, WY to visit Jim’s sister and then on to Mt. Rushmore. Our granddaughter, Brittany, is visiting her father near Custer State Park so we are hoping to spend some time with her. My blogging may be somewhat limited over the next weeks but when time permits I will check in.

Here are a couple of web sites to check our. If you own an Airstream there are many national clubs. One of the best sites is www.wbcci.org. They are having the biggest rally of the year in Bozeman MT. Nearly 1000 Airstreams will be there. Also check out www.bluebonnetbanner.org, it is the official website of the Texas State Association of the FCRV (their website is www.fcrv.org), a group of people who want to encourage others to camp - either by tent, camper or whatever means possible.

Here is some news from Donna and Douglas who are taking care of Scarredy Cat (our outside - left at home cat) back home: All is well with the exception that we think raccoons may have gotten Scarredy cat's dry food. We returned home last night and the dry food container was turned over and not a morsel of food was left in the can. The canned food was just fine so we don't think it was theft of any kind except from a furry friend. Douglas had been over one day before we left and the lid was off and the small bag of dry food was torn and partially eaten. He tied the lid down with a bungee cord and two bricks but alas, they (the raccoons) got into it again. We changed the game plan slightly; by just keeping the dry food at our house inside and we will just take it over daily. I bought an eight-pound bag today so it should last awhile. Douglas saw Scarredy cat twice today so we assume she is fine. She still runs and hides but we assume she is eating and staying close to home.

Remember to read our weekly column, Capturing America One Image At A Time, in the Greater Houston Weekly every Wednesday. And please continue to email us. We so enjoy knowing there are fellow RV’ers and photography buffs.