A BROKEN SHEAR PIN - AND HOORAY FOR COACH-NET

Oops. Another day in Deadwood.

As we had planned, we jumped out of bed early, took a walk through town, came home and got ready to move on. The living room slide had different ideas.

The "little trouble" we had extending the slide when we arrived (we had to give it a push) turned into big trouble when it came time to retract. No luck. The motor ran, the slide tried to move, but it stuck after a few inches and no amount of shoving (our first line of attack) would budge it.

Tool box in hand, we crawled underneath to run our inexperienced eyeballs over the problem. It didn't take us too long to find this sorry sight: a mangled, broken shear pin.

Before long, an inquisitive and helpful neighbor had joined us with his toolbox. Within a couple of hours, the three of us had replaced two broken shear pins, but the slide still was not working. Humpf!

While Odel walked to the office to pay for another night, I called Coach-Net, our highly-recommended roadside assistance provider. David at Coach-Net gathered the information and soon called back to say he had a mobile repair service on the way. Coach-Net pays the service call (in this case, $212); we pay parts and labor for whatever work needs to be done.

A couple hours later, Jim arrived. He had shear pins, he had giant wrenches, he had expertise. An hour later, both of the remaining shear pins had been replaced, the slide was "squared up" to the opening and sliding in and out as it should be. We paid $84 for the repair.

Tomorrow is another day, but the plan is the same: get underway to Colorado! My fingers are crossed.