It was a very short stay but we had to document it for our neighbor Joe who was born and brought up there.

OMG! I am saying that because Carol is the organizer for this visit and she wants to take a zip line ride. I told her I already did that in survival training in the Air Force but it was just a shorter ride. She says I don’t have to go “if I don’t want to” so I’ll be shamed into it. Oh well, it will be fun. We drove an extra hour today over our standard 9-to-3-with-breaks day. We were on the road at 7:45 which is early for us – no stress is the goal – and we drove steadily until around 3 with only a break for a Peet’s french press and a home-made scone (I made them and Carol prepared them) in a WalMart parking lot.

We had to drive from south central Oklahoma almost to its northeastern corner where we crossed into Arkansas and then into Missouri. I hate to have no photos for a day but, since that is our only photo today that is all I can show you. It was another hot day. It was about 86 when we left the camp site, it was 90 by 9:00am, and it was over 100 at 10:00am but the dash A/C with the help of some fans keeps the flight deck cool. When we stopped we fired up the generator and ran both A/C’s. That cooled us down in minutes. We almost never run the generator while we are driving – if we do I will want to add another automatic fire extinguisher for the generator compartment.

We are camped at Table Rock Lake State Park just outside of Branson. Senior price for an electric-only site is $19 per night.  We were looking for a full hookup site but they have a very confusing system for picking sites, marking sites, etc. – we finally gave up and took the electric only, non-reserveable site – tank emptying duty is not bad on this coach. That is the price of spontaneity, we hate to plan very far ahead.

GMC content: I am really pleased that the coach is running as well as it is running these days. With one exception – the Fina station in Las Cruces – all of our gas has been crapohol (as one GMC’er calls it) and we have not had any major vapor lock issues at all. Oh, I feel a little hesitation once in a while shortly after a fillup but it could be my imagination. I wonder if the fuel formulation is different here because of the heat.The single most significant improvement in the vapor lock battle has to be blocking the intake manifold crossover ports – thank you Steve Ferguson!

One item of concern today, and yesterday, was the transmission pan temperature. I think I have a bad temperature sender – not necessarily defective, just bad. Chuck Garton is Mr. Instrumentation in the GMC community and I asked him why I should buy ‘good’ vs ‘cheap’ gauges. He told me that one difference was that the cheap ones are not accurate (I think he said erratic?) at higher temperatures. From my engine cooling trials I had an electric water temperature gauge made by Equus. Equus is not regarded as a quality product for some reason but I had it so it was free. I think that I will be looking for a new sender and gauge – I will be checking my remote temp gun but I doubt that it has a problem like that.

The transmission temperatures were getting as high as 240 on the gauge yet the engine, at the same time was cooling off because we were going downhill. The kicker came when I used my infrared remote temperature gun to check the outside temperature of the pan. The gauge was reading just under 240 degrees and the outside temperature of the pan was about 212 degrees. I am inclined to believe the temp gun – a gift from a friend. I will be ordering a new, better quality temp gauge from the likes of VDO or Autometer.