Today is the big day. The repair shop finished up the steering box about noon and I paid out. We had to take the old steering box to the big UPS shipping center so it could be shipped back to Weller in order to get our $200 core charge refunded. By the time we returned it was about 1pm. Time to test drive. Immediately I realized a problem. Steering was VERY difficult. I debated if it was even safe to test drive around the block to assess the problem. I decided I could make it and about 100 yards down the road suddenly it fixed itself (most of the way). I made it back to the shop and checked the fluid and determined the air had not been fully bled from the system and was now about 1/2 gallon low on fluid. This was after I helped bleed the system with the shop and had verified fluid levels were actually a little too high. I re-filled the system and worked the steering to further bleed it on the lot. After 30 minutes or so I was ready for another test drive. This time the steering had no issues. I rechecked the fluids, and we hooked up the car. We were super eager to leave. We headed out Hwy 71/Hwy 290 with a plan of stopping in Sonora TX. Because of our rush we didn’t empty the holding tanks and now we discovered bad sewer smell. Crud. Due to the smell we made a very short detour to Perdenales Falls Texas State Park to use their dump station. It was a nice quiet park with partial hook up sites available. We considered staying but it would add another day getting to Big Bend so we pressed on. We got to Sonora about 6:45 just after dark. Mike the manager of the RV park actually met us in town, led us to our parking spot, and even helped hook up the RV. The park was just a parking lot but was quiet and we relished the full hook-ups for the first time since leaving home. It was wonderful to be away from the repair shop.
No good pictures today, just our route.