We got up extra early this morning so we would be ready to move the coach into the working bay as soon as Fleet workers arrived. It took a while for Fleet to get vehicles rearranged and they started work at about 0830. By 1145 they had the new gearbox loosely in place but they had ruined the nuts with a torch getting them off. They can’t get new 7/8 locking nuts until Monday morning so our hopes of departing today are dashed. It is probably good I didn’t try the repair myself on the road after seeing how hard it was for the shop to get the old gearbox out.
Donna and I went to Texas Roadhouse for lunch and then decided to checkout Bastrop Texas State Park, a short 30 miles east on Hwy 71. Bastrop had nice facilities and nice trails. It was probably a very pretty park prior to 2011 when decimated by the worst and most damaging Texas wildfire in history. This park connects with Buescher Texas State Park. This park has a small pretty lake, lots of hiking and wasn’t quite as hard hit by the fire. Sorry, I didn’t grab any pics at these parks. We also headed back to McKinney Falls (yet again) so Maverick could have some fun trail time.
We are still staying in our coach waiting until Monday so they can finish the steering gearbox job. All of the hard parts should be behind us so we “should” be free by noon Monday. We will probably head direct for Big Bend since we no longer have time to go to Corpus Christi as originally planned.