[tcb] Trip report from Arkansas

  • From: "Denis Dodson" <coocoo@xxxxxxx>
  • To: <tcb@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2008 12:20:12 -0600

I decided to go to Galveston, but I had the safaris out on the ground and was 
welding in new frame parts. I put it all back together as best I could and it 
took an extra day. I was packed and ready to go in the morning. I was still 
entertaining the idea of driving Murray the whole way.

I woke up and the world was under about 2" of snow. Now, you might say,"only 2 
", what's the problem? BIG PROBLEM! I had to uncover everything from the bed of 
the truck and uncover the trailer. Under the snow was a thin layer of Ice. I 
have a hitch lock on my trailer and I had to beat on it with a brick so that 
the key would go in. All the webbing that hold the tires down was frozen, as 
were my hands and fingers. When I would drive Murray up the trailer it would 
slide back off because of the ice.

Lillie and I hit the road about late in the afternoon, then it really started 
snowing. On I-540 we were limited to one sanded lane, going about 30 MPH. Semi 
trucks were pulling over, visibility was near zero. When we finally got out of 
the snow after a couple of hours and drove all the way to Allen, TX (I think) 
to check in to a motel, but before we crossed in to Texas I got pulled over my 
two police cars. The officer said that they had gotten reports of my "erratic" 
driving. Erratic? He just shrugged and let me go.

The rest of the drive was pretty uneventful. I stopped at Central Market in 
Dallas and stocked up on gay beer and was cruising right along when I saw Mike 
Everett's green bus on the side of the freeway just before Huntsville. He 
wasn't there, but his dog, Crystal, was. I called Dan and Kat to get Mike's 
phone number, but a State Trooper car pulled up and Mike got out. He needed a 
fuel pump and no auto parts store had one so he bought an electric one. His 
fuel line was too small for the fitting on the pump so he jammed two hoses 
together and put it all together. I think that, when the engine got hot the 
hoses would soften and constrict and Mike couldn't do over 30 MPH, or so. I 
tried to get him to put it on the trailer, and I would drive Murray, but some 
people just can't accept a trailer ride. 

Mike was pissed at his bus and he says he is getting out of the hobby, that he 
would "fix up" his bus and sell it or burn it to the ground. I think he means 
it.

I am going to skip the camping time, because we were all there and we all know 
the cool stuff that happened. I wish that we could all get under one big roof 
and not be so spread out to different picnic shelters. Oh, well.

Gerald hooked up a bunch of electrical stuff so that one day I will be looking 
like Las Vegas on wheels.

I went home by way of Chuck and Sue's. Chuck was an hour, or so ahead of me and 
kept calling me to tell me that he was on a wing and a prayer, the Sirocco had 
electrical problems and he was still moving, but was going down. I found them, 
on the side of the road, only a few miles from home, and guess what? You can't 
get a tow truck on Super Bowl Sunday! Trailer time.

To pay for the rescue Chuck said that he would work on my electrical stuff. 
Chuck designed and built the huge, glowing, mass of wires and connectors and 
relays that replaced my corroded fusebox. He says it's simple, but he thinks 
Megasquirt is simple. He fixed my lowbeams that have been a problem for about 
as long as I have owned Murray. My lowbeams were so weak and yellow that they 
were nearly useless. It took him a long time, but he finally found a ground 
wire in the wrong place, and YEA!

I left about 9 AM and was tooling right along and was almost home when it 
rained like Noah's rain. It came down so hard that I was following an 18 
wheeler's flashing taillights at about 20 MPH and lost sight of him. I had to 
stop because I could not see the road at all.

Bad weather out, bad weather in.

Home. T-bone steak and homemade ice cream. My own warm bed. Life is good.





I drove home by way of Chuck's and I am sooo glad I did

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