I just want to start by saying how kind and friendly I have found Montana people to be. Everyone has been so helpful to us.

Circular Story: We leave Billings the 1st time and make it 30 minutes out of town and pull over at a rest area to check some plugs. While we are stopped and in the midst of our crisis (taking everything out of the back to get into engine) a nice woman comes over and precedes to tell us her bus cross country story.

Normally, we love these stories, we have several of our own. However, we aren’t particularly interested at the moment because of our failed attempt to leave Billings. She reminisces a moment too long then leaves. We pack back up the back and determine we should head back to Andy at veewee. We think it’s the air flow meter and he has tracked one down for us.

Trial two fails. It was not the bus flow meter. We circle back to pick up Andy so he can feel it now that she’s acting up. He does a roadside replacement on the ignition coils and Veronica is purring again at 6:30 PM, so we take off to Bozeman.

Remember my phone was busted? The ubreakifix repair guy in bozeman comes in after closing (830 pm) and works until after 10 on my phone so we can leave the next morning… Then, literally stops the phone off at the restaurant he’s recommended. #5stars.

We wake up, spend our am at the hot springs spa. As we leave the spa at 8am, we run into the lady at the rest area who says she was worried about us outside Billings and is glad we’ve made it to Bozeman. Small world.

We keep running down the road and get to a rest area in Taft, MT. We have experienced no issues, and have no second thoughts about stopping. When we come out, the bus won’t start. Literally tried a jump, a roll start, (4 guys out there pushing Veronica) and she won’t crank. We are in a dead zone. No cell. So this nice couple from New Jersey takes our number and copies of our AAA membership and goes to the next exit, and calls AAA for us. But we have no idea if they are actually coming. Then, this nice couple circles back around to let us know they have called (they went out of their way nearly an hour) but it’s still going to be about an hour. They leave and say they are going to call a state trouper to check on us later. We wait about 1.5 hours, and suddenly Veronica cranks. We are in a dead zone with no idea if AAA is actually coming and when? We make the decision to leave and try to get out of the dead zone. We have enough gas to get to the next bus repair shop in Spokane, WA. So, we don’t stop at the next town because we aren’t sure if they can fix her anyway. Next stop euro union.

#don’thydrate #straightthrough #nostopping

We love Veronica, but don’t trust her to get the remaining 750 miles to the coast and certainly not home. Hard decisions may have to be made today. She wouldn’t start after we stopped this evening. Today was stressful on many levels. Several kind people checked on us but it’s been a week and we still are waiting on Veronica.