Fargo

From Jose

At the end of my last entry we were heading to Fargo, ND. In preparation for the arrival Diane made me watch Fargo, the movie about a gory crime and the unlikely police woman who caught the bad guys. This is a great movie but a bit disturbing, like Sling Blade or Pulp Fiction. (so I've heard, I have not watched this last one)

I had the idea that Fargo was a dead, remote, boring town. Boy, was I wrong! Fargo is a friendly, vibrant big city.  Population is about 105,000. As in Grand Forks, there are plenty of bike trails and parks. I imagine it slows down in the winter, they get a lot of snow and it gets pretty cold.

One of the first places we went was the Visitors Center. The have the actual wood chipper used in the movie Fargo. I thought they had used a nonfunctional prop in the movie, but it was a real working wood chipper.

From there we went to the Fargo Air Museum. I got to see a P-51 Mustang and other cool warplanes.

There is a large Norwegian population in Fargo.  We went to the Heritage Hjemkomst Center where we saw many artifacts from their early days. The highlight of the museum is a full size replica of a Viking ship that a local man built and his children sailed to Norway. The documentary of the trip was pretty powerful. Some of the roughest seas they encountered was in Lake Superior, which we will see in a few days.

When I bought this RV the tires were quite worn. I looked far and wide for new tires.  It was very difficult to find the correct size tires for my rv but finally a place in Hurricane found them. The new tires looked like they were low in pressure, but the tech showed me that the correct pressure for these tires was 44 psi, the old tires required 70. The rv felt mushy,  hard to keep in a straight line and the gas mileage decreased from 15 to 13 mpg. I figured it was because of the lower pressure in the tires.  A few weeks ago I noticed the tires were about halfway worn, especially the front ones. The tires only had about 10,000 miles and I was surprised they wore out so fast. I took the rv to a tire place to rotate the tires and they informed me that the tires I had were 4 ply and my vehicle called for 6 ply. Those darn people in Hurricane put the wrong tires in my rv. But I figured I had less than 10,000 miles left on my tip so the tires should make it. A few days later, I noticed the rv shaky at low speed and pulling to the right at higher speeds, so I decided to have the wheels aligned,  which would make my tires last longer. These people also said I had the wrong tires but they were more specific.  They said the tires I had were meant for a passenger car, not for an rv. That's the reason for the lower pressure and why they were wearing out so fast. I asked if they could get me the correct tires and after much research they could not locate any. I left the place wondering what to do next.

Do you believe in omens?

That very night at Walmart there was a knock on the rv door. A gentleman said he had just bought an rv like mine and wanted to ask me about it. We talked for a long time and exchanged good information. I asked him if he knew a good place to get tires for our rv's.  He looked at the tires and also said they are the wrong type, and that it was dangerous to run those in my rv. He pulled his laptop from his car and searched for the right tires. We could not find a dealer but did find a brand and some possible leads.

The next day I got on phone looking for tires. One of the places I called suggested I call a truck place since my rv is basically a truck. After much searching, Interstate Power Systems in Grand Forks found some and could get them shipped in, would take about 3 business days. So after a lot of research and learning I have the correct tires in the rv. The gas mileage went up to 17 mpg.

Stay tuned