July 1, 2010.

I had an appointment at Colorado Springs Dodge for some service on my truck. My truck now has 10,500 miles on it. When we began our full time adventure in October of last year, I had just had my first oil change at 2500 miles. So we’ve put on 8000 miles in 9 mos. 3 of those months we were workamping! The really astonishing part is that we don’t drive the truck much except for pulling our Carriage Cameo fifth wheel.

So today I scheduled my third oil change and the truck’s first fuel filter change. The owner’s manual says to change the oil at no more than 7500 miles or when the “change oil” message appears. It had been about 5K miles since the last oil change. The manual also says to change the fuel filter after 15000 miles, but I decided to do it earlier.

I had an appointment for 10:00 at Colorado Springs Dodge. I was there a half hour early and yet the service writer didn’t get to me till after 10! Not impressed with their lack of prompt service.

So after the oil and filter change and the fuel filter change, I was out the door of the dealership with a $199 bill. Geez and I had supplied the oil! The labor for the fuel filter change was $128! I’ll probably not go to a dealership next time! The truck smelled like diesel when I got in it. I checked to make sure it wasn’t leaking from the filter. They must have spilt some diesel on the undercarriage. Hey what do you want for $128 an hour labor! 

Thankfully, the emissions issue that turned on the Malfunction Indicator Light (MIL) must have corrected itself after the other dealership in Salide reset it under warranty about 150 miles ago.

That afternoon, I washed the Carriage Cameo before it rained and then wiped the truck down after the rain. 

Joyce had done laundry while I was at the dealership and then went with Karen to the base commissary for groceries.

Joyce and I have decided to not go on with my father and Karen towards Denver. We will be spending some time with my sister and her family driving to their home from here, at The Academy and thus we don’t want to spend a week in an expensive state park near my sister’s house. Colorado State Parks would charge us the $20 or $25 a day camping fee plus the $7 daily entrance fee, plus another $10 for our second vehicle each day. But more importantly, we are ready to have our lives back and “do what we wanna do...go where we wanna go...”

That evening, Joyce and I went looking for other RV Parks in Colorado Springs for when our stay is up here on the 6th, but the pickings were slim. We’ve decided that on July 6th we will likely go back to Buena Vista for a few days to visit a former co-worker and neighbor and then press on towards Gunnison or Montrose Colorado.