Trip #3
Hurry, hurry, hurry, our house was under contract for sale and we're closing on August 1st. Packing became a game of what we can live without for the next N days. Procrastination on the buyer's part put closing off until the 15th. What can we live without until then? Schedules eventually solidified into robust jelly and we ordered a U-Haul trailer for our never-to-be-completed kit car. Tenants were kicked out of our house in Oklahoma. Bills were paid. Mail was redirected. And finally the truck was packed and ready to go. All we needed was to pick up the trailer, strap the kit car down and head West.
That last romantic night in our house in New York we slept fitfully on a mattress in the otherwise bare living room. In the morning we rolled the sheets and pillows into a box, tied the mattress across the back, slammed the cargo door down and were ready to roll.
Unfortunately, the trailer was in Peekskill, 30 miles away, so it would be about two hours before we would be officially moving. But on the way up we heard a loud pop, like a giant balloon breaking under the weight of a surprised child. "What was that," Peggy exclaimed rhetorically. "A tire," I retorted needlessly. Immediately I slowed expecting the worst but it was one of four rear tires that blew so we could creep idealistically into the next town which, fortunately, was Peekskill.
"An inside rear tire blew out," I explained to U-Haul Guy, "do you know where I can get it fixed?" He did and at the stop-light in front of the Police Station a cop pulled up beside us with flashing lights. "You're not supposed to be here," we could hear him plainly over the rumble of the idling truck. "Didn't you see the signs? No trucks over 10,000 pounds?" "We're under that," Peggy yelled back. "Let me see your registration," he ordered officiously. I got out the papers and pleaded, "we've got a flat and have to get to this place," pointing to a slip of blue paper with a scrawled address. "Oh!" And suddenly switching from "protect" to "serve" mode, "You'll get lost, follow me." At the tire shop he drove off before I could get out to thank him.
Tire Guy ran a jaundiced eye across our monument to Detroit before declaring it unsafe. "You've got the wrong size tires on that thing. See here," he pointed to the failed sibling, "they're rubbing together, generating heat, they're all going to go." Four new tires and two hours later we were again headed for U-Haul.
The trailer hook-up went without a hitch [grin] and before lunch we were back at the house pulling and pushing the kit car onto the trailer. We could get it almost to the top of the ramp. Wee Car operated as a windless with a chain running from its front-end to the front of kit car. Nearly done the chain hung up on the trailer requiring some 2X4 coaxing. I left Wee Car in reverse to keep tension on the chain while I pried with a hand selected length of Southern Yellow Pine. The chain jumped, rattled the hook off of Wee Car which then threw itself backwards into the tail gate of Thunder Truck. Other than a few new dents, scrapes and a broken tail light no-one was hurt so I repeated the experiment with the chain slightly off center. This time kit car rolled completely onto the trailer without further indignities to Wee Car and we were off with the confidence that only an old truck with a new exhaust, engine, repacked bearings and tires can bring, Universal entropy notwithstanding.
Sixty miles from Ohio, we quit for the day. It had been a hard drive. Despite the weight of Thunder Truck, the trailer whipped it back and forth at every opportunity making steering a two handed sport. 55 is the maximum speed printed in large letters across the trailer. I understand why.
Just across the border and within hog-calling distance of Youngstown, OH, TT began making a curious grinding noise on an uphill grade. On the downside it was fine. On the next hill the sound intensified to a climactic clatter and suddenly clunked to a sputtering stop. Peggy, trailing behind in Wee Car, saw a puff of black smoke exit the engine compartment as the soul of Thunder Truck departed for a better place.
Wee Car was in bad shape. It's had a hard life. At every stop the transmission needed fluid and reverse gear had failed somewhere in Pennsylvania. Our original plan was to pack Wee Car with only those things we could live without so if it was rendered untraceable by accidental immolation along the way, we could escape quickly in TT. Now we had to pack essential computer gear into the trunk and back seat and hope that Wee Car would not lose any forward gears -- at least until we got to Tulsa.
And we did. And we expected to get TT back by the next weekend. But since GMC had built very few trucks like ours the transmission rebuild factory had to make one just for us -- and it took a week.
It was clear enough that 1) Wee Car might not make another 2,000 mile round trip, 2) we didn't particularly want to drive two days to get to Youngstown and 3) airline tickets would push our already stressed budget into melodramatic tragedy so we embarked on yet-another-adventure with the assistance of Greyhound Bus Lines. Leaving Tulsa Thursday evening we were excited about transferring in St. Louis at 2:45 the next morning and subsequently arriving in Youngstown only 16 hours after that. It was actually a pleasant trip with nothing to do but ache longingly for a visit to the Worlds' Largest Wind Chime, Worlds' Largest Golf Tee and Worlds' Largest Rocking Chair, each but a tantalizing few miles from the Interstate. This desire was only made stronger by the knowledge that we had already passed them a half-dozen times in the past and would continue to do so.
Arriving only a half hour past the appointed time -- time well spent putting off an unruly drunk passenger -- we called the Repair Guys to pick us up from the bus station. The truck was finished and ready to go with the unexpected addition of new ignition module and wires; it had failed to start that morning. We paid the bill and sped two miles to the nearest motel as dusk settled in for the night. We were exhausted. But the next morning we were off with the confidence that only an old truck with a new exhaust, engine, repacked bearings, tires and transmission can bring, Universal entropy notwithstanding.
Probably, it should be said that the rest of the trip to Tulsa was uneventful. Nothing needed fixing. Nothing fell off. Except for the severe thunder storm we passed under, nothing of reportable interest occurred. By early Sunday afternoon we were home. I carefully backed the kit car into the garage, shut down Thunder Truck and exhaled; sitting for a moment feeling the stillness filter in from the quiescent August afternoon. The move was officially over prompting a feeling of relieved gravity and completedness. True, the trailer had to be returned to U-Haul, only ten days late, and the truck had to be unloaded, and the house had to be unpacked and arranged, and phone and Internet service still needed to be established, and the back door still needed to be fixed as the tenants had accidentally kicked it in and large pieces of the frame were missing, and the 2 1/2 acres of grass needed mowing and a thousand other details begged for attention but, for this quiet moment, all was well.
Thunder Truck failed to start; the battery was dead. I hadn't checked the voltage gauge in the last ten minutes of the trip so there was no knowing exactly when the alternator failed but a quick jump got it started again. I followed Peggy into town to drop off the U-Haul trailer. She was driving extra slowly so I could keep up. "How slowly?" I asked myself glancing down at the speedometer which now read zero and showed no aspiration of doing otherwise. I dropped the trailer and headed for home leaving Peggy to pay the bill. I didn't want to run out of battery altogether.
Currently Thunder Truck sits outside of the hangar as we carry boxes one at a time into the house to unpack. Somewhere towards the front is my tool cabinet. When we get to it, I'll consider replacing the alternator.
On a purely financial basis, buying our own truck was, well, not the advantage we had bargained for. But those who successfully plan the life and live the plan are, in our opinion, doomed to boredom. Not that we don't also plan, but when "best-laid schemes" "gang aft agley" we find that we are truly blessed with adventure. And someday we will have the confidence that only an old truck with ALL NEW PARTS can bring, Universal entropy notwithstanding.
